Game: King's Gate

Thread: Re: Best Five Dollar Game You'll Find... And That's No Insult

daveroswell — 2008-08-30T19:57:29+00:00

YER BACK!!! And nice review btw

Thread: Best Five Dollar Game You'll Find... And That's No Insult

Diis — 2008-08-30T05:53:35+00:00

You can, around Christmas time, when Fantasy Flight tries to dump their inventory, get this game for a whopping $5. You'll literally pay just about as much for the shipping as for the game itself.
That is no knock against the game though--its a good one, for two or three times the price. Why, you say? Read on, brother, read on...

The Bottom Line: A light game that incorporates hand management, a bit of guesswork with your opponent, some luck, and of course (this is a Knizia game) optimization. It will take between fifteen and thirty minutes to play, and is easy enough to explain and grasp so that anyone above the age of probably 10 could play it, yet still deep enough to where if you get beaten by a 10 year old, you're doing something wrong.

Components:
Tiles, folks, and rather grim looking ones at that. The tiles aren't going to blow you away with their beauty. This isn't Blue Moon, or even Ra, for that matter. Get past that though, and you'll find good stuff everywhere else.

Gameplay:
On your turn, you get to play a tile with a value greater than one, any number of value 1 tiles, or a combination of a few special value zero tiles and one tile with a value greater than one. You place these tiles next to sections of the "city" in order to claim these sections. Once a section of the city (barracks, tournament grounds, cathedral, etc.) is surrounded by tiles, it is scored according to how much it is worth and then a special bonus token is given. The person with the highest number of point value in tiles around the section of the city gets the most victory points, next highest gets less, etc. Whoever places the last tile around the section of the city places the next section of the city adjacent to the tiles already in play.

The beauty fo the game lies in managing your tiles and shrewdly deciding when its best to let someone else perhaps win the section of the city currently in play by surrounding the section in your low value tiles so that you can place the next section of the city adjacent to your high value tiles--starting you at an advantage. Since you don't just get points for having the highest value in tiles around a particular section of the city, but also score even if you're in second or third place, there's a lot of strategy in deciding whether you should shoot for a consistent second place finish with a "slow and steady wins the race" approach or try getting a few good first place scores while knowing that you probably won't do as well later, as your number of high value tiles is finite.

In addition, winning certain sections of the city gets you special tokens you can use to effect the gameplay in certain ways such as playing two higher than 1 value tiles at the same time or teleporting one of your already played tiles to a different section of the city (in effect letting you use a high value tile from a section of the city that has already been scored). Also, each player has one dragon tile which they can use to flambe an opponents tile and remove it from the game and certain tiles can be played atop opponents lower valued tiles, allowing you to directly effect your opponent and spice things up a bit.

Randomness Factor or "Did I Lose Because I Played Poorly or Because I'm Unlucky?":
Luck plays a role in which tiles you get in your hand, however since all players have the same number and value in tiles, if you start out poorly, you know your higher value tiles will come up later, and your opponents' tiles they're currently beating you with won't be there for him later on.

Fun Factor:
Its flat out fun. The concept is easy to grasp, and easy to teach to others. You can explain everything someone needs to know in about five minutes, and I've never had a single person not enjoy themselves. There's enough tit-for-tat back and forth with the ability to play on top of someone elses tiles to satisfy the more agressive players in a group, but there doesn't have to be too much direct conflict as to scare away some new social gaming types you know that just want a light game.

Also of note, this game plays very well with 2 players, and the two player game adds yet another layer of strategy atop the already sound base game--in fact, I can honestly say that its one of the best scaling games out there, so don't hesitate to pick it up just because you can't find three other folks to play it with.

Overall:
Its a great gateway game, and a great game if you want something that offers some strategy, a bit of conflict, but doesn't take all day. My wife and I love this one, and its proved popular with our gaming and non-gaming friends. You can pick this game up cheap, and there's no reason not to.

Thread: Re: King's Gate: 2-player session & mini-review

cannoneer — 2008-06-27T21:44:28+00:00

Ahiksking wrote:
Can I just say thank you for the mini review.

I have just picked up 3 small games in a trade (including King's Gate) and was looking to try one out at my next club night. Having read your review it's given me a much better awareness and hopefully saved me from making a big mistake, thus reducing my choices to the remaining two.

QED - I guess that is what BGG is all about.

Glad my pain could be your gain

Actually, it's not that it's a "bad" or "broken" game, but it's just very uninspiring and there are other games so similar and so much better, it's hard to see choosing to play this. Although it is quite a bit cheaper than Samurai, so I guess it has that going for it.

Thread: Re: King's Gate: 2-player session & mini-review

Ahiksking — 2008-06-27T20:44:02+00:00

Can I just say thank you for the mini review.

I have just picked up 3 small games in a trade (including King's Gate) and was looking to try one out at my next club night. Having read your review it's given me a much better awareness and hopefully saved me from making a big mistake, thus reducing my choices to the remaining two.

QED - I guess that is what BGG is all about.

Thread: King's Gate: 2-player session & mini-review

cannoneer — 2008-06-27T17:18:25+00:00

I've started a quest to play all the unplayed games in my collection. Some have been languishing for some time; others are relatively recent purchases. Tonight Joanna and I tried out "King's Gate", a tile-laying game by Reiner Knizia and published in 2002 by Fantasy Flight Games. I bought this along with a ton of other "Silver Line" games in FFG's December $5/each sale.

Players attempt to surround rectagular locations with square influence tiles ranging from 1 to 5, with a few special ones thrown in. Each location is scored before the next location is laid down, and each location gives points for first through third place finishes, and may impart a bonus in the form of a character token that can be turned in later for a special action or effect.

The first thing I noticed about it is that the artwork is just as bad as everyone says. Apart from being the customary cheesy fantasy artwork that FFG is so famous for, it's also very drab and muddled. Each individual piece doesn't look too bad, but once you start laying them down, it begins to look like a big puddle of mud on your table. Not exactly enticing or intriguing.

The second thing I noticed is that, in the 2-player game, each player plays 2 colors and scores them independently. So it's as if a 4-player game were occurring. I really dislike this whenever I encounter it; it makes me think that the game was designed as 3-4 players and the publisher shoehorned in the 2-player version by making each person play 2 sides. It also makes it hard to learn the game because each person has to keep track of the independent status of both of his colors, which is more complicated than it would be if you were only playing one color. I have no idea if Reiner Knizia designed this game with 2 players in mind, but in my opinion it's not really that suited for 2 if you have to play 2 colors. Others may disagree and not find it difficult to play 2 colors simultaneously, so this observation may not apply to everyone.

The third thing I noticed is that this game is quite similar to Samurai on a number of levels. You have the whole "surrounding with influence markers" thing, you have the limited ability to play multiple markers, you have an ability to re-play a previous marker (although only if you win one of the special character chits). I found myself wishing throughout that I'd just been playing Samurai.

