Reliability vs. Press your luck.

My feelings about the game Kingsburg have changed several times since my first play. At first I thought it was a clever and novel game. Then I began to see patterns in how it plays and there definitely seemed to be certain strategies that work the best. I wouldn’t say the game is solved, but it certainly has more limited options than it first appears. This led me to think that it really wasn’t a very good game and would have limited replay value. Surprisingly, after still more plays, my opinion changed again. This review covers my feelings and insights into Kingsburg after numerous plays.

Game overview:

Kingsburg is a resource gathering and building game based on dice rolling. To me, it feels like Caylus: the Dice Game. This may concern some fans of Caylus as it is often viewed as a minimal luck game, but I’m only making a basic generalization. Instead of placing workers, you place dice on spaces and collect the resources there. With certain exceptions, nobody else can use a space you have claimed. After collecting resources in the form of cubes, you get to build buildings with those cubes that grant you special abilities. You have to build these buildings in a particular order and some are much more powerful than others.

After that, the similarity ends. The setting is medieval fantasy and there is combat at the end of each year. Win, and you get a minor award, lose and you can get anything from a minor loss to suffering a crushing blow to your strategy. At the end of 5 years the game ends and he who has the most VPs wins.

Components:

The board is beautifully illustrated with many interesting characters. They can be somewhat caricaturish, but are still well done. The building boards you get feel somewhat thin but are sturdy. Tokens are decent card stock and the wooden pieces are pretty standard. My one issue with the game is the dice. I’m not sure what it is with euro-games and wooden dice, but I don’t like it. In most games there are 1-2 dice and you rarely roll them. However, Kingsburg is all about the dice rolls. You get 3 dice in every player color and several white dice to roll. I’m sure it’s just my American sensibilities, but they have no heft and I never feel they roll well. I want heavier dice that are cool to the touch and clack when you roll. This is obviously a minor nitpick and probably there are just as many people that love wooden dice. Well, if you need more, you can have mine from all my euro-games.

As already mentioned I would love to have had plastic/Bakelite dice. Also, I find the building boards to be somewhat uninspiring. They are functional but give me no real sense that I am building a fortified town. They are just tokens on a board. I’m not sure if plastic building counters instead of cardboard tokens would be better, or even some kind of tile system that gives a sense of building up. Overall, I still think the game has above average bits despite my natural desire for more.

Game play:

The game plays in a series of seasons with a bonus section between each one. Player order is determined by die roll with the lowest roll on 3 dice going first and the highest last. Whenever there is a tie, order remains the way it was for those two players. For example, red and blue players roll 11, the red player had 5 last round and the blue player had a 17. Both will behind anyone who rolled under 11 but their relative order to each other will not change.

The first bonus is one extra die, to be rolled in spring, for having the least buildings built. A tie results in the tied players getting one resource of their choice instead. As all players are tied with 0 buildings at the beginning, each player starts the game with a resource of their choice. Then the Spring season starts. During spring everyone takes the dice they rolled and places them on the board in turn order. You can split your dice up any way you want except extra dice must be played with at least one of your normal ones. Thus, a roll of 5,6,3 with an extra die roll of 2 would allow a player to place their dice on the space numbered 16, or the 11 and 5, or the 7 and 6 and 3 space, etc. Each space grants different combination of resources, VPs, and other abilities, but they generally get better the higher you roll. 1-6 pretty much gives you one thing, 7-11 gives you two of something, 12-15 gives you 3, and 16-18 gives you 4 or more. Spaces grant in various combinations: gold; stone; wood; +2 tokens (which can be added to a dice group to get a higher numbered space); -1, 1 or 3 VPs; 1 or 2 soldiers for the year; peeking at this years battle card, or can convert one resource into another Each group of dice put on the board is one play and you must wait for the other players to place before placing the next grouping. So, in the example above with the 7,6,3 placement, the player would need to wait three rounds of placement in which the numbers they want could very well be taken by other players.

After all dice are placed, resources are collected and the players have the option of building one building if they can pay the resources for it. Buildings are listed on your player board in 4 rows of 4 buildings each. To build a building in a row you must have built the prior building in that row. Thus, if you want to build the embassy (farthest right building in the bottom row), you will need to build the barricade (farthest left bottom), the crane and then town hall. Each building grants a special ability to the owner. While it is beyond the scope of this review to go into all the bonuses some examples are, +1 defense during winter ( +1 more if the card is Orcs), a player may add or subtract 1 from a dice group before placing, or a player gains one gold at the start of each season. . If players choose not to build, they keep their resources and can build on a following season.

