Dominion Strategy Forum
Miscellaneous => Other Games => Topic started by: Thisisnotasmile on September 06, 2011, 07:44:22 am
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http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/107529/kingdom-builder
Need this so hard.
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Saw this yesterday because I'm subscribed to Donald's posts. I'm excited ;D
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Is it just me, or does the cover look like a Village?
Looks like it could be pretty good. Staying tuned.
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The cover looks like a Kingdom! If your kingdom looks like a village than you are going to be bad at this game...
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Okay, so it looks like a big Village. But I mean, guy in red with red flag on horse from behind looking at the place of interest...
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From what I've read on BGG and especially Donald's comment in the forum thread, it's supposed to be some sort of "deckbuilder" without deckbuilding.
And an actual boardgame (i.e. "with a board") instead of the Dominion series.
I am having a hard time to understand it perfectly from the early specs, but I think it's some Euro-style game with economy development.
We'll just have to wait and see, Essen is just around the corner...
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From what it sounds like--
* Simple rules on expanding the empire
* Three different scoring objectives each game out of a possible 10
* Four random powerups out of a possible 8
* Random map built out of quadrants
I don't see much Dominion in it actually. It's mostly a simple empire-expansion game (the engine) with complex objectives.
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Yep, from what I've heard so far it's looking similar to Hacienda (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19100/hacienda). I like Hacienda so I'm looking forward to this!
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I like that it's borrowed what I think is the best thing about Dominion, the fact that every game is different. It would be interesting working out how all the different Kingdom Builder cards interact with each other.
At this stage I'm not sure if games will be more or less varied than in Dominion. The Dominion base game has (25 choose 10) = 3,268,760 combinations, while this has a measly (10 choose 3) = 120. But possibly using a much smaller subset of the overall cards will mean that any two games are likely to be more different than any two Dominion base games.
On the other hand, maybe there are sets of two cards that will make the third irrelevant. Knights + Discoverers = make lots of horizontal lines. Citizens + Lords = build big in one place. Hermits + Discoverers = build in lots of different places.
Of course, I know next to nothing about the game at this point, but having thought about it I now want to give it a go.
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I like that it's borrowed what I think is the best thing about Dominion, the fact that every game is different. It would be interesting working out how all the different Kingdom Builder cards interact with each other.
At this stage I'm not sure if games will be more or less varied than in Dominion. The Dominion base game has (25 choose 10) = 3,268,760 combinations, while this has a measly (10 choose 3) = 120. But possibly using a much smaller subset of the overall cards will mean that any two games are likely to be more different than any two Dominion base games.
I am all about games being different every time.
In Kingdom Builder the board varies too. So it's 120 times the number of possible boards. The 120 is the most significant part of that though.
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Well, a number like that doesn't say much.
There are gazillions of possible Dominion setups, but replacing one Village with another may not have much effect on most games. Neither will switching a Chancellor for a Navigator in most games.
So with a smaller number it's safe to say that each pick will differ a lot, not like the endless chain of Villages in Dominion.
I don't think this will really be comparable to Dominion. I like Dominion for its high replayability, caused not only by the difference in setups, but also the relatively short length of the game. Seeing as this will be an old fashioned board game, it may take a little longer, but the replayability doesn't have to suffer.
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Is there a release date yet?
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Essen.
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Essen.
So soon? Awesome!
Hopefully there will be copies at BGG.con ;D
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Is anybody else happy that this game is *not* a deckbuilding game? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy myself some good deckbuilding, but the number of such games has gotten a bit out of hand in the last couple of years.
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I'm happy it's not a deckbuilding game just because I'm excited to see what Donald can do with a different sort of game. Honestly, Dominion is not remotely stale to me, and whenever I play another deckbuilding game I find I spend the time wishing it were Dominion instead. I simply do not know of another example in the genre that fares other-than-horribly in the comparison.*
I'm sure Donald is happy he doesn't have to design deckbuilding games and only deckbuilding games forever, too ;)
*OK, I just remembered that A Few Acres of Snow is built around a deckbuilding mechanic, and it's a phenomenal game. So that's a thing. It's not really the same genre though.
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There are probably a lot more tile/token placement games (that can be played in 45 minutes) on the market than there are deck building games. A lot of them have very neat mechanics and clever play too. I'm very happy to see another game from Donald X. but I don't see it being particularly comparable to Dominion.
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I am so blogging this.
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So... SdJ 2012.
Congrats Donald X. for your second!
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Yeah, it's a real hall of fame for the double winners.
I guess this means I have to try this. :)
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Do it. I think it's really fun.
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I plan on picking up Dark Ages in August so maybe I'll toss this in the cart at the same time.
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I got to play a couple of games of this. I read the rules online first some months back, and the reading of the rules for some reason just did not thrill me.