That's not to say the two are identical, however. The scoring for the tiles is obviously different, with scores for first, second, and third place and the special tokens you can earn. Also the fact that each location is scored in its entirety before another is laid down makes the gameplay much more linear than Samurai's. And of course, being a FFG "Silver Line" game, the components are far inferior to the beautiful Samurai with its great artwork and nice-looking black figures.

In our game Joanna jumped to an early lead of around 7 points, but I consistently placed the last tile and was able to direct the placement of the next location. I also won most of the special characters and used them to fairly good effect. We were not too aggressive and probably only played on top of each others' tiles 4 or 5 times throughout the whole game (although of course we both used both of our dragons to remove tiles too). It's interesting that, for most of the locations, a person winning 2nd and 3rd will outscore the person winning 1st. This too is an artifact of playing 2 colors each that would not apply in the 3/4 player game, and another reason why I'm not too fond of this 2-player.

There came a point toward the end where Joanna was crippled with a hand full of value 1 tiles (you can play any number of these at once), and since I'd been able to place the location, she could not even quickly cause scoring because she'd still be behind me in influence. So the ability to lay the location down in such a way that you've already got a bunch of influence for it is really important, and again more important in the 2-player game where there's undoubtedly a bigger chance of laying a location down such that no one but you has influence on it to start. This would be a lot harder in a multiplayer game where each person only owns 1 color.

In the end I won 44 to 37 and led through the last 3 locations. All the characters got used, although 3 of them not till the last location, and all by Joanna. Overall it wasn't a particularly compelling game, and I never felt really interested in the outcome. It's hard to look at (mud puddle and all) and the game play is just not that exciting. Plus with having to play 2 colors it causes some weird effects you know you wouldn't see in a multiplayer game. I might be inclined to try it multiplayer sometime, but it's hard to see this coming to the table over Samurai on most occasions. Which is too bad, really, because with some better artwork and a non-cheesy theme, this could be an interesting "Samurai variant" that might get played from time to time.

I rate this game a 4 out of 10 for the 2-player version. Possibly it could creep higher multiplayer. The game took just under an hour.

Thread: Re: Question on the Dragon and the Current Location

wmshub — 2008-05-19T16:39:16+00:00

#1 - The rules say "at the current location," they don't mention when the tiles were played. So yes, play the dragon on any tile you want, as long as it is next to the current location.

#2 - Yes, again when the tiles were played doesn't matter. If the tile is next to the current location, then the safe/unsafe nature of the current location is all that matters.

Thread: Question on the Dragon and the Current Location

chansen2794 — 2008-05-19T05:36:14+00:00

Hi all. I had a question come up when reading through the rules. The rules say that the Dragon can only be played on tiles at the current location. My question is, since tiles from the previous location can also count for the current location (if the new location is placed adjacent to them), are they fair game for Dragon attacks?

Also, if the current location is unsafe and the previous location is safe, can tiles with higher values be placed on tiles that are adjacent to both locations?

Or, once a location is scored, are all tiles adjacent to it safe regardless of a new location placed adjacent to them?

Thread: Re: Complete list of tile names, and artist's notes

photocurio — 2008-04-26T17:25:41+00:00

Thanks, Barliman, for working to revive interest in this sad flop of a game. I think it has potential, maybe it would be as good a game as Samurai, or Through The Desert, if given decent production. I can't separate the design and production of a game from the mechanics. for me a satisfying experience has to involve both.

It is possible that the masks and icons by Barliman will make a pretty good fix to this game.

Thread: Re: New tile design? Or personal project?

Barliman — 2008-02-21T08:14:50+00:00

EvilTimmy wrote:
Tip the man!
Thanks!

Drew1365 wrote:
Holy crap! Is this X-acto Knife Hell?!It depends on how you feel about spending a dozen hours wielding the knife!

Image

Barliman — 2008-02-21T03:35:23+00:00

"King's Gate Blindness" is now avoidable

Thread: Re: Designer's notes on the tile masks

wmshub — 2008-02-20T20:25:00+00:00

Good work. Your tiles look like a huge improvement.

There's a thread here with comments from the original artist. It seems it was his first design job ever, and there were a lot of things about the final tiles that he didn't know (he didn't know that the numbers and icons would be layered over the top, for example).

Although he says that he still like the idea of having interlocking city pictures around the tiles. I think maybe it could be made to work, but you'd need to be very, very clever about the color choices to prevent it from being too busy or being too hard to see the central building.

Thread: Designer's notes on the tile masks

Barliman — 2008-02-20T20:05:34+00:00

Designer's notes

I have recently posted a file that people can use to print out labels on the King's Gate tiles to make them look better. You can see the change in these images:

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For those who are interested in doing similar projects, here are some notes about what I did.

After getting King's Gate, I saw how many people complained about the graphics, and thought about how it could be fixed. In theory, I like the idea of a similar background on the border of each tile, allowing them to fit together and look like part of a city, but in practice the combined result looks far too crowded and chaotic.

So, the border buildings had to go. To test it out, I downloaded an image from BGG and erased the edge buildings to see what it might look like. It looked reasonable, so I started a design on masks that could be printed out on label paper and pasted to the tiles.

I worked in PowerPoint, reading in image files, resizing them to actual size, and drawing freeform lines around the parts to remain showing. The idea was to have a background rectangle filled in with a sandy color similar to the street color on the tiles, and on top of them I'd have white outlines of the part to be cut out of the label. But I did start with all the objects with black borders and no fills, so I could see through to the image and adjust things. It took several rounds of adjustment, first on regular paper and finally on label paper. Some adjustments required the "Edit Points" command on the lines, while others required adjusting their overall position. From a single cut-out area I switched to separate areas around the building and each number, circle or shield on the tile, so that they could be adjusted separately.

I adapted my approach as I went on, and saw what looked better. I started by masking out as little as possible -- just the buildings, leaving surrounding streets visible -- and ended up masking out the streets too, going up to the edges of the building. I started by masking all of the surrounding buildings, even where they overlap the main building in the foreground, and ended up following the edge of the building (as well as could be determined) even if parts of the border roofs overlapped. I started with a dotted-line rectangle showing where the outline of the tile should be, but found that there is a bit of variation in the alignment between the picture and the tile edges, so I removed the line, just leaving the tan background which has about 1/8" overlap out from each edge. One location tile was so off that the dotted line was quite prominent, which gave me a chance to practice removing a label.

I also made masks for the character counters -- they also have the background buildings around the edges, and so they blend in with the surroundings, making it hard to see where they are. The rules show the counters with a solid border, so I put a border around the counters myself. I wanted a color different from the player colors, so I started with orange. But the orange is not very different from the tan background of the tiles, so I switched to a lavender that printed out looking more blue. I included both colors in the file for people to choose.

I took advantage of this project to do a couple other things to the tiles. First, I put the name of the tile type on the tile -- though I had to do homework to find out what all the names were, see this thread: Second, I placed icons on the tiles and counters that had special effects, to act as a reminder. (It's all too easy to forget the limits on the Graveyard and Garrison, for example.) I tried to come up with common sense icons that would match their meaning; they probably wouldn't be obvious if you didn't know the rules, but if you did, they should be helpful.

