Game: Kings Progress

Thread: Re: On The Road With Henry VIII

John Weber — 2008-08-21T17:12:02+00:00

Agree with you, this is one of those underrated gems that for some reason has fallen through the cracks as far as the BGG cogniscenti are concerned.

Thread: On The Road With Henry VIII

da pyrate — 2008-08-21T01:19:39+00:00

Kings Progress

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A Card-game/Boardgame for 3-5 Players
Playing Time – No More Than 90 minutes
Designed by Steve Kingsbury
Published by ‘JKL&M Games’ (2005)

It is amazing what you can learn by playing games. Being an Australian I had never heard of a ‘Kings Progress’ until I came across this game. Apparently for several weeks each year King Henry VIII of England would make a tour of his country and this was called the Kings Progress. Henry would take his entire court on the road and visit many distant areas of his realm, staying at the homes and the rich and famous (not to mention powerful). While on his progress, the King would take many wagonloads of his domestic paraphernalia (such as chairs, tables, candlesticks, bathtubs, and perhaps even the proverbial kitchen-sink). While on tour many local dignitaries (and perhaps even ‘not-so-local’) would call upon the king, seeking to ingratiate themselves – as subjects are want to do. This is the world in which the game, Kings Progress, is set.

The idea of Henry VIII visiting Royal Castles and giving away gifts doesn’t sound terribly exciting but I was happy enough to purchase the game from ‘JKL&M’ games on the strength of a previous purchase of one of their games, 1861: the Railroads of the Russian Empire.

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I was very impressed with the physical quality of 1861 and was a little disappointed with the physical quality of Kings Progress (and Kogge, which I purchased at the same time). My initial impression of the game was that it had a home-made feel to it – although the box is fairly sturdy. The cards come printed in several sheets and need to be separated before they can be used. My first thought was that they are very thin – but playing Ticket to Ride immediately following Kings Progress, the cards felt only slightly thinner than the cards in that train game. The game-board, although appearing that it is home-made rather than professionally printed, is quite attractive, giving the impression of an artistic map of the period laid upon a timber table. There are deep colours and it does look quite good and is very functional.

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Kings Progress is a cross between a card game and a boardgame. The object is to collect sets of influence cards that will allow you to control various courtiers (which will directly lead to the acquisition of gift cards) and then to collect sets of gift cards that will score you prestige points.

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Brief Explanation of the Game

The game runs for three turns. Each turn continues until either 5 of the 8 courtiers have arrived at court or until the King’s pawn reaches the end of the Player Round Track.

There are 8 courtier pawns – each have their own home castle. Players try to collect cards that match each of the courtiers and meld them. At the same time the players try to move the courtiers that they hope to control towards the royal castle that is the current location of the king. As each courtier arrives at the royal castle the person having major control of that courtier will receive gifts from the king. The gifts are either castles, land, money, offices or titles. At the end of each turn the person who has the largest set of matching gifts will receive prestige points.

Each round each player is allowed to perform two actions. The available actions are Advance (move a courtier towards the Royal Castle), Build (play influence cards to take control of a courtier), Collect (take influence cards into your hand) or Discard (remove exposed cards from your own melds). Actions may be repeated but all actions taken must be taken in alphabetical order (A, B, C and then D).

At the end of the game the person with the most prestige points will be declared winner and can announce to all and sundry, “I am the most prestigious person at this gathering!”

For those want a more detailed explanation of the game you could a lot worse than read Steve Kingsbury’s own review of his game (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/79970).

Everything Is Back-to-front – one of the essential elements of the game is that you are limited to only two actions each round. The actions must be performed in the order Advance, Build, Collect and Discard. The problem is that it would nice to collect a card and then build it (meld it) in front of you OR build a card and then move a courtier. This is a very nice design feature in the game and makes planning the order in which you will conduct your actions from round to round quite important.

I Want To Collect Cards – it is nice to collect cards and give yourself a better chance to become the Major power controlling each courtier. If you spend too much time collecting cards the downside is that you less time to move the courtier towards the Royal Castle.

One of the nice aspects of the game is that you have to get your timing right. If you spend actions moving a courtier you hope to control towards the Royal Castle, you have fewer actions available to collect cards and to lay down melds. If you see someone else moving a courtier you may decide to try to collect matching cards and then hope to take control just before they move into court. Each of the 8 courtiers has 8 cards (two each of 0 value, 1 value, 2 value and 3 value).