The next bonus is 1 VP to the player with the most buildings. Tied players get 1 VP each. Then the summer season is played which is identical to spring. The bonus that follows summer is a pawn given to the player with the fewest buildings. This pawn can be used to build twice during the building phase of a season or to place dice on a space that another player has already claimed one time. If it is not used by the same time next year, the player will lose it unless they have the least buildings again. Fall is the same as spring and summer. The bonus after fall is the ability to purchase soldiers to fight in the inevitable monster battle in winter. Each soldier costs 2 resources of your choice. Winter consists solely of rolling a 6 sided die and then revealing the card the players must battle for that year. These cards include: Orcs, goblins, zombies, demons, dragons, and barbarians. Each has a number that the players must meet or exceed to prevent being overrun. If the bonus from defensive buildings built by a player during previous seasons + the number on the white die + the number of soldiers a player has for the year equal or exceed the number on the card, the player suffers no ill effects. A tie grants no bonus, as only a decisive victory gives the bonus on the card. If the player’s number is less than the monster he/she is battling, then he/she suffers the penalty on the card. This can be anything from losing 2 VPs (a minor loss), to losing almost all or all stored resources and a player’s most valuable building (pretty much a guarantee that you cannot win). Also, the player with the highest number (which also won) gains 1 VP. After all effects are resolved, all players lose the soldiers they obtained that year. And the next year starts. The battled card is discarded and the next year’s monster is up to bat, face down. Each year battles get tougher. In year 1 you could face a value 2 monster and it can go as high as 9 in year 5.

Each of these steps is repeated until the end of year 5 and the winner is the player with the most total VPs.

What is there to like?

The game plays quickly and the end of year battles can be fun depending on whether a player has good defenses or not and what they need the 6-side to come up. There are numerous choices in the game and routes that a player can take to victory. There are many special abilities and players are always trying to get trough the year building as much as possible while eking out just ahead in the final battle. This adds a nice press your luck component to compliment the total randomness of the die rolls. You are also frequently choosing between more resources or more VPs/special abilities in your placements. Also, there are strategies listed on the geek for manipulating the bonuses to help launch you past those ahead.

What is there not to like?

There is quite a bit that may turn people off. First, dice rolls matter in a huge way. Poor rolls will guarantee you don’t have a chance. High rolls will help you immensely. The designers tried to balance this out with the bonuses and the fact that low rolls get to go first, but it still sucks. Rolling a 7 on 3 dice means you can take 7 (a resource and +2 token), or you can place one die at a time and hope to get multiple single resource spaces. Unfortunately its quite likely hat someone will take those in between, so your choice may not be much of one at all. If you can’t place a die, you lose it. You always have potential competition for spaces if you have a low roll. Conversely, if you have a high roll you will go last, but you will likely have much less competition unless everybody rolls high and you will get to see where others place. This gives you the added advantage of being able to maximize your placements with perfect knowledge of the board. It is almost always good to roll high as you can split dice off to go for lower numbers or take the high one that nobody else can.

I also think there are very limited paths to victory and they focus on two basic strategies. This first is defensive. The last two tracks are the cheapest in resource costs, give you a reasonable defense, make it easy to pick up soldiers, and have a building that gives you one VP every season. This single building has the potential to give you more VPs than any other building in the game. There is also good synergy with one building allowing you to win all ties in battles and the very next one gives you a VP every time you win a battle. Combined with the ease of getting soldiers (one building in this track gives you an extra soldier every time you get one from a space), and you can easily nab 2 VPs by having the highest total in the end of year battle. Just running down these two tracks early keeps you safe in most battles and gives you time to build the higher VP buildings in the first track at your leisure. If that was not enough, the last track includes a building that reduces the gold cost of all higher level buildings. The third track is a similar defensive track but it is highly unlikely that you would win a serious game playing purely the third and fourth tracks. Unless you have plenty of resources you probably only want one or two buildings in this track. This strategic path is very reliable and will place you high even if you don’t win.