Of course I then implemented it all myself both for my own enjoyment and to make sure it would work well for others too. I ended up spending a lot of time with the hobby knife, and figured out the best ways for me to place the tiles, which I put in the file's instructions. It wasn't a hassle, except for a bit of soreness in my thumb after long sessions, and I got a silicone pencil cushion to help with that. I had nice times listening to books on tape in the meantime. At the end I thought to time it: it took me about 2.5 hours to do all the masks for one player's district tiles, or about 7 minutes per tile. Applying all the masks to a new set would probably take me 12-13 hours total.

Was it worth it? I am quite pleased with the result. The tiles now look a little more abstract, floating in space rather than being seen as part of a city, but the aesthetic improvement is very large, and not only makes the final layout look a lot better, it makes the actual playing of the game feel more pleasant as well.

Now I just need to be able to win a game against my wife and daughter!

Thread: Re: New tile design? Or personal project?

Drew1365 — 2008-02-15T05:40:03+00:00

Holy crap! Is this X-acto Knife Hell?!

Thread: Re: New tile design? Or personal project?

EvilTimmy — 2008-02-15T02:52:49+00:00

Bryan created a set of masks that you can print to adhesive paper and apply to the original tiles to improve their appearance.

File here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/30419

Tip the man!

Thread: New tile design? Or personal project?

Drew1365 — 2008-02-15T01:37:55+00:00

So, have they redone the graphics for this game? Or did someone go to a LOT of trouble?

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Image

Barliman — 2008-02-14T23:22:35+00:00

After: showing how much nicer the game looks with the tile mask labels applied

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Barliman — 2008-02-14T22:09:17+00:00

Before: at the end of the a sample game

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Barliman — 2008-02-14T22:08:19+00:00

Old and new - spare sheet and masked pieces

Thread: Re: King's Gate, AKA El Grande Samurai de las Citadels

NateStraight — 2008-01-17T15:17:20+00:00

wmshub wrote:
I think one big difference between King's Gate and Samurai, TTD, or T&E, is that King's Gate has lots of special cases.

Definitely. This is where, I thought, it had the most similarities to a chaotic Bruno Faidutti game like Citadels or the like. It's a very different type of game from Knizia, but I think it's a welcome change. I could certainly see how others who are used to his typical style of game would be put off by King's Gate.

Also, the 2 player game makes this worse by making each player manage two colors, which almost-but-not-quite act like one color.

Yes, the 2-player game is a bit odd.

Maybe after a few more games (I've played only one so far) it will grow on me, but if you like Knizia for how he boils games down to the minimum necessary, this may not be the Knizia for you.

Definitely agree, although I think the change is nice.

Thread: Re: King's Gate, AKA El Grande Samurai de las Citadels

wmshub — 2008-01-17T08:20:34+00:00

I think one big difference between King's Gate and Samurai, TTD, or T&E, is that King's Gate has lots of special cases. I love Samurai the way it just just the bare minimum complexity to make an interesting game; the base tiles, a couple special tiles, that's it. King's Gate has so many special powers and conditions (Ohhhh, but this is a dangerous location...no, but wait, you played the king disc...Ah, but the dragon can go on top of other tiles anyway...no wait, but this is a #3 tile, and dragon's aren't allowed on top of it...!)

For me that difference is a bit of a turnoff. It seems the style of game would be better with a cleaner design. Also, the 2 player game makes this worse by making each player manage two colors, which almost-but-not-quite act like one color. Maybe after a few more games (I've played only one so far) it will grow on me, but if you like Knizia for how he boils games down to the minimum necessary, this may not be the Knizia for you.

Thread: King's Gate, AKA El Grande Samurai de las Citadels

NateStraight — 2008-01-17T05:53:36+00:00

Overview

King's Gate is a tile-laying, area-control / area-majority / area-influence (don't these really all mean the same thing?) game. It feels a heck of a lot like another Knizia tile-laying, area-control / area-majority / area-influence game by the name of Samurai, but it has inklings of other games, including El Grande and Citadels. The differences between King's Gate and these three other [great] games are significant enough to merit owning King's Gate even if you own all three of these others.

In King's Gate, you will vie with your fellow players over control of ten districts in a medieval (really, more gothic) city that you are re-building. The player(s) with the largest influence over each successive district of the city will receive points. Along the way, a few special characters will butt in to add a touch of chaos, often markedly absent from Knizia's games, to the mix. The "vying over" mechanic is very similar to the corollary mechanic in Samurai, the "receiving points" mechanic is similar to El Grande, and the "special characters" mechanic is a little similar to Citadels.

Gameplay

Unlike Samurai or El Grande where you will be fighting for influence over many areas at once, the fights in King's Gate are presented to the players one at a time and each one is fully resolved before the next takes place. There are ten rectangular district tiles (a double-square in dimensions) around which the players will take turns placing a number of their own tiles, which each will exert a particular amount of influence on the current district tile. After the district tile is fully surrounded (think Samurai here) by player tiles, it will be scored and the next district tile will be played. The ever-growing landscape of the gothic city you are building is pleasant to watch unfold as new districts are added, and the focus on only one district at a time keeps tensions very high throughout the entire game.

There are, of course, a few added twists to make the game [much] more interesting. First of all, although the tile-laying aspect of the game is very similar to Knizia's Samurai, the point-scoring is more similar to El Grande. Instead of the strongest influence taking all the spoils of victory in each fight, the second and third place spots will also receive a smaller reward (think the scoring / payout charts of El Grande) for their lesser influence on the current district tile. This provides a nice opportunity for clever tactical play; much like El Grande, it's often better to be second in many regions (i.e. districts) than to take first in one or two and receive nothing for the rest. You probably won't win the game if you don't ever take first, but you certainly won't win if you never take second or third of the districts you lose first place in.

The second twist is the addition of some rule-breaking special characters, each with their own unique special power to offer. These characters are obtained by winning majorities in certain district tiles, and can be played later to affect other districts or player tiles. Although the actual mechanics are worlds apart from the third "similar" game I mentioned, Citadels, the rule-breaking and chaos-inducing aspects of these special characters evokes a similar feel and gameplay experience to Citadels. This is not the main element of gameplay in King's Gate as it is in Citadels, but it's definitely a welcome diversion from some of Knizia's more straight-forward titles. It's rare for players to be given the opportunity to be on unequal footing in a Knizia game (Carcassonne: The Castle comes to mind as another rare Knizia which grants players differing special abilities throughout the game), but the various characters awarded during King's Gate provide just this opportunity. A well-time attack on the correct district tile can give you the character, and special ability, you need to get a leg-up on your opponents.