Not All Courtiers Are Equal – the person who has major control of each courtier is allowed to use a special ability associated with that courtier.

Chamberlain – allows you to put non-matching cards into melds
Chaplain – allows you to perform three actions in any order (very powerful)
Knight – allows you a free advance for any courtier
Mistress – gives you the chance of gaining an extra influence card in your hand
Privy Seal – can change the order of cards within two of your melds
Secretary – can rearrange gifts
Steward – can draw a discarded card
Treasurer – gives you the chance of scoring extra prestige points

This means that obtaining a Major control of some courtiers is more useful than others.

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How Much Control Is Enough? – judging how much control to exert on a courtier is not as simple a question as it may appear. Each courtier’s special ability can only be used once by the person with Major control – the ability is then exhausted. Each time there is a chance of control the ability becomes refreshed. It may be beneficial not to lay all your cards on the table but to keep some in reserve, hoping that someone else will take Major control of a courtier and then allow you to retake control and be able to use the ability a second time.

Highly Interactive – the game involves a high degree of player interaction on several levels. There is interaction as you see which courtiers are being moved by other players and decide if you can use those moves to your advantage. You should be perusing other players’ melds, and watching which influence cards they draw, as you decide which courtiers you think you can gain control over. As the final object of the game is to score points for sets of gift cards, looking at the cards on offer each turn may show that if there is only one set of gifts that is especially beneficial to you – consequently there is a bit of a race to get to the castle first with your courtier and so have first pick of the gifts.

Minor Control – at the end of each turn the player with Minor control of the five courtiers who have arrived at court get to select a single gift. Looking at how to gain Minor control of courtiers is quite important.

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Courtiers Left Out in the Cold – each turn only a maximum of five courtiers will arrive at the Royal Court. At the end of each turn these five courtiers are returned to their home castles. The other three courtiers remain where there were at the end of the turn. This means that it is possible to position a courtier favourably so that they have an advantage for the following turn, based on their location.

Be There Any Discontent in the Kingdom? – It would be nice to have better components – but as this is a small company I feel they should be congratulated for a good game design and the courage to publish it in opposition to much larger companies. The rules are quite good - Initially I felt that the rules regarding how and when Minor control of courtiers takes place seemed somewhat vague but that was my error for rushing through the rules - everything seems quite unambiguous and very clear - a player aid card and summary would have made a good set of rules even better.

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It is a nice game. It plays quickly and all players feel quite involved, even during other players’ turns. The 90 minute playtime goes very quickly. The game is full of difficult decisions – it has been designed so that you really want to do more than just two actions a turn and really would like to perform actions in the very opposite order to which you are forced to play your actions. It doesn’t seem to me that luck plays a large role in the game. Certainly the order in which the influence and gift cards are revealed will influence your options but the final outcome will be the result of how well you read the intention of other players and how you can meld your plans to take advantage of their plans and how well you count the cards as you try to gain majorities of both types of cards. The game will have excellent replayability due to the order in which Royal Castles are visited changes from game to game (giving courtiers differing levels of accessibility from game to game).

Like many interesting games, the first time you play it may be a little unsettling for some players as you come to grips with the mechanics of the game and the key to scoring. I look forward to the next time that it hits the table.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales!”

Thread: Misuse of color overwhelmed some players in our group

byronczimmer — 2008-05-18T01:57:26+00:00

I appreciate the use of color to differentiate things in games, but in this game, there is an unfortunate use and misuse of color. I'm curious about the design decision, because it makes for a muddled play experience.

Each player has a color (red, blue, green, yellow, purple)
This color corresponds to a type of GIFT, which scores bonus points for them when they score ANY points from that gift during scoring rounds.
This color does NOT correspond to the same colors used for pawns on the board or cards in hand (which are used to control those pawns on the board).

With no strict player analog within the game (you are actually a level abstracted away from the action, represnting some shadowy family or power which is controlling the various figures), the duplicative use of color which both did and did not correlate to player color led to constant questioning of which times color mattered, and which times it didn't.

Another misstep in color use is printing black text on the dark grey 'power' cards. Admittedly we were in a dim-light situation, but it made it very difficult to read the text on the power card.

