Customer Reviews

Kingsburg

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kingsburg is a worker placement board game designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco. The game is published in the United States by Fantasy Flight Games. For its price, quality and game play: Kingsburg is the best gateway game on the market.

Players strive to score the most victory points. You score victory points mostly by building. In order to make buildings, players must have resources: gold, ore and wood. Buildings give players several benefits such as bonuses to battle, extra resources, and manipulation of dice rolls.

Players have a town mat in front of them. This shows which buildings they have built. The buildings on the far left are entry level. To make buildings, you must have both the appropriate resources and have built all the other buildings to left of the desired building. Thus, long term strategy is required when deciding which building paths a player will take.

Players acquire resources during the productive seasons (spring, summer and fall). There are 8 phases in the game of which 3 are productive seasons. Players roll three dice (6-sided dice). Players play one or more dice onto the game board. The game board has 18 spaces numbered from 1 to 18--representing all the advisors from the Jester (1) to the King (18). To influence an advisor (and receive the bonus thereto), a player must place dice with the correct total onto that advisor's space. Thus, to influence the Jester, a player must place a die with a "1" onto that space. If you didn't roll a "1", you cannot influence the Jester. Players can place multiple dice onto an advisor in order to influence the more powerful advisors; again the total of the dice must equal the advisor's value.

Some advisors give victory points (the Jester and the Queen); some give soldiers (the Sergeant, Captain and King) and most give resources. If a player influences an advisor, no other player may influence that advisor during that season. So there is an important strategy to where to place your dice.

There are 5 years (8 phases each) in the game. During the 8th phase of each year, there is a battle. Players must defend the kingdom from the kingdom's enemies (goblins, orcs, barbarians, etc). If the player's battle total from soldiers, buildings and the king's aid is greater than the enemy's total, the player is successful, else the enemy wins. It is possible (and quite probable) that some players will be successful while others will be unsuccessful. Those who are unsuccessful are sacked by the enemy, losing the appropriate buildings or resouces listed on the enemy card. Those who are successful gain the booty listed on the enemy card. After 5 years, the game ends and the player with the highest victory point wins.

Kingsburg is easy to learn for non-gamers. The iconography is intuitive which aids to its gateway nature. There is a great deal of replayability in Kingsburg also. There are plenty of ways to win.

The only problem with Kingsburg is the way the battles are handled. The king's aid is a die roll. This eliminates so much strategy that it renders this aspect of the game meaningless. The expansion solves this problem luckily.

If you want a fairly cheap game with great replayability and that's also the best gateway game on the market, I highly recommend Kingsburg. If you like Kingsburg but think something is missing, I also suggest picking up the expansion.

Of all the euro-strategy games I've played, this one has the most appeal to me. It is one of few Euro games that I've expereinced that invovles both skill (in plotting your turns out carefully and in getting to resources before other players do) and luck (i.e. dice rolling). Your skill or luck can also only take you so far in this very well balanced game of medieval resource management. No two games played (of the 3 I have played in the Beta testing) have turned out the same, and three different strategies have one... making this game well worth the $60 price tag -- it's highly replayable.

For a fantasy game fan, just browsing Fantasy Flight Games' catalog can be comparable to an alcoholic strolling around a liquor store: Too many choices, intriguing all. As I've been using what spare time I can muster to methodically sample various treats from said catalog, Kingsburg has been on my "to do" list for quite some time. In a recent "free-shipping induced" online ordering binge, I finally slapped ol Kingsburg into the virtual cart with high, if somewhat hazy, expectations.

Low and behold, after several close rounds of play, I am pleased to report that Fantasy Flight has managed to put out another winner in the fantasy board game genre, this one a combination of resource management, basic combat, and opponent-oriented strategy.

If, like me, you find yourself attempting to make some sort of logical game play assessment based exclusively on the back of the box's description paired to photos of the (seemingly insanely complex) game in play, let me begin by putting your mind at ease. The game is deceptively intuitive after only a full 90-minute play, perhaps even earlier than that but by the second full game, you'll find yourself referring to the 8-page rulebook less and less.

True to the teasers, you assume the role of one of the king's governors in a land with apparently very invade-able borders. The idea of the game is to come out furthest on the board's outermost scoring track at the conclusion. Pacing the flow of things is both a seasonal and annual counter (4 seasons per year/ 5 years total game time). Not to worry if five years sounds like an awful big commitment, a table of experienced players will enjoy complete game times between a little over an hour to an hour and a half maximum.

I mentioned resource management and indeed, that element represents the core of the game play mechanic as dice rolls determine which of the king's royal court will toss a few goodies in your direction (these goods range from gold to building supplies to soldiers). Each turn (season), players allocate their resources to constructing buildings, building up their army, or just stockpiling materials for later use. The catch is each year come wintertime; the malevolent forces from outside the land's borders come a knocking. Players who neglected to prep their armies during spring, summer and autumn will pay severe consequences should they falter to the invading orcs, barbarians, zombies, and dragon forces.

This all sounds terribly complex, I'm sure and photos of the game board with its depicted hierarchy of characters, dozens of in-play dice, markers, chips, and player sheets does little to dissuade the notion. However, after a few minutes of actual playtime, it becomes very clear that whoever designed the board initially had an outstanding perception of the game's intricacies as nothing, and I mean nothing, on it is without purpose. Markers keep track of everything from the given season and year (remember there's only 5 total), to which player gets to roll first in a given season, to the precise payouts each advisor provides, to how many soldiers you've got recruited into your army. All of the building construction is kept separate from the board on the player's individual province sheets. Hard commodities such as gold bars, wood, and stone are represented by appropriately painted wooden blocks. The more familiar with the game one becomes, the more he comes to appreciate the detail and amount of information the game board contains on every square inch throughout.