Other interesting elements of the gameplay include the semi-alternating "safe" and "dangerous" districts that come up during the game. Whereas in Samurai, players can only fill in spaces that other players have yet to take and cannot directly interfere with other players' plans, King's Gate provides players the opportunity to engage in very direct and very brutal offensive moves against their opponents. In the safe districts, players can only play in empty spaces surrounding the district tile, but in the dangerous districts, players can play their individual tiles directly on top of other players' tiles if the strength of the new tile is higher than that of the one being replaced. In addition, each player has a "dragon" tile that can completely eliminate [almost] any opposing tile from play, even when the current district is a "safe" one. This added element of direct conflict between players makes for a much more brutal and, I'd say, ballsy game than the similar Samurai. Where Samurai is cold and elegant, King's Gate is more earthy and visceral.

Conclusion

I may have harped too much on the similarities between King's Gate and a few other games, but there is a lot here that feels "old hat" or re-hashed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, however, as King's Gate combines these different mechanics in a fun, relatively simple, and very engaging way. This is not a grand-strategic area-control game like El Grande, but it has a lot of the most enjoyable elements, to me, of the area-control genre packaged in a much more accessible and less heavy package (literally and figuratively). Similarly, it has a lot of the tactical tile-laying gameplay of Samurai with the added appeal of the chaotic special abilities and more combative play style. For those who love Knizia's more interactive games like Tigris & Euphrates or Blue Moon, but may be left cold by the more calculating and mathematical efforts like Samurai or Through the Desert, King's Gate would be a perfect choice. For others who enjoy tile-laying and area-control games in general, King's Gate offers a nice, small, quick option that fits in when longer and heavier games won't.

Final Word

Don't let the oft-bemoaned graphic design put you off too quickly from this game. It is pretty busy, yes, but not nearly as bad as it appears in digital form. The relevant information (player influence, point spread, etc) jumps out of the graphic design fairly easily, and the focus on only one district at a time helps to allay any difficulties of "reading the board" or the like. Personally, I find the dark, gothic tones of the graphic design to be a welcome change from the light-hearted idealized picture of the medieval world presented in games like Carcassonne or Löwenherz. Perhaps the artwork is another slight similarity to Citadels, if that strengthens the earlier comparison to that particular game in any way.

Thread: Re: Complete list of tile names, and artist's notes

wmshub — 2008-01-14T22:49:55+00:00

Nifty. I just got my first play the other day, and it's interesting to hear the artist's take on what went wrong. If you look at the tiles up close, the artwork is pretty neat - but put it all together and it's awful, maybe the worst graphic design of any game I own. Somebody at FFG should have noticed what a train wreck it was and made it go through a redesign before it went to the printer.

Thread: Re: Complete list of tile names, and artist's notes

GSReis — 2008-01-11T20:23:38+00:00

Thanks a lot for posting it! I was also a little bothered by not knowing the names and had thought of asking FFG. Really nice!

Thread: Complete list of tile names, and artist's notes

Barliman — 2008-01-11T19:15:36+00:00

We got this game for Christmas. I like the art on the tiles, and felt a bit frustrated that we weren't given the names for all the places shown. It doesn't affect gameplay, but it would be nice to know their names. I wrote Fantasy Flight with a list of my guesses, and they said "Believe it or not, there is no 'official' designation to any of those district tiles. Your naming convention seems as logical as any other."

That was mildly frustrating, but I still liked dealing with them. Our copy of the game had two copies of the cardboard tile sheet #6, and none of #1, and FFG's customer support was very quick in providing a replacement -- much more important than the name question.

Still, I wanted to know, so I wrote Tobias Mannewitz, the artist who did the tile art, and he was gracious enough to respond, giving some corrections and comments to my guesses.

So here is a semi-official list of names of the tiles. The names not mentioned in the rules are underlined; Tobias' comments are in italics:

Locations:
1 - Palace
2 - Cathedral
3 - Wizard's Manse (*Evil* wizard's manse )
4 - Graveyard
5 - Marketplace
6 - Garrison
7 - Prison
8 - Tourney Grounds
9 - Sorceress' Tower
10 - King's Gate

Districts:
0 - Pub
1 - House (Correct, but more in the sense of slum houses)
2 - Shops ("Commercial district", so to say)
3 - Barracks
4 - Manor (Yupp. Upperclass housing)
5 - Keep (Can't remember it's name, but, yeah, seems to be a keep)

The new names above are my own guesses, with two exceptions that Tobias corrected: I called District #2 "Inn" instead of "Shops", and Location #10 "City Gates" instead of "King's Gate" (D'oh! Of course...) So they may not be the "real" names, but are probably close enough.

Finally, with permission, here are Tobias's notes:

We [Marko Djurdjevic and I] shared the work on this game: I did all the tiles, and Marko did the box cover art. We also collaborated on Atlanteon (he did most of the drawings, I did most of the colorwork), maybe you know this game, too.

I spent many hours on these tiles, since digital painting -- that makes illustrators' life much easier today -- wasn't really on my agenda back then. Looking back at my old work, I can see some problems. If I had to redo them nowadays, I would have cared more about clear readability of the various buildings. I had also lowered the detail grade (I didn't know the tiles would become THAT small!), but had payed more accuracy on silhouette an colors, to achieve instant recognizability. Also, I didn't know that FFG was to put these huge shields on each tile. If I had known, I would have tried to avoid any overlappings. But, nevermind...

King's Gate was actually one of my first works in the field of illustration, so there was certainly a little lack of experience. The idea of creating a fitting "city texture", on which the several buildings can be put, was mine, and I still like it.

Thread: King's Gate (Review)

seawolf — 2007-11-02T16:14:42+00:00

King's Gate
From: Fantasy Flight Games
Reviewed by: Ron McClung

King's Gate is a Reiner Knizia designed tile-based board game from Fantasy Flight Games.

In King's Gate, the players play feuding nobles trying to gain influence (victory points) by surrounding key locations, like the Palace or the Library, with buildings you control, called district tiles. There are varying factors that affect strategy, including special locations, characters, the dragon, and special district tiles.

There are 10 medieval-style key locations that are stacked in order from 1 to 10. These include the the Palace, the Graveyard, the Barracks, the Tourney Grounds and the Library. This is the predictable part of the game, because you know what's coming next. Each player has a stack of tiles representing their own district tiles. They are numbered 1 to 5 and each player has 22 of them. These make up the players draw pile, the source of the play hand. This is the random part of the game.

Players start with 6 randomly chosen district tiles and the first location - the Palace - on the table. Each player places a location around the ten possible locations around the location tile. The key aspect to this is that there are very specific rules as to what can be laid when. There are situations in which you can build on opponents tiles when key locations called dangerous locations are played. As mentioned above there are characters that can be acquired through play that can complicate issues also by protecting your locations from being built upon, as well as perform other special effects. There are key locations that have special effects as well as a few district tiles.