I consider this issue to be one of the contributing factors, along with some rules which were not apparent until mid game, to us abandoning the game after the first scoring phase as being unsalvagable.

Any one else have trouble or issue with this?

Thread: Re: Question about discard action

byronczimmer — 2008-05-18T01:46:46+00:00

I just played a 'partial' game of this today, and we also interpreted discard to allow attacks, which made it FAR too powerful.

I want to like this game, but important rules and clarifications were not apparent in the rules, and the layout is a bit off.

For example - the bit about discarding a card from a meld when you are FIRST in a gift category was AFTER the example text, and was missed in two readings. Bad form.

A summary of procedures available to EACH player (small card, possibly in their own color) should really have been included to help this along.

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Toynan — 2008-04-12T13:48:25+00:00

Some cards

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Toynan — 2008-04-12T13:47:44+00:00

Game in progress

Thread: Availability in US?

John Weber — 2006-12-17T20:29:28+00:00

No info on this question posted here since March, only 28 raters for a game that has been out over a year, all of this for a game that should have wider distribution that for some reason has not. All the Essen 2006 JKLM releases seem to have made it into mainstream US distibution but many of the earlier ones have not. Markus Welbourne back in 2006 said Boulder had it, but just checked today and it's listed as "Out of Stock." GameSurplus and Boards and Bits, two other online US retailers, don't have it listed at all.

What gives on US distribution of this game? Have all the limited number of copies dried up?

Thread: Re: Questions upon first playing:

tool — 2006-09-10T15:52:11+00:00

Most gifts: Player 1 wins (10-9)
You only look at the number of Gifts. If this is tied, the winner is the player who the most gifts in his worst suite. Crowns win ties. In your example the worst suit of each player is 1 (with 1 crown): 'Title' or 'Office' for player 1 (he may choose either one) and 'Office' for player 2. As there was a tied for worst suit, you look for their second worst suits. For player one that would be other type he didn't select above ('Title' or 'Office'). Player 2 would win the points for Most Gifts as his second worst suit is '1 Castle with 2 Crowns' or '1 Office with 2 crowns'.
This is not correct - the 6th award is for the most TYPES of gifts.

As for the question of ties for control of courtiers, I tend to agree that they are not as clear as they could be. It is possible that a very strict literal rules interpretation is correct, but that produces situations that strike me as very odd. I would like to get clarification from the designer here.

Thread: Re: A sort of review

UhhhClem — 2006-07-09T06:31:31+00:00

We played this today and quite enjoyed it, once we got the rules (mostly) right.

One rule we did not get right, mentioned in this summary, is that actions must be taken in ABCD order. This seems remarkably confining: it prevents gambits like taking control of a courtier and then advancing him, or collecting a card and then building to take control of him.

Is the game really that freewheeling that such restrictions are necessary?

This is a game that would be greatly helped by play aids. In particular, controlling (and changing the control of) courtiers is essential to the game, and the circumstances under which control changes hands are not at all internally consistent. (They make sense once you understand the overall flow of the game, but not until then.) It's counterintuitive that you play new courtier cards under the ones that you've already played. And there are crucial rules that are easy to overlook -- notably (in our case) the discarding of courtiers when gifts are scored. Play aids would help a lot.

My biggest gripe with the game has to do with the final round, which feels extremely kingmaker-ey. So much of what's going to happen in the final scoring is visible on the board that when you start resolving the major gifts on the last turn you start thinking in terms of who you want to be stealing points from, and it seems that players who are behind can easily be in position to determine which of their opponents wins.

Overall, though, I like this game a lot -- much more than the ratings here would indicate. It brings together a lot of disparate elements -- card drafting, melding, majority control, positioning, special powers -- in a way that feels very balanced.

I think the rules need to be much more clearly organized. (I think that some negative comments, such as Morgan's, may come from not following every rule to the letter -- his comment sort of describes what we were thinking about the game until we found the rule about discarding a courtier when you win a gift category.) I think the graphic design could be improved. (It's pretty, but it's very hard to tell who's going to control what if something gets discarded, and while the map is not ambiguous, it's quite busy, and that gets confusing.) But still: a very good game, and one I'm looking forward to playing again.

Thread: Re: Questions upon first playing:

Great Dane — 2006-06-22T15:45:17+00:00

jbluestein wrote:
We had our first playing of this game on Monday night and several rules questions came up.