The rules themselves are pretty clearly presented so long as you don't make the mistake of attempting to comprehend them without the actual game components set up before you. I found that the quickest and easiest method to get underway was to actually follow the setup section precisely and to actually go through all of the motions on the board for a full year (4 seasons) along with the step by steps of the instructions. After which, starting over for an official game begins to feel quite intuitive. Fortunately the rules are presented in a very orderly fashion, complete with full color examples for nearly any situation, making quick reference to iron out the rough spots very convenient.

The pieces and bits are typical Fantasy Flight Games which is to say beautifully illustrated, constructed of unprecedented quality, and come within a box loaded with plastic storage compartments to insure that everything fits neatly within. Setup is quite minimal and in this case limited to a bit of card sorting, stacking up some wooden blocks, and retrieving the tokens, wooden markers, and wooden dice to correspond with your chosen color.

The game's greatest strength perhaps is its practice of not pitting players directly against one another but rather as individuals against the rigors of the kingdom. Decision making and resource allocation factor heavily upon the game's outcome over luck of the draw elements or random card flipping. In the end it's basically a player versus other player(s) situation even though it rarely feels like it during the course of play. I'm pleased to report that there's very little in the way of punishment or trickery to opponents. Again, players will find themselves quite involved in managing their own affairs, which is appropriate since it is their own decisions throughout that ultimately determine the game's winner.

In all, Kingsburg is a fantastic entry in a saturated market and further proof that Fantasy Flight Games is quite serious about their craft. Highly recommended entertainment!

My wife and I are starting to get into more advanced board games as we age. We have always loved games such as monopoly, clue and other such games. We decided that we wanted to spread our wings and try a little more complex game. This was a fantastic choice! When I say it is advanced it is by no means hard to play. It has smooth gameplay that I believe all ages could learn. The entire game revolves around your decisions as governor which buildings you will build to ward off invading armies. This leads to the decision of prestigue building or defense. Everyone in our family loves this game and it has given us hours of enjoyment!

Kingsburg is a community-building based game in which you have "5 years" to build the most prosperous community you can. Each person is a member of a royal court and is given a 'town' in which you are responsible for building new structures in as well as protecting. Each new structure allows the player a new ability. Players build up their individual towns by 'influencing' various members of the kings court, including the king and queen. This is a great game for people who enjoy games such as Puerto Rico or Colosseum, however you should be aware that the game play is significantly more luck-based, as the influencing of court members is based on a dice roll.

In Kingsburg, each player is responsible for developing and defending a piece of the king's realm. Players receive assistance from a number of advisors who provide the resources for success. At first glance, success or failure appears to be luck of the dice. In reality, there's a lot of strategy going on here, and a well thought-out plan can minimize a bad dice roll. It all comes down to the buildings, which are grouped into five categories that each have their strengths and weaknesses. In each category, buildings must be built in order, with each successive building giving you greater benefit but at a greater cost. At the end of each round, all players must defend their land from some sort of aggressor. Points are awarded by buildings, by advisors, and by winning battles. There are also some mechanics built in for helping the last place player catch up to the rest of the pack.

Kingsburg works well for two to five players, though the game experience is different with two than it is with five. Games usually take about 90 minutes, and possibly a little longer with inexperienced players. Kingsburg strikes a good balance of luck and strategy and is easy to teach to new players. I have two minor complaints on aesthetics. First, the yellow dice are difficult to count up because they use white dots instead of black. Second, the advisors would feel more real and less like a game mechanic if their names were printed on the board. These are minor problems, but they do detract from the playing experience. Overall, Kingsburg is a great "light strategy" game.

Kingsburg is a very easy game to play that can be quite fun to play. Every turn, you roll three dice and then place them on different characters numbered 1 through 18 in order to gain resources or abilities. There's a lot of luck, but there are plenty of opportunities to use tactics too. This is a great gateway game to get your friends or significant other interested in board games. It's not deep, but it's easy and fun. As a recommended next step, I would say give "Agricola" or "The Pillars of the Earth" a look.

Kingsburg truly ranks right up there with Ticket To Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne as a game that will make people remember how much fun a great board game can be. Other reviews have spent much time on the mechanics and strategy. I just wanted to add another 5-star review, because this game deserves it. Simple enough to teach and play a game in a little over an hour, but enough strategy to appeal to experienced board game fans. If you don't plan to own very many board games, this should definitely be one of them, especially if you enjoyed the other games mentioned above.

Came very fast and I've been too busy enjoying it to leave a review but since I'm full of turkey I have a moment. Great game great delivery.

This is one of my favorite overall games. The mix of luck and strategy is what makes this game challenging enough to be fun but simple enough for almost anyone to pick up. There are several different strategies of play that all work. I played the game with 2 friends and we each, unknowingly picked 3 different "routes" of play. At the end of the game we ended up within 3 victory points of each other. I highly reccomend this game for people who like the fantasy roll-play game but don't like high amouts if "prepping" or score keeping. The rulebook is only 8 pages and not complex at all to understand. Enjoy!!!!