Each location has three sets of numbers representing victory points for first, second and third place. Once the last district tile has been placed, scoring occurs to determine the first, second and third place player. The values of the district cards for each player are added up to obtain the scores for that round. The victory points are tallied and the next location is placed by the last person to lay a tile and he must place it adjacent to one of the currently laid tiles. Logic would dictate that he would place it somewhere close to his own, giving the last person to lay a tile an advantage. But because there are situations you where you can place more than one tile, the last person could be anyone.

The challenge to this game comes in several aspects: remembering some of the special abilities of the locations and district cards and when to place characters. Because you are randomly pulling your district tiles, your strategy revolves around what you have now and what you think you can get later.

In conclusion, what can one say about a Reiner Knizia tile game. The man is a brilliant designer and although this may not be one of his more well-known games, this is a very good one. It is a challenge in resource allocation with a little luck and bluffing throughout it. It is a deceptively simple looking game with subtle complexities. The devil is in the details... or dragon, in this case.

For more details on Fantasy Flight Games and their Tile-based board game “King's Gate” check them out at their website http://www.fantasyflightgames.com, and at all of your local game stores.

King's Gate
From: Fantasy Flight Games
Type of Game: Tile-based board game
Game Design by: Reiner Knizia
Editting by: Darrell Hardy, Greg Benage, Christian T. Petersen
Cover Art by: Narko Djurdjevic, Tobias Mannewitz
Number of Pages: 2 page rule sheet (multiple languages)
Game Components Included: 10 key location tiles, 88 district tiles, 30 victory point tokens, 6 character counters
Retail Price: $ 19.95 (US)
Number of Players: 2-4
Player Ages: 9+
Play Time: 20 min+
Website: www.fantasyflightgames.com

Reviewed by: Ron McClung

Thread: Re: Q: Dragon on Stacked tiles

orangeblood — 2007-08-27T01:14:31+00:00

bshirley wrote:
Can the Dragon be played on a tile that is stacked in an unsafe location? (i.e. 4 on a 2)

Yes.

If so, Is only the top tile removed? (i.e. the 2 remains) Or are all the tiles removed? (i.e. the space is now empty)

The rules say (emphasis mine):

"When you place the dragon tile on an opponent’s tile, both the dragon and your opponent’s tile are discarded from the game, thus freeing the district’s space adjacent to the current location."

Since it seems the dragon is supposed to free up the space when played, I would say you remove all the tiles. That's how we've always played it.

Rex

Thread: Q: Dragon on Stacked tiles

bshirley — 2007-08-26T18:38:52+00:00

Can the Dragon be played on a tile that is stacked in an unsafe location? (i.e. 4 on a 2)

If so, Is only the top tile removed? (i.e. the 2 remains)

Or are all the tiles removed? (i.e. the space is now empty)

(I don't think this is directly answered by the rules. So, if anyone else has made a house ruling on this, what was it?)

Thread: Re: tied for 2nd or 3rd

orangeblood — 2007-07-09T17:51:32+00:00

Hi Peter, here's the ruling:

"If there is a tie,
the player to the left of the player who placed the last tile wins all ties. If this
player is not involved, the next involved player in clockwise order wins the
tie. The player who played the last tile loses all ties."

Thread: tied for 2nd or 3rd

ttfn — 2007-07-09T08:27:13+00:00

We had our first game on the weekend.

The rules did not seem to address if the 2nd or 3rd / 4th players are tied in score. What happens to the points? Do they get totaled and divided rounded down - or are they lost?

What happens?

Peter

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Imploded — 2007-06-07T13:44:52+00:00

Russian Edition

Thread: Re: Characters played only once?

kentreuber — 2007-04-11T17:19:03+00:00

Thanks. That's what I assumed.

Thread: Re: Characters played only once?

orangeblood — 2007-04-11T17:15:01+00:00

Though it doesn't say explicitly in the rules, I'm sure you can only play them once, just like any other tiles.

Thread: Characters played only once?

kentreuber — 2007-04-11T16:31:35+00:00

If I win a character, does that mean he can be played only once? Or once played, can a character be moved from one tile to the next?

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-03-17T17:04:25+00:00

Character Counters

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-03-17T17:03:43+00:00

Back of Box (read friendly)

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-03-17T16:59:49+00:00

Big scan of Cover

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Guantanamo — 2007-02-19T23:46:22+00:00

Game in progress

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Guantanamo — 2007-02-19T23:45:37+00:00

Pile of coins

Thread: Jumping out of the gates

citylife — 2007-02-06T21:02:02+00:00

We had played a two player game earlier but this was the last game of our four player day and it seemed to drag for a couple of players. This was my suggestion and I think by this satge everyone was just a little hot and tired to really care about this one. It is important to care when playing this game since everyone of your decisions effects someone else.

The comparisons with samurai come thick and fast from start to finish and it may result in a bad rap for Kings gate. kings gate has some very different feature, firstly the placement of the new tiles and special counters for winning tiles. And it is exactly the balance of these counters that make quick wins important.

And that was the way of the game. Jason took all of the first three or four tiles and had all but two of the special power counters. He also took first in over half the tiles including the last. All in all it was an utter thrashing.

The morals of this story are firstly that a quick start and some powerful placement can be a path to victory. Secondly, this is a game where you have to care because you only have so much control. Like four player samurai there is a lot that others do that spoils your game, you need to be able to predict the moves of others. And hence thirdly this is a game for the caring and the energetic not for the hot and tired.

The comparison with Samurai is good, perhaps this was a fore-runner for the better samurai, and one might slap Kinizia in the face for so closely duplicating games. Still there are differences that make this game worth playing in my opinion, though not on a weekly basis.

Thread: Re: Graveyard Question

fightcitymayor — 2007-01-06T05:53:57+00:00

I disagree. The 2-tile-only rule wouldn't seem to completely re-write the basic rules, it just limits the existing rules to 2 tiles. Adding what amounts to a free-for-all rule on top of a tile-limit rule doesn't seem to make sense in the function of what is otherwise a simple game.

Thread: King's Gate: Deceptively Simple

Gila-Man — 2006-12-23T05:42:30+00:00

We stumbled and fumbled a lot in the early going of playing Reiner Knizia’s King’s Gate, a strategy game for 2-4 players. The basic premise is really quite simple: Use the cards in your hand to gain control of the location cards. The cards in your hand are valued from 0-5, and it’s the player with the most points played around the location who wins the victory points—and possible the token(s) it may award.

It doesn’t take long for players to start catching on to various strategies. The initial locations in play offer fewer victory points than the later locations, but they make up for that with character tokens that protect played cards and implement gameplay changes for the current location in play. Deceptively simple yet tactically complex, King’s Gate is another winner from Knizia.

The game consists of stacks of cards for each player, the kingdom location cards (numbered from 1-10), the character tokens, which protect player cards and alter the rules, and the victory point tokens. The objective, of course, is to be the player to accumulate the most victory points at the end. This lends some strategic depth to the game because you may not want to play your best cards in the early locations, as it is the later locations the offer the most victory points. The vested interest in those initial locations comes in the form of the character tokens.

