Imagine you are tasked with creating a kingdom from a patch of land, but you have the following obstacles to overcome:
- Each time you build, it has to be on a given type of land (grass, forest, etc).
- You have to build to match the whims of some random people that all want something different.
- You are competing for this land with up to 3 different builders.
This is the premise of Kingdom Builder, a game that will test your ability to think on the fly more than to think several moves ahead.
Each turn will find you playing the one (and only) terrain card in your hand, building 3 buildings (all buildings are identical) on terrain that matches the card, then discarding the card and drawing a new one. On your first turn, you can place anywhere on the board that matches your terrain card, after that, you must build adjacent if possible.
This might sound like a boring game, and it would be if this was it, but that is only the core mechanic in the game. It changes with villages.
For each game of Kingdom Builder, 4 boards are chosen randomly and arranged on the table to make a 2×2 playing board. Each board will contain different villages, and during setup 2 tiles that match the village are stacked on each village space (so 2 harbors are placed on the harbor village, 2 taverns are placed on tavern villages, etc). When you place a building next to a village, you get to take 1 (and only 1) token from the village. On subsequent turns, these can then be used as bonus actions. These actions range from building on grassland or dessert, to things like moving an existing building onto water (which is the only way you can build on water).
Typical setup for a 2 player game (apologies for the glare)
Each game also has a random set of 3 citizens, which give points at the end of the game depending on what they require. One citizen might require that you build next to water, another in a straight line across the board.
Finally, there are castles. These give you points if you have at least one building adjacent at the end of the game (all points are earned at the end). Typically castles don’t score you a lot of points on their own; however, several citizen cards wants you to interact with castles, so for games that include these citizens, the castles become pretty crucial.
The game continues around the table until one person has built all 40 of their buildings. Once this occurs, the round is finished and scoring takes place.
Above is an example game that has been completed (again, apologies for the glare). The 3 village tokens on their own in the lower left are what blue accumulated during the game. Orange actually acquired their tokens late in the game, and even with less buildings placed and less tokens (and received later than Blue received theirs), Orange won with a commanding lead. As an additional note, the score board in the upper left of the image is actually the back of one of the board tiles, each of the 8 tiles has that printed on the back. In my mind, this is a great use of resources, since you will never play with all 8 tiles, there is no need for a separate board.
Would I recommend the game? The answer is yes.
The game flows quickly since you have a set of rules that constitute valid placements. This helps speed up gameplay as your hand is often forced and your choices become limited. The box says it takes 45 minutes, and we found that to be pretty accurate. It’s also not a complicated game, so it works as well for people who are new to board gaming as it does for people who are seasoned veterans.
That’s not to say this game isn’t without flaws. It’s possible to get stuck in one area of the board if you draw the wrong cards (and with certain citizens, this can destroy any chance of a good score). Also, while the game goes fairly quickly, it’s tough to plan ahead even with one card, as you can’t know for certain where the opponents will play.
Even with those flaws, since it’s so quick, if you have a bad game you can likely fit a second one in right away and make up for the bad streak on the first one. For these reasons, I highly recommend this game.
If this review was helpful and you are thinking about buying this game, please consider purchasing via the link below.
Derrick Discusses... 