1) One of our group had played the game before with a JKLM rep, and he was apparently trying out some different rules. One rule in particular allowed you to draw a face-down card from the deck -- still less powerful than the Mistress's special ability, but a good option if nothing face-up appeals.

Is this an official variant/rule? We found the inability to draw facedown cards to be somewhat frustrating at times. We may play with this as a variant in any case.

It is certainly not part of the first edition rules - as they explicitly state "At no time can a player take a blind card from the top of the deck without the Rumour ability of the Mistress.

2) The way certain ties are decided is a little unclear.

Example 1: For control of the Privy Seal (Red) Courtier, Player 1 has five points of influence and Major Control. Player 2 has five points of influence and Minor control.

Player 3 plays Red cards and now has six points of influence. So Major control obviously goes to Player 3. The rules for movement of Minor control seem a little ambiguous. We played it that Minor control went to the player who just lost Major control, but it seemed a little arbitrary and could construct an argument for things to go the other way as well. I don't think we ever get to a seating order determination in this case, but not sure.

Ties for 'Major Control' are resolved in favor of whoever has either card. But the rules also state that a card will not change hand unless someone has improved his courtier value. As neither player 1 nor player 2 has improved their status will the person who hold the Minor Control card (player 2) keep the card.

Example 2: In determining who has the most different types of gifts:

Player 1 has: 3 Castles, 3 Money, 2 Land, 1 Title (1 crown), 1 Office (1 crown)
Player 2 has: 3 Money, 3 Land, 1 Castle (2 crowns), 1 Title (2 crowns), 1 Office (1 crown)

So the question is who gets first place? Are crowns only used if all lengths are equal? Or do you look at each player's worst color (1 Office/1 Crown vs. 1 Office/1 Crown) in order and then go up the line? Done the first way, Player 1 wins with 3/3/2/1/1 vs. 3/3/1/1/1. Done the second way, Player 2 wins with 1 Title/2 Crowns vs. 1 Title/1 Crown

Crowns are only used to win ties of a paticular type (color). The types are scored individually in this order:

Castles: Player 1 wins (3-1)

Land: Player 2 wins (2-3)

Money: Tied (3-3, no crowns) Each player score that position minus 1 point. (So if the tied for first will each receive 1 point)

Offices: Ties (1-1, 1 crown each) same as Money.

Titles: Player 2 wins the tie as he has most crowns:
(1-1, Crowns: 1-2).

Most gifts: Player 1 wins (10-9)
You only look at the number of Gifts. If this is tied, the winner is the player who the most gifts in his worst suite. Crowns win ties. In your example the worst suit of each player is 1 (with 1 crown): 'Title' or 'Office' for player 1 (he may choose either one) and 'Office' for player 2. As there was a tied for worst suit, you look for their second worst suits. For player one that would be other type he didn't select above ('Title' or 'Office'). Player 2 would win the points for Most Gifts as his second worst suit is '1 Castle with 2 Crowns' or '1 Office with 2 crowns'.

3) Use of Courtier special powers. Now, the rules clearly state that all usage of Courtier special powers (except for the Chaplain) is a free action. So if I use the Mistress's special power to draw cards from the top of the deck, that does not count as one of my two actions for drawing cards.

I just want to make sure this is correct. In some cases it's pretty unambiguous (the Treasurer's special power). In other cases it seems like someone might argue that these are enhancements to regular actions. The rules are pretty clear, but I just want to make sure that this isn't an errata or anything.

All character abilities are independent of the regular actions: you can use the Carriage to move a courtier 1 space without taking the 'Advance' action; you can use Disguise to build up to 2 different courties without using the 'Build' action etc.

Thread: Questions upon first playing:

jbluestein — 2006-06-14T17:23:55+00:00

We had our first playing of this game on Monday night and several rules questions came up.

1) One of our group had played the game before with a JKLM rep, and he was apparently trying out some different rules. One rule in particular allowed you to draw a face-down card from the deck -- still less powerful than the Mistress's special ability, but a good option if nothing face-up appeals.

Is this an official variant/rule? We found the inability to draw facedown cards to be somewhat frustrating at times. We may play with this as a variant in any case.

2) The way certain ties are decided is a little unclear.