The winner of the location—the player with the most points once the last card is placed—gains the benefit of choosing where to place the next location card. This player will naturally choose to place the next location adjacent to his own cards in order to potentially gain a points advantage for that location. It wasn’t until the latter rounds of our game that the ramifications of this began to dawn on us.

The different types of locations also lend depth to the game and can alter strategies. When you play your cards around a location, you must consider the aspects of the location, including whether it is “safe” or “dangerous” and whether it is one of the special locations designated in the rules. Though the gameplay is simple, these elements add depth and complexity.

Though we hadn’t completely grasped the rules of the game when we began playing (we tend to prefer learning by doing), we found the competitive gameplay quite enjoyable. It was over time that the light bulbs started popping on in the minds of the players as they captured glimpses of tactics and strategies. The late game thus featured quite a bit of meta-thinking. Interestingly enough, it was the player who fell way behind in the early going who ultimately emerged the victory in the game. The lesson learned: Early success does not mean certain victory.

With its deceptively simply gameplay and tactical depth, King’s Gate is game that I certainly look forward to playing again. Now that our group has gotten its feet wet with the game, we’re itching to play again and unseat the come-from-behind champion.

Thread: Re: Various questions

orangeblood — 2006-12-13T06:29:25+00:00

Hi Jason, I'll do my best:

Der Ubermolch wrote:
1) Is a player's hand open or closed? That is to say, can my opponent look at the tiles I have available to play or is that incformation secret?

Closed hand, almost certainly.

2) Is a barracks -- the three tile -- safe from the dragon? The rules state that a dragon is placed on top of a tile, and they also say that barracks are immune from having tiles played on top of them, which suggests that a dragon can't destroy a barracks.... but the dragons might be special in this regard.

The rules are very clear here:

"Exception: Even at dangerous (black) locations, you may not place your
tile (even if it is the dragon tile) on top of an opponent’s value 3 tile (the Barracks, marked with a sword)."

King's Gate is one of those games I just haven't played enough to form a solid opinion. I have to sort of re-learn it each time I play. I think it could get better with more plays, and is probably better than its 6.5 rating.

Thread: Various questions

Der Ubermolch — 2006-12-04T03:28:53+00:00

The rules to this game are not very well-written. One of my questions -- whether dragons can be played in safe locations -- already seems to be answered here (yes). So, two more questions:

1) Is a player's had open or closed? That is to say, can my opponent look at the tiles I have available to play or is that incformation secret?

2) Is a barracks -- the three tile -- safe from the dragon? The rules state that a dragon is placed on top of a tile, and they also say that barracks are immune from having tiles played on top of them, which suggests that a dragon can't destroy a barracks.... but the dragons might be special in this regard.

Thanks to whoever takes the time and energy to respond. I like the game so far but can't be sure 'til I knwo I'm playing by the proper rules.

Thread: Session Report

Shade_Jon — 2006-12-03T21:17:19+00:00

David 27, Nadine 21, Rivka 18, Binaymin 17

Binyamin introduced this as an opener game, intending to play three players and be finished in a half an hour. Nadine joined them before the game started. Binyamin didn't count on both David and Nadine, who seem to prefer to "solve" games rather than play them. Every turn, they both treid to map out every possible remaining move until the end of the game, or so I hear. It ended up taking about three hours. They still seem to have had some fun.

Nadine adds:

David and I didn't try to map out every possible move, or plan beyond one turn, though we were discussing strategy because we were trying to figure out how to play a new game. The only lengthening part was at the end. I was choosing the last placement location, and I picked the one which was most likely to give me the most points. Binyamin complained that I was giving David the game, because that position gave David lots of points as opposed to Binyamin, they were both ahead and in contention to win. So after playing out that spot, which gave me second place, we went back and played out the other spot, to demonstrate for Binyamin and everyone that it wasn't as good of a spot for me, which was the case. David still would have won, but I wouldn't have come in second, and Binyamin would have done better. It's a tricky game, but you don't really have control because other players have too many ways to attack you when you can't respond. I prefer games where what I do feels like it matters more. David did a good job catching on quickly to key aspects for winning. We all blocked Binyamin more because he was ahead early, I guess to David's benefit.

Thread: 2-player game

ghcstr — 2006-11-19T09:51:47+00:00

After our third player had to bail out on us, HC and I sat down to play a quick game of King's Gate. We had never played the 2-player variation before, so after a quick brushing up on the rules, we were ready to do battle.

Per the 2-player rules, we combined two colors each so were playing with the full complement of tiles, just trying to manage two colors each instead of the usual one.

For those that aren't familiar, when playing with only two, you shuffle in two colors per person in your tiles. When laying down the tiles you are under the same tile laying constraint as in a normal 4 player game. For instance, if you have three 1s in both colors, you can lay them all down without regard to which colors they are. If you have a 2 or greater tile in both colors, you can still only lay one down.

The interesting part comes into play when you are scoring the Location. It is scored exactly like a 4-player game - so one player can catch both 1st and 2nd places in a Location. It becomes much more of a hand/tile management game with two players.

I handily won the first two Locations, had my Characters and was feeling good about it, then HC got the hang of managing the two colors and started slaughtering me. After the 3rd Location, I only won 1 other Location, other than that HC captured 1st on everything and 2nd on most of them. I now need to go back and look at how I was managing the tiles I had.

Once in the lead after successfully taking the 5th Location, HC managed to lay almost every other Location in a place where both of HC's colors were present in 3-4 of the spaces in the Location. And all too often with 5s and 3s. Add to this that I forgot to protect my 5 tile with a Character toward the end of the game and it was just a horrible game for me. But, as is always my "measuring stick", we had a good time and are ready to retry the 2-player version soon to see if we I learned anything about taking care of the two colors at once.

Thread: Reminds me of Westeros.

themagni — 2006-11-08T18:33:05+00:00

We bought King's Gate because it looked like a good time for 2 players. We were deciding between this and Clans.

The basic mechanic of the game is laying out a city. Whoever earns the most gold at the end is the winner.

The theme reminded me of A Song of Fire and Ice, probably better known as "Game of Thrones". There's the plotting in the city, dragons, and a quest for political domination. I don't know why, but the dark and gloomy theme along with the title just makes me think of King's Landing.

Components:
Let's not mince words. These components suck. They're all cardboard and thick, and they got run through an embosser. That means they're all dented on one side, and unevenly. When punching them out, there were a lot of leftover tags hanging off the sides, and a few almost - but not quite - had the printed layer come off. I guess I should have grabbed an X-acto knife and spent an hour cutting them out instead of just punching them out. That shouldn't be something I should have to do. I certainly shouldn't feel like I'm ripping my brand new game to bits when I'm just trying to set it up.

There are a few different types of components in the game. You have 10 location tiles. Those tiles will be surrounded by a plethora of player-coloured district tiles. You also get a handful of character tokens and a smattering of gold pieces.