I still wanted to try it out, and I had my opportunity when someone brought it to game day. The play is a lot more exciting than the impression I got from reading the rules. The scoring criteria look kind of boring until you actually understand the game and can plan for them. In my second game, I got a perfect score for the Farmers (I think that's what it's called; the one where your score equals the number of pieces on the quadrant with the fewest pieces of your color—which can be maxed out by putting 10 in each quadrant), though that didn't win me the game.
I question the replayability of the game, which is why I haven't picked it up yet. How has it been for others who own the game and have played more than single-digit times?
I don't know why that's going to stop me. I have so many games and so little time that I am in no danger of overplaying a game. I'm sure I'll pick up KB, play it three times when we open the box and then not pull it out for another 4 months.
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Its a good game, I think the expansion adds a lot to it though I haven't been able to pick it up as none of my FLGS's have it yet. But I'm still playing the base game, I play dominion more obviously but you can't always play the same game.
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Its a good game, I think the expansion adds a lot to it though I haven't been able to pick it up as none of my FLGS's have it yet. But I'm still playing the base game, I play dominion more obviously but you can't always play the same game.
I am curious about the expansion. The game was pretty new to me, so any tile and scoring condition was new to me, but I could see playing it a few times and wanting to see more. I also haven't seen all of the interactions between tile pieces and scoring mechanism. I can see where there is some awesome synergy (being able to more quickly build a straight line when long lines score more points) along with contradictory criteria. I would imagine the expansion would make it difficult to get bored of these combinations.
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Its a good game, I think the expansion adds a lot to it though I haven't been able to pick it up as none of my FLGS's have it yet. But I'm still playing the base game, I play dominion more obviously but you can't always play the same game.
I am curious about the expansion. The game was pretty new to me, so any tile and scoring condition was new to me, but I could see playing it a few times and wanting to see more. I also haven't seen all of the interactions between tile pieces and scoring mechanism. I can see where there is some awesome synergy (being able to more quickly build a straight line when long lines score more points) along with contradictory criteria. I would imagine the expansion would make it difficult to get bored of these combinations.
The expansion adds scoring during the game so its like not pointless to have the scoretrack and it adds more ways to screw with your opponents so that its not as friendly a game (it's easy to cut people off in 4p and reasonable in 3, its really tough in 2). So those are big pluses.
An aside Kingdom Builder DID just win the Spiel for 2012
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Okay, I just placed an order for the game and the expansion. It doesn't take much to rev my geek engine.
Maybe I'll receive them by this weekend. I have some gaming to do, and this will work great between slots.
I hate love this thread so much.
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Okay, I just placed an order for the game and the expansion. It doesn't take much to rev my geek engine.
Maybe I'll receive them by this weekend. I have some gaming to do, and this will work great between slots.
I hate love this thread so much.
The expansion adds the ability to play 5 player btw, this is something I haven't tried and seems like it would be TOO crowded IMO.
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Wins 2 Spiel des Jahres
(Donald X face)
Still has people second guessing
game design w/o playing them
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Wins 2 Spiel des Jahres
(Donald X face)
Still has people second guessing
game design w/o playing them
You kidding I bought infiltration blind, and I like that game, I haven't bought or looked at nefarious or monster factory much though so maybe Im not giving donald X ENOUGH of my money?
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Okay, I just placed an order for the game and the expansion. It doesn't take much to rev my geek engine.
Maybe I'll receive them by this weekend. I have some gaming to do, and this will work great between slots.
I hate love this thread so much.
The expansion adds the ability to play 5 player btw, this is something I haven't tried and seems like it would be TOO crowded IMO.
It looks like it can support 5 players pretty well. I can imagine a lot of cussing at each other as people do block others, intentionally and unintentionally. I had enough collision with 4 players.
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...I play dominion more obviously but you can't always play the same game.
I mean...not true. I could play Dominion forever and ever.
Dominion isn't a complete game yet, but I still find novel ways of appreciating it every day.
I do play other games, but I could only play Dominion if need be. I'd say at f.DS, we're more likely to say that you can never play any other game (after experiencing Dominion).
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So I managed to play the expansion I think it really adds a lot to the game, and watch out for quarry, there is a lot of restrictions on that action and with ALL of the restrictions its still super strong. (Before your mandatory place quaries to block your only tiles of the type you have to play on)
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I did discover the true power of the Quarry. I went in thinking that the Quarry's use would be to block off other players, but that would be tricky to use since you can only place walls adjacent to your own pieces, so you would be potentially screwing yourself as well.
Then I realized that if I place walls in my spaces, that makes it more likely that when I draw that terrain card, I have to go somewhere else, which really helps for capturing locations and playing up to the scoring cards that favor diversity. In a sense, it'd be like playing five buildings into a region, but it only costs you three.
I do like the game (and only played the expansion once), but I do have a couple of nitpicks.
