OUR REVIEW
SETTLEMENTS FOR GOLD
KINGDOM BUILDER
WHO CONSTRUCTS THE MOST VALUABLE KINGDOM?
The Red Pawn awarded to Kingdom Builder? Who would have suspected this? On your honor? When I was wandering through the halls at Spiel ’11, passed the booth of Queen Games and learned that Donald X. Vaccarino was the designer of this game, I wanted, not I had to play it instantly. This, naturally, is often not that easy during Spiel! But we were lucky and could join people at a table and play with them. We found out later that some rules had been wrongly explained to us by the Queen employees, which did not really impede our fun in playing. The neighboring table, by the way, informed us on the correct rules. Thank you in retrospect!
After I had won the game I realized that I might just have finished playing the game of the Year 2012. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that I did win the game. Because if that were so there would have to be two, three or even four more Games of the Year.
When you listen to others, not all are happy in the same way about this choice, first as regards to publisher’s policy and, secondly, as regards to Kingdom Builder allegedly sitting on the wall - for Game of the Year, targeting casual games and families, if would be too complex, and for the new award Kennerspiel it would be too simple. Decide for yourself, go on reading!
But first of all I want to congratulate Donald X. very cordially on winning Game of the Year, already for the second tome, after Dominion in 2009!
In Kingdom Builder players try to acquire gold, that is, points, by placing settlements. At the start of the game you choose any four of the eight game board parts that are provided with the game and called quadrants, and combine them into a rectangle. The location tiles corresponding to the boards are placed on the hexagons on the board and the corresponding summary location tiles are added to sides of the board. Then, you randomly draw three out of ten Kingdom Builder cards and place them, easily visible for all players, next to the board. Finally, each of the up to four players takes 40 settlements of his color and draws von card from the face-down terrain card stack.
In his turn a player reveals his terrain card, takes three settlements and places one each on hexagons of the terrain corresponding to the card. This must be done adhering to the most important rule of the game: You can only place settlements - with the exception of the very first one - next to one of your own settlements already on the board. If you have revealed a terrain card for Forest and you have at least one of your own settlement on a wood hexagon you must continue from there. This is valid also in case that one of your own settlements is only adjacent to a hexagon of the revealed kind of terrain. When there are two or more hexagons on the board meeting those requirements you can choose where to place your settlements. Furthermore, you should never lose track of the three Kingdom Builder cards next to the board, that is, always base your decisions on where to build on those cards. Because these cards determine how many points you can score for your settlements at the end of the game. The Fishermen card tells you to build next to water. You score, at the end, one point for each settlement adjacent to one or more water hexagons. The better you place your settlements according to the demands of those cards the higher your score.
After his move you discard the terrain card and draw a new one.
The mechanics of the game seem, at least at first glance, to be really very simple, one is even tempted to say one-dimensional. But this changes rapidly when you acquire the coveted location tiles. Always in your next turn you can use them after acquiring them. Basically, the effects of those location tiles are placing additional settlements from stock onto the board or relocate settlements already present on the board. Thus the location tile Paddock enables you to relocate a not very felicitous settlement, which unfortunately borders a wood hexagon, by two hexagons in a straight line onto a hexagon that you can use. If then you are nowhere on or adjacent to a wood hexagon you can place your three settlements starting on any wood hexagon of your choice. And you always have the choice of when and if to to use those location tiles; that is, will you build your first three obligatory settlements first and then use the location tile, or do you use one immediately at the start of the turn, place your settlements and then use the remaining location tiles, if any. All in all, you have lots of choices which all together decide on win or lose.
There are several more fantastic and tricky location tiles of the same line as Koppel. So, for instance, with Harbor you can relocate an already placed settlement onto a water hexagon. Which otherwise is not possible. Another taboo terrain variety is provided by the mountain hexagons. Very much in demand are of course those location tiles which allow you to place additional settlements in your turn, because each settlement yields, at least potentially, more victory points and also takes you quickly towards the end of the game. As soon as someone has placed his last settlement, the end-of-game-phase starts. All players to the one at the right of the starting player have one more turn. Then you score gold, that is, pints. You take a spare quadrant from the box and turn it over to show the victory point track in the shape of a spiral, providing spots to 100. Now each of three Kingdom Builder Cards is scored for each player individually. Then you score three points for Castle hexagons, if you touch them with at least one settlement. You win the game with the highest score. In case of a tie there are several winners. A potential tie breaker could be: You win if you have more settlements left.
Conclusion:
For quite a lot of money Kingdom Builder offers quite a lot of sumptuous components. So, every one of the four players finds 40 wooden settlements in his color. Eight terrain tiles and 10 Kingdom Builder cards result in thousands of variants which should guarantee fun for many many repetitions of the game. And the randomly drawn terrain cards for your turns will make each game come out differently. Those cards sometimes also provide a clear, not-to-be-underestimates element of chance, luck or bad luck. When you permanently draw the “wrong” cards you might be at long last be unable to acquire the locations tiles which are indispensable, and frustration can rise to high levels. But if you like abstract placement game and do not shy away from a certain element of luck you will be more than content with Kingdom Builder. Fans of Kingdom Builder will immensely like the game as it is absolutely made for innumerable expansion (see Dominion!).
Lo and behold, with Kingdom Builder Nomads the first big*) expansion is already available. With Nomads you can play Kingdom Builder with up to five players, and Nomad offers an additional four quadrants, four new location tiles and three more Kingdom Builder cards. Completely new are 15 nomad tiles, which are placed on the spaces provided like the standard location tiles, but can be used only once in a game and already in the next turn, otherwise you must discard them, unused, at the end of the turn. New, too, are the mechanics of the three new Kingdom Builder Cards. When they are in play points are already scored during the game, which of course introduces a peculiar dynamic to the game. But it must also be mentioned that, in a game of five, room on the board gets scarce which enhances the chance elements as regards to location tiles quite a bit.
*) In Essen one received a small promo expansion, called Kapitol, when buying the game. If you have laid out the quadrant featuring the locations Oracle or Harbor, or even both, you can use this expansion. You place the Kapitol tile on one of the Castle spots. At the end of the game you score 1 point for each settlement that was placed in a distance of up to two hexagons away from the Kapitol.
As mentioned already in the introduction, not all are happy with this choice for Game of the Year 2012, but isn’t that always the case? Seen objectively, Kingdom Builder is a fantastic game that stays enthralling up to the last scoring, with a level of difficulty that is in fact exactly in between family game and game for experienced players. But I think that you can nowadays expect a bit more from casual gamers. This said, I look forward to many new expansions which God Donald X. will surely provide.
Players: 2-4
Age: 8+
Time: 45+
Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
Art: Oliver Schlemmer
Price: ca. 45 Euro
Publisher: Queen Games 2011
Web: www.queen-games.de
Genre: Abstract placement game
Users: With friends
Version: de
Rules: de en fi
In-game text: no
Comments:
Game of the Year 2012 in Germany
Modular board with changing location tiles, big selection of starting set-ups
Nomads expansion already available
Compares to:
Seeland for adjacent placement, otherwise first game in this combination of mechanisms
Other editions:
Lautapelit, Finland
My rating: 6
Christian Huber:
Donald X. Vaccarino‘s latest put-out with enormous expansion potential
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 2
Strategy (blue): 1
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 2
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0