Others have said that the box holds the components. I do not agree. I had to put all the components into baggies and when I put the box away, it tends to bulge out and try to open. Maybe we don't get the right sorters in Canada, or maybe 2nd runs of games get cheaper, or maybe I have bad luck.

Each player has the same set of district tiles:
1 zero-point pub
7 one-point houses
4 two-point somethings
4 three-point barracks
4 four-point somethings
1 five-point something (aka dragon food)
1 dragon.

There are official names for these districts, but they really aren't important.

Gameplay:
The game starts when you put down the first location tile. Each player will put down one district tile. Once the location tile is surrounded by 10 district tiles, the location is scored. The player who got the highest value in their district gets the highest gold listed on the location. They also get the character token, if the location has one. The second player gets the second most gold, and the third player gets the lowest amount. The player who completed the location by placing the last district tile gets to choose the location of the next location. Note that each location must be horizontal; the rules don't say so, but the FAQ clarifies.

When you place a new location, you should obviously place it is such a way that your previously played district tiles count twice, and your opponents' high tiles are kept out of harm's way. They'll be trying to do this to you later.

You start and stay with 5 tiles in your hand, kept secret from the other players. At the end of your turn, you draw tiles until you have 5. It is a blind draw, meaning you have no idea what you're going to have in your hand at any given time. (Unless you're counting the tiles.)

At first, you cannot lay a tile on another player's tile. That will change with the location; if the number is black(dangerous), then you can place a tile with a higher value on top, effectively removing your opponents' tile. If the number is white(safe) then you are mostly safe. All you have to worry about are trivial things like The King or Dragons.

There are exceptions: You can place as many housing districts as you would like. You can place the pub in addition to any other tile. You can place the dragon in addition to any other tile. For example, you could place a 5, a dragon, and a pub, or you could place 4 housings and the pub. You can never place any tile, even a dragon, on a barracks. I suppose the little men inside try to kick your ass.

Some of the locations have special abilities, too. In the graveyard, you can not place more than 2 tiles in a turn. In another (whose name escapes me) you can only play one housing district.

The dragon is special in that it destroys any other tiles that are placed in that district, clearing the land for a new district. You can't use it to fill out a location for the win. (The rules mention this specifically.)

As mentioned before, some of the locations award the winning player with character tokens. Each token has two special abilities. First, a tile with a token on it can never be destroyed by a dragon nor can a higher-point tile be placed on it. This is a big deal if you have some high-level tokens and you haven't seen the dragons yet. Next, each confers a special power:

The King: Obtained in Location 1. Switches between "safe" and dangerous. It is unclear if you can place the king as you are switching to dangerous.

The Bishop: Obtained in Location 2. Instead of counting the value of the districts, you count just the number of districts.

The Wizard: Obtained in Location 3. Allows two districts of the same value to be played on the same turn. Normally you can only play one of the high-point districts.

The Guild Master: Obtained in Location 5. Adds 2 points to the value of the district. Suddenly, you can have a 6 or 7 point tile.

The Merchant: Obtained in Location 5, given to the second-place player. Protects the tile. This is a lot more useful than it sounds.

The Sorceress: Obtained in Location 9. Allows you to pull out a tile from earlier in the game and play it. This means your 5 pointer you used to get the King can be used to grab even more VP at the end of the game.

Unplaced character tokens are worth nothing at the end of the game. Use 'em or lose 'em.

The game ends when the players are out of tiles or when the tenth location is filled in.

If you are playing with 2 players, each player plays two colours.

At the end of the game, you'll end up with a nice layout of a dark, Gothic city, crowded to the edges of the city walls. The graphics mostly line up nicely, and it's a neat effect. (Very similar to Carcassone.)

Conclusion:
King's gate is nice. It's relatively cheap, plays quickly, and does not have a huge time investment. Replay value is somewhat limited, since there's no random location placement. It's worth buying, and part of that is the fact that it's cheaper than a lot of other games.

Thread: Re: Dragon Question

relic10 — 2006-08-19T20:08:09+00:00

Thanks, Jim. That's what I figured, but not having even played the game yet, I wanted to get someone else's take on it. I appreciate the help.

Thread: Re: Dragon Question

jpact — 2006-08-19T19:55:58+00:00

I agree that the written rules are not crystal clear. My interpretation has also been that the Dragons can be played in white locations. I think it is an important part of the game that, even in white locations, your tiles are never totally safe until all of your opponents' dragons have been played.

Thread: Dragon Question

relic10 — 2006-08-19T18:45:08+00:00

I just bought this game but have not played it yet, just read through the rules. When the rules state, regarding white (safe) districts, "tiles may only be played in free spaces. That is, if an opponent's tile is already in a space, you may not place one of your tiles in that space", I assume that is referring only to the ability to replace other tiles, and that it does not apply to dragons. Am I correct in that assumption? I.e. can dragons be played in white districts?

Thread: Re: Graveyard Question

Spielguy — 2006-03-21T16:37:54+00:00

My understanding is that you can place one or two tiles of any value. That is what is stated (it says one or two tiles but doesn't qualify them).

Thread: Graveyard Question

BlackTower — 2005-12-20T22:25:34+00:00

I have a question about the Graveyard.

The rules say that "When the Graveyard is the current locationm you may place one or two tiles on your turn, but never more than two tiles (including tiles with value 0, value 1, or the dragon)."

I'm assuming this means that all other tile placement rules apply [i.e. only additional tiles can be played if they are all value 1, or the pub, or the dragon], and you are just restricted to two?

There was a debate as to whether you could play 2 tiles of any value, or whether all other placement rules applied, and you could just place a maximum of 2 tiles.

Thanks!

Thread: Session Report

toucana — 2005-03-27T23:43:16+00:00

King's Gate came out to the table after a game of Java. We needed something to slow down and wind down the night. We played 3-player King's Gate with me, JY and BG holding down the fort. I decided to jump to an early start by using high value tiles and also "wasting" away my value 1 tiles to end location, score and place the next location.

Meanwhile, BG was somewhat more conservative while JY was right in the middle of the pack. At game's end, I managed to whole a large enough lead that neither player could catch up.

It was interesting that even though I slowed down considerably toward the end, fighting merely for second place a handful of times was sufficient for me to win the game. In addition, with tiles winding down, it is often beneficial to select wide open locations such that more tiles from other opponents need to be placed to win the game.

Final score : TH-21, JY-15, BG-13?

Thread: User Review

toucana — 2005-03-27T09:30:00+00:00

King's Gate is a tile-laying game that is best summed up as a cross between Bruno Faidutti's Citadels and Knizia's own Samurai. Nevertheless, this game is a great filler and capable of standing on its own.

COMPONENTS
The components in this game are in-line with components one would expect from the Fantasy Flight Silver Line series games. Basically, the tiles are good quality cardboard stock and are pretty sturdy. Besides the four sets of districts tiles, there are also 10 location tiles and several cardboard chits for special characters and victory points.
All the items in this game are placed in a generic insert that comes in all FGG Silver Lane games. The insert serves no purpose and it is advisable just to bag the individual colored districts in separate bags.
The art for this game while not spectacular, is pleasing and certainly well drawn. I have had more than one friend comment that at the end of the game, the city looks great. The artist certainly did a great job of creating tiles that mix and match well such that the houses in each district tile matches up well with other district tiles. While the art can get chaotic at times, overall, I give it a thumbs up.