The scoring method where you count the vertical rows is just so fidgety for me. I've only played this scoring card once, and I think there is a better way to count than what the owner of the game did (this was before I bought my own). He went through each row and added a point to each player who had something in that row. I'd have to think it'd be easier to just count for each player…probably have the player do it. So, maybe this nitpick is more about the chosen method, but it still was a bit of a chore to count the vertical rows.
In fact, I found it generally easy to get lost in the scoring. This may actually be my inexperience. Not being used to Nomads probably didn't help. I accidentally counted Nomad spaces as City spaces. In any case, I found it fidgety in general to count the different scoring methods. I don't really know how to improve that. I don't begrudge the rule, because that's what makes the game more interesting. This would make a really awesome computer game, though, especially if you are shown how a particular placement can improve your score.
There seems to be a lot of waste in the game. This isn't Donald's fault at all. This is how they shipped it. This wouldn't be the first game where I had four or five translations of the rule book, but I think this is the first time I've seen multiple translations of the cards. I even had two copies of the English translation. I can see why they did that, since some cards have the flag on the back and some don't. Still, I have an entire deck of cards that are all useless to me. I feel like I paid for something that will never see the light of day. I guess I can offer to ship them to anyone who needs replacement cards in that language.
But, it's still a fun game. I only hope that experience will help me score games more easily and quickly.
I kind of wonder if there is a variant (I haven't seen one, but that doesn't mean anything) where you actually have a hand of terrain cards. Maybe you keep two cards handy. Maybe you go crazy with three. Would that improve on the tactical side of the game when you have the opportunity to plan two or three turns ahead? I'll have to master the game first before I try that out.
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I find scoring's pretty easy because people generally have an idea of what they're aiming for during the game so they know what they've done. This means when you get to the scoring they can just point out what they've got to everyone else (i.e. "I'm on every vertical row apart from these two over here"... You already know that because you've been tracking it during the game).
My game group has also started playing with the 2-card variant where you always have two terrain cards available and can play either of them on your turn. I'm definitely against the variant (I'm a purist), but I play with it to make the rest of the group happy, and at the end of the day it doesn't change the game much at all.
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It does somewhat alleviate the problem of starting with two of the same terrain card, which is often a crippling blow.
I suppose you can play this game by dealing everyone a hand of cards at the beginning, but I think that would make this game unacceptably AP.
The expansion suffers from one flaw, which is that its rules are not as clearly written as they could be (not at Dominion's level). The terms aren't clearly defined enough ("move", "place", "build").
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I had couple of plays at this at a con this weekend. Good game. It sits in sort of the same place as Carcassonne and Oregon : 30-45 minute tile placement game, easy learning, simple to play, good filler. It can be played very quickly with simple hut placements each turn and all the scoring at the end. On the other hand, slow play could dull the game since you can spend a lot of time thinking and inspecting if you really want to ( ... annoy your fellow players). Since all the scoring comes at the end you are playing a game long strategy rather than taking scoring opportunities seen each turn in Carcassonne.
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I had couple of plays at this at a con this weekend. Good game. It sits in sort of the same place as Carcassonne and Oregon : 30-45 minute tile placement game, easy learning, simple to play, good filler. It can be played very quickly with simple hut placements each turn and all the scoring at the end. On the other hand, slow play could dull the game since you can spend a lot of time thinking and inspecting if you really want to ( ... annoy your fellow players). Since all the scoring comes at the end you are playing a game long strategy rather than taking scoring opportunities seen each turn in Carcassonne.
I have to disagree with this comparison. I've played Carcassonne quite a bit and Kingdom Builder more than that and I feel that Carcassone's random element is far higher than Kingdom Builder. In Carcassonne there are turns when the first person to draw a tile like X will win the game because of the castle they get to complete. On the flip side its very rare for terrain card X to win a person the game especially with the actions available to manage luck in Kingdom Builder. I have never played Oregon.
With the expansion all the scoring is not at the end there is some mid game. And scoring really doesn't take that long once you've played a few games.
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I've been enjoying Kingdom Builder in general, but I keep wanting to make changes to it.
Yesterday I played Kingdom Builder with a 5-card hand. It was superb. But we chose the setup carefully: the "power setup" (place on grass, place on desert, move to water, place a 4th), plus Citizens/Merchants/X. X could have been anything (we used Fishermen), but Citizens/Merchants are really key to the 5-card hand variant because it encourages a lot of conflict.
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I've been enjoying Kingdom Builder in general, but I keep wanting to make changes to it.
Yesterday I played Kingdom Builder with a 5-card hand. It was superb. But we chose the setup carefully: the "power setup" (place on grass, place on desert, move to water, place a 4th), plus Citizens/Merchants/X. X could have been anything (we used Fishermen), but Citizens/Merchants are really key to the 5-card hand variant because it encourages a lot of conflict.
kingdombuilderstrategy.com?