Example 1: For control of the Privy Seal (Red) Courtier, Player 1 has five points of influence and Major Control. Player 2 has five points of influence and Minor control.

Player 3 plays Red cards and now has six points of influence. So Major control obviously goes to Player 3. The rules for movement of Minor control seem a little ambiguous. We played it that Minor control went to the player who just lost Major control, but it seemed a little arbitrary and could construct an argument for things to go the other way as well. I don't think we ever get to a seating order determination in this case, but not sure.

Example 2: In determining who has the most different types of gifts:

Player 1 has: 3 Castles, 3 Money, 2 Land, 1 Title (1 crown), 1 Office (1 crown)
Player 2 has: 3 Money, 3 Land, 1 Castle (2 crowns), 1 Title (2 crowns), 1 Office (1 crown)

So the question is who gets first place? Are crowns only used if all lengths are equal? Or do you look at each player's worst color (1 Office/1 Crown vs. 1 Office/1 Crown) in order and then go up the line? Done the first way, Player 1 wins with 3/3/2/1/1 vs. 3/3/1/1/1. Done the second way, Player 2 wins with 1 Title/2 Crowns vs. 1 Title/1 Crown.

3) Use of Courtier special powers. Now, the rules clearly state that all usage of Courtier special powers (except for the Chaplain) is a free action. So if I use the Mistress's special power to draw cards from the top of the deck, that does not count as one of my two actions for drawing cards.

I just want to make sure this is correct. In some cases it's pretty unambiguous (the Treasurer's special power). In other cases it seems like someone might argue that these are enhancements to regular actions. The rules are pretty clear, but I just want to make sure that this isn't an errata or anything.

That's all for now...

Thanks!
Josh

Thread: Re: New version?

Markusawel — 2006-03-02T11:29:44+00:00

Hi

We have been tring to do this
but as yet it has not happened
but the game is avaliable at both Boulder and Games and bits in America

Markus

Thread: New version?

lyman — 2006-01-05T04:48:00+00:00

Is there any truth to the rumor that this game is going to be picked up for wider distribution and if so any timeframe?

Thread: Re: Question about discard action

Steve Silbla — 2005-11-08T21:00:58+00:00

Thanks Joshua

Your interpetation is right; it is definately meant to be limited to your own melds. In our play testing it wasn't an often used action but very occasionally it allowed a better value card to be revealed and if timed right to nick the power.

It is wierd with rules as at least 8 people read the rules, including me several times, and one german, and no-one thought to question. I guess we all made the saem assumption!

Cheers

Steve Kingsbury

Thread: Question about discard action

Glamorous Mucus — 2005-11-08T18:26:47+00:00

Question for Steve Kingsbury or anyone who knows the answer:

The Discard action allows a player to discard an exposed influence card from a meld.

Are players allowed to pillage an exposed card from any meld on the table? Or is this action meant to be restricted to a player's own melds? The rules clearly point toward the former, but after playing it that way, I suspect this may have been an incorrectly-written rule.

We played both ways, and the game played much better when limiting discards to one's own melds. Kings Progress is already quite chaotic, and players lose cards off their melds with great frequency. Allowing players to attack one another's melds exacerbates both of these patterns.

There is nothing in the rules to indicate that the discard action is limited to one's own melds, not even a supporting example. If the action is meant to limited in such a way, then the rules definitely lead players down the wrong path.

Thread: Re: Influence Cards

Steve Silbla — 2005-10-19T05:01:51+00:00

Hi

Yes he can but it is good etiqutte to do it in a manner so that it is clear he isnt rearranging the order.

Cheers

Steve Kingsbury

Thread: Re: Loyalty Test

Steve Silbla — 2005-10-19T05:00:09+00:00

Hi

Yes it does. Which seems harsh but of course you would have known that you were about to trigger it.

Cheers

Steve Kingsbury

Thread: Loyalty Test

ekted — 2005-10-18T09:30:37+00:00

If a Loyalty Test occurs during your first action, and this triggers the end of the round, do you lose your second (and possible third) action?

Thread: Influence Cards

ekted — 2005-10-18T09:28:06+00:00

Can a player look at his own hidden Influence Cards (the ones under the Exposed card) during play?

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mcdeans — 2005-10-18T04:57:51+00:00

Being played at JKLM booth, Essen 2005

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