GAMEPLAY
Gameplay is similar to Samurai on some levels. Basically this is a tile laying game where each player attempts to win influence or control of an area by placing district tiles of different values around a location. Once each location is completely enclosed by district tiles, the location is scored and victory points are scored. Thus, unlike Samurai where multiple locations are up for grabs, all players will focus their attention on one location and then once that is scored, the next location is then placed. Thus, competition is sometimes really keen and cut-throat especially in the last two rounds of gameplay. Just like Samurai, players do not have access to all the district tiles at the onset of the game, but will draw from an individual pool of tiles such that only 6 tiles are available each turn. Thus, even when high value tiles are needed, they might not be available this particular turn making resource management rather critical.

While only one player may place one tile each turn, there are several tiles which allow players to place multiple tiles in a single turn. These tiles are low value tiles (value 1 or 0) and they act as "fillers" to enable the location to be captured and scored immediately. This is the most important aspect of the game since capturing and scoring a location will allow the player to place the new location in the city. The player will more than likely choose and existing area where plenty of his or her district tiles are available such that the player will gain an advantage of numbers in the onset.

The Citadels aspect of the game come out in special characters that accompany each location. When a location is won, besides victory points, players will get to earn the services of special characters. These special characters bend and break existing rules that is common in Knizia games. These special characters are placed on district tiles and besides their special properties, they also prevent the district from being destroyed.

Weaknesses:
Game play is usually short and straightforward. However, luck does play a huge role in the game. If previous player does not plan accordingly, the location can be easily scored by opposing players. Scoring a location is key because one gets to place the next location on the board. This is critical for winning the game as getting an advantage of adjacent districts on the newly placed location provides a huge advantage. Another factor that might be a problem is the sequential order at which the city locations are to be placed on the board. Starting from 1, the placement increases to 2...3 and so forth. Hence, each game is the same in terms of the appearance of new location tiles. This might not be a problem if the locations were shuffled, but the order is always the same and I fear that over time, this game will get stale since we can predict the next location.

CONCLUSIONS
This Knizia game is a great filler game. 3-4 players is excellent for this game and can easily be taught and introduced to newer players. While this game still cannot compare to Samurai in terms of strategy and elegance of gameplay, it does provide some tension-filled moments especially in the final rounds. The level of cut-throat competition could go up if players are constantly aggressive and combative since this game allows a player to destroy and opponents district tiles. This game is worthy of my recommendation and since the price is below $15, it is certainly good value for the money you pay.

Thread: Too many special rules for what it is

ValJor — 2005-03-26T22:13:36+00:00

Date: March 24th, 2005

Game: King’s Gate

Players: Maxime and Valdir (myself)

Right after we finished our Carc game Johnny went to another table to lead a game of Risk – Lord of the Rings. The others said that the game would take something like three hours to finish, so I declined their invitation. Maxime also declined, saying that he hadn’t come to play any Risk. As there were no other players around for the moment, I accepted his suggestion to play King’s Gate.

He went over the rules for me and we started laying the tiles to build around the various different buildings. While he was going through the rules, I went from "hey, great!" to "oh, really?" to "really?!". There are too many exceptions to the rules and too many special powers in there for such a small game. I was ok with the tile laying rules, but then there are special rules for 1’s, for 3’s, for the dragon, for the "cup" (or whatever it is called). Ok, I could handle all that, but then there are characters to be won in each building that further change the rules... Why all that?

Anyway, we went through the first two buildings and then I had a better handle on the game. On a two-player game these first two buildings are just a warm-up, both players get the same number of points no matter who wins the building in question. He won both buildings but we were still tied, so it was still ok for me.

He also won the next two buildings, giving him a two point advantage, but I was somehow able to win the other two buildings for an overall 20x19 victory. I cannot really claim the win because I didn’t know what I was doing... It was an interesting way to pass time and I wouldn’t decline a future offer to play it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to play it, this game did not impress me that much.

Thread: Session Report

toucana — 2005-02-22T17:47:51+00:00

Recently traded King's Gate with Joe Krow (excellent trader) and played it with a former colleague. I was a little apprehensive in the begining due to comparisions of this game to Samurai. After all, I do believe that Samurai is a "Near-perfect" game.

However, upon two plays, I was really pleased with the game. The Fantasy Flight Silver Series line are generally cheaper games but this works well.

We noticed that tile placement were crucial in this game, but more importantly, ending the location and thus picking where to place the next location is paramount for victory.

I spent a lot of my high value tiles from the begining and gained an early late....of course, late in the game, other people started to catch up. Eventually my colleague managed to grab a slim victory and location 10 was bitterly contested and the outcome wasn't determined until the last tile was placed.

Good game. More like Samurai meets Citadels. I would definately recommend.

score : Me : 20,HC:20, JY: 16, NR:26.

Thread: Re:Graveyard Question

rplea — 2005-02-16T20:14:23+00:00

orangeblood (#33050),

I think this is probably the correct interpretation.

Thread: Re:Question about dragon tile at dangerous locations

Thomas_de_Monet — 2004-12-10T06:50:52+00:00

Glamorous Mucus (#68723),
Hey there, I just played this for the first time tonight (3 player game) and we had the same question. The best answer for us was: when you lay your tile tile down you are "building" a new section therefore effectively destroying the previous building(s) underneath. So when the dragon is played on a stack, no matter how high, there really isn't anything under the top one but empty space.

Thread: Re:Question about dragon tile at dangerous locations

Glamorous Mucus — 2004-12-03T02:45:59+00:00

Thanks, Luke. That's the answer I was leaning toward as well.

Thread: Re:Question about dragon tile at dangerous locations

boomtron — 2004-12-02T22:33:57+00:00

Glamorous Mucus (#68723),

Hey Josh. I have the Lord of the Rings version, and the Nazgul card is the same as the dragon. The translated rules for that game have the same discrepancy (i.e. remove your opponent's card, the space is now free.) I think that the intention is for the Nazgul/dragon is to clear the space, not to reveal previously covered cards. That's the way I play it, but I'm no expert.

Luke

Thread: Question about dragon tile at dangerous locations

Glamorous Mucus — 2004-12-02T20:03:04+00:00

What happens when a dragon tile is placed on top of a stack of more than one tile? Do they all disappear, or just the tile immediately beneath the dragon?

The rules state:

When you place the dragon tile on an opponent's tile, both the dragon and your opponent's tile are discarded from the game, thus freeing the district's space adjacent to the current location.

The first part of the statement implies that only the tile immediately beneath the dragon would be discarded. The second part about "freeing the district's space" implies that all tiles are removed from that space?

Anyone have an answer? How do you play?