The other major path is designed to pump out resources and maximizes your choices during each season. It consists of going down the second along with the third track. You can do the second and fourth track instead, but the amount of wood you need makes it difficult to pull off (there are no spaces that give multiple wood and only 3 that give you your choice of resources totaling two or more). It’s almost always prudent to get the first two buildings of the fifth track early as well (this gives you the 1 gold discount building). The second track is especially useful in a 5 player game where it can be difficult to place dice because of how crowded the board is. It has three buildings which give you more placement options. One gives you a +2 token before fall of each year. Another allows you to add /subtract 1 from a dice group before placing it. The third and most powerful gives you an extra die for the rest of the game at the cost of a permanent -1 to your battles. The last building also gives you an extra gold every season. Couple this with the discount building on the fifth track and you can cruise down the top track quickly at game end. However, this strategy is highly vulnerable to failed attacks and requires some expenditure of dice to get extra soldiers. It requires more luck on dice rolls as well as you will need every resource you can get to pull it off. Although many push for taking the queen space with this strategy (she gives you 3 VP s and 2 resources of your choice), I personally think she is only worth it if you cannot get 3-4 resources some other way. I always shoot for 3 resources per round minimum and like to get 4. More resources translates into more buildings and cheap soldiers for defense which will make up for the VPs you lose by not tacking her space. This track is also most vulnerable to bad die rolls. If your extra die is always a one and your rolls stay low much of the game, you might as well not have one.

So what about the first track? The first track is basically there as your reward after getting you initial tracks down. It has very expensive buildings with narrowly defined bonuses. It is highly unlikely to win for you if you try to go down this track first as it take so long and offers no defense during battles. It is really there for you to buy buildings as appropriate to pump up your VP while pursuing another strategy. I usually buy the statue (the first building in track 1) when I don’t quite have the resources for one of the top level builds and I don’t want to waste a build opportunity.

Feel free to try any other combination of strategies that work for you. Odds are you will find that one of the two listed above will win more consistently than others.

The battles also have a serious swing to them. Unless you play very conservatively so you are guaranteed to win every battle without the die roll, you risk losing at least one battle. The punishment for losing can be a slap on the wrist but it is more likely to gut you and end your game. Yes, one loss can guarantee that you have no chance to win. In many ways the building system is a race to the top. And like a race, tripping once guarantees you won’t finish first. In fact I don’t know of a game where the winner lost a crippling battle. The only way I see that realistically happening is if everyone is flat footed and loses equally. Thus, one trip hurts you bad which can often lead to another trip and another. Several of our games have had multiple ones rolled during battles. This means that the monsters get tougher every year but the person struggling to catch up gets no significant boost and they face plant multiple times at the end of the year. As an aside, I do not recommend you play yellow as the yellow player in our games generally rolls very poorly.  This can ultimately lead to very little fun for the player that keeps getting sucker punched while other players are cruising through. I think the game does not have enough catch up in the bonuses to really help an unlucky player. It’s almost painful to watch at times.

So who cares if a single lost battle can take you out of the running? The game is all about fun right? Well, if that were entirely true, then no game would have a win condition because everybody plays for fun alone. Striving to win is part of the reason for playing a game. When that motivation is gone, it takes away some of the fun to. Sure you can set personal goals for yourself but you are essentially running the race by yourself at that point. Of course those catch-up mechanisms are supposed to help you get back in the saddle. Unfortunately, a one time extra die or more placement options are not enough to effectively recover from the loss of a high resource cost building

I will also point out that none of the rewards are nearly as good as the losses are heinous. If they were you might be able to get back into the running. But then the players who are doing better will also get the reward.

The designers are preparing an expansion to address the random die roll before the battles. Unfortunately this will require greater investment for defense for all players and it is very likely that some of the more expensive buildings will be unachievable in a game because of this. It also makes the first strategy of the lower two tracks even more powerful.

Conclusions:

With so many negatives, why would my opinion change about this game. Quiet simply, because of its very nature. At its heart, this is a game of dice rolling and risk management. There are easy strategies that are very reliable and there is at least one strategy that is much more risky but has potential for greater pay off. This fits well into the theme. I’ve played the lower track strategy many times and it has consistently beaten many other strategies. However, I now like playing the track 2 strategy as I don’t always win, but the battles end up being very exciting affairs. It’s greater risk, but it can also pay off better. Yes, the battles are crazily random in their punishments and the catch-up mechanisms in the game are really pretty useless for helping players who are behind. But once again, that fits with the risk management aspect. Once you are behind, you usually stay behind and you cannot afford many set backs. So, while the game is not as deep strategically, I enjoy the fact that the strategy choices present you with the safe roads and ones with more peril. Each person can choose their level of comfort with risk and play accordingly. Usually the person who risks a little will do better than the one who takes no risk… but not always. And that is what makes this a fun game despite the mapped out strategies.