Game: Im Schatten des Sonnenkönigs

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aroo — 2008-03-12T09:35:58+00:00

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aroo — 2008-03-12T09:30:14+00:00

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aroo — 2008-03-11T15:20:20+00:00

now pay your gambling debts

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aroo — 2008-03-11T15:02:34+00:00

Shadow of the Sun King on the card back

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aroo — 2008-03-11T14:54:36+00:00

Giulio Mazzarino

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aroo — 2008-03-11T14:30:44+00:00

the Sun King

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cobalto — 2008-02-14T14:26:41+00:00

Some of the game cards

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cobalto — 2008-02-14T14:25:12+00:00

Full contents with rules

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samoan_jo — 2007-03-24T12:29:43+00:00

'Im Schatten des Sonnenkönigs' - Amigo - German box back

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samoan_jo — 2007-02-13T09:21:53+00:00

'Im Schatten des Sonnenkönigs' -- full frame shot of the front cover [higher quality]

Thread: Another rule question aswered by Alan Moon

Exilas — 2006-04-03T13:48:48+00:00

Q.
Blue majority gives the player the chance to exchange one of the topmost characteristic cards from his sphere of influence with any characteristic card from the discard pile, but before making the decision to exchange, he may not examine the discard pile. Is the player also required to choose which of his cards to exchange BEFORE examining the discard pile?

A.
No. You can look at the discard pile, pick a card, and then decide what card to discard.

Thanks, Alan!

Thread: Re: Rule question

Exilas — 2006-04-03T13:44:13+00:00

I asked Alan Moon (co-author of this game) this question. Here's his answer:

"Yes, the Auction card is immediately active."

Thanks, Alan!

Thread: Re: Do auction cards count towards majorities?

Exilas — 2006-04-03T13:43:36+00:00

I asked Alan Moon (co-author of this game) this question. Here's his answer:

"Auction cards do not count towards the majority in a color."

Thanks, Alan!

Thread: Rule question

Exilas — 2005-01-05T20:23:18+00:00

Is an auction card immediately active, as soon as purchased?

Here's the situation: a player declares to turn two cards, and the second one happens to be "Einfluss/Influence", so the player turns another card, which happens to be just like the first one.

So, if that player wins the auction for "Einfluss/Influence", could he take both identical cards, as per "Einfluss/Influence" special power?

Thanks,
Marco

Thread: Reo auction cards count towards majorities?

Exilas — 2005-01-05T20:19:57+00:00

DougOrleans (#29341),
I have the same doubt, and wasn't able to find an official answer. If you have one, could you please let me know?

Thanks,
Marco

Thread: Do auction cards count towards majorities?

DougOrleans — 2004-03-01T22:52:45+00:00

If you have a colored auction card, does it count towards having a majority in that color? Or are only the five plain characteristic cards counted?

Thread: Translation error

tool — 2002-11-07T13:52:39+00:00

The translations uploaded on 10/28 have an error - the Authority auction card notes should mention Power, not Dueling, and the Dominion card notes should mention Dueling, not Power. Note that this error was in the German rules.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2002-11-05T19:31:59+00:00

Back in 1999 Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum collaborated for the first time creating Knights of the Rainbow. The release was much anticipated (at least by me) since it was Moon’s first release following his award winning Elfenland. Regrettably it sucked. Bad. If I had known that In the Shadow of the Sun King was a remake of Knights I never would have bothered to buy it. But now that I’ve played it once I can see where they’ve definitely made some improvements. At least it doesn’t suck.

In the Shadow of the Sun King is still a 5-suited card game in which the cards are displayed in front of each player and having majority or control of a suit at the beginning of your turn gives you the special benefits of that suit. After making use of any special abilities you then decide whether to draw 1, 2 or 3 cards of which you get to keep one and add it to your display. Finally you may spend gold if you have it for further limited actions.

If Knights worked at all it was with 3 players. More than that and it was easy not to have any special abilities when it got to your turn. That problem has been addressed 2 ways: by allowing ties to be considered a majority with 4 or more players in the game and by adding special ability cards that are put up for auction when they appear, which offer some of the same powers as does the control of a suit or afford some protection against those powers.

Knights was incredibly chaotic, especially with more players. If you drew any of the special action cards, these counted against your 1, 2 or 3 draws. This would cut down on your options, leading more often to non-productive rounds. It also meant there was a great disincentive to drawing less than 3. The designers took the recommendations of some of the reviewers and fixed that by simply not counting any special cards against the player’s draw limit.

After one play I will say with reservations that I like this game. There was constant tension with generally more options than actions available each turn, i.e., decisions to be made each turn! And not always obvious ones! I liked the theme this time, in which players are nobility in the court of King Louis XIV, vying for influence, wealth and power, all of which are necessary if you are going to survive to the end of this tense and deadly game. It seemed to capture at least my literary sense of court intrigue, it’s viciousness reminiscent of an earlier collaboration of these two designers, Wongar, except here you can, as with Knights, be eliminated from the game, especially if the other players see you becoming too powerful and begin to fear you. We walked into this game fairly innocent, not realizing how dangerous game play really was. We were surprised as the game developed for the first time, all of a sudden realizing we had made poor decisions earlier and were now very vulnerable to elimination. How much control one can bring to bear to alleviate or at least attenuate that progression to elimination remains to be seen. Reactions were favorable with ratings all at 7 and everyone willing to play it again. Rob, who became powerful early on in green (duels), was first to go, his reward for showing mercy to Robert. I was second to fall having also failed to maintain a supply of power chips. Both Matthew and Robert survived to the end, Matthew winning by 2 over Robert.