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A slew of new sites brought to you by theory!
kingdombuilderstrategy.com
gauntletoffoolsstrategy.com
nefariousstrategy.com
infiltrationstrategy.com
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If and when Tom Lehmann gets rrenaud excited about Race for the Galaxy again, I think you will totally see the rise of rftgstrategy.com.
kingdombuilderstrategy.com is pretty easy I think:
1) Prioritize good powers (place a 4th > place on grass/desert > move to water > jump > the rest).
2) Limit terrain access.
3) When you do touch a new terrain, if it isn't size < 4, touch as many different kinds of that terrain as possible.
4) Have an overall map of your eventual placements in mind, especially if you have a goal like Merchants/Citizens.
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If and when Tom Lehmann gets rrenaud excited about Race for the Galaxy again, I think you will totally see the rise of rftgstrategy.com.
kingdombuilderstrategy.com is pretty easy I think:
1) Prioritize good powers (place a 4th > place on grass/desert > move to water > jump > the rest).
2) Limit terrain access.
3) When you do touch a new terrain, if it isn't size < 4, touch as many different kinds of that terrain as possible.
4) Have an overall map of your eventual placements in mind, especially if you have a goal like Merchants/Citizens.
Off topic but I did just pick up RFTG the other day, is it worth picking any of the expansions up or should I wait for the new one (it's uncompatible with previous expansions)
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Try playing it. If you like it, I can't imagine playing the old RFTG without their expansions.
I do not know what the new RFTG will be like.
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Try playing it. If you like it, I can't imagine playing the old RFTG without their expansions.
I do not know what the new RFTG will be like.
Oh I have played it since picking it up and do like it, just didn't know how good/bad the expansions were and was slightly turned off by the obsolete remark. Thanks though sounds like its worth it
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Brink of War has some detractors, and it is true that we stopped playing shortly after Brink of War came out (though that was also when we were getting into Isotropic, so, who knows). TGS + RvI, though, unequivocally make RFTG a lot better, whereas BoW probably does but for a not-insubstantial-number it does not.
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More cards = more diversity = more replayability. At least in my book.
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Brink of War has some detractors, and it is true that we stopped playing shortly after Brink of War came out (though that was also when we were getting into Isotropic, so, who knows). TGS + RvI, though, unequivocally make RFTG a lot better, whereas BoW probably does but for a not-insubstantial-number it does not.
Prestige is somewhat tacked on and not necessarily balanced. But it is fun, and there are several cards in BoW that fill important holes in the card set, such as the Mining Mole Uplifts and the other blue world 6-coster. Yes, I am singling out the Mining Mole Uplifts. It had always bothered me before there wasn't a brown Uplift world, but BoW gives you one!
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More cards = more diversity = more replayability. At least in my book.
FWIW, I only played base RTFG, and diversity and replayability are thing that I find lacking, as most of the games you are confined to one of the few strategies.
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I think I managed to play something like 10 games before I wanted expansions. I think that's pretty fair for a game, though. But just as with Dominion, the more expansions you get the more replay value you get as welll.
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Kingdom Builder
is coming has come to BSW.
Here is the post on BSW (In German).
http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Spiele/KingdomBuilder/
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And with "coming" ...
Am Freitag dem 23.11.2012 um 16:00 Uhr kommt das aktuelle Spiel des Jahres "Kingdom Builder" in die Brettspielwelt.
they mean "came 3 hours ago" (assuming CET, which is reasonable given the timestamp of the note is CET)
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http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/137396/kingdom-builder-crossroads - 2nd big expansion announced
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First Nomad Camps (almost) adding Ambassadors and stuff, and here comes Crossroads. What will that contain? Harem? Great Halls? Silk Roads?
But I support more expansions. As long as they are fun.
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First Nomad Camps (almost) adding Ambassadors and stuff, and here comes Crossroads. What will that contain? Harem? Great Halls? Silk Roads?
But I support more expansions. As long as they are fun.
Just wait until you see the Catapult ...
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Finally played this last night for the first time. Nice game. I don't think it would scale well to 4-5 players for me because there would end up being a lot of "take your turn, now wait for everyone else to take their turn" with pretty much no interaction in between. In my group, it's even worse because it sounds like your plans can get ruined easily with a lot of players, so they will be inclined to not pay attention until their turn starts, then take 5 minutes planning their turn, which would make it unbearable (I know that's wrong and not the fault of the game, but still...)
I played it with three and it seems like it would be best with three, but that's coming from someone who has never played a 2 or 4 player game.
It was also pretty cool that I could brag to the people I was playing with: "Oh yeah, this particular thing is SOOO Donald X. I would know because I played a couple of games of Dominion with him and we chatted a bit then..."
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It was also pretty cool that I could brag to the people I was playing with: "Oh yeah, this particular thing is SOOO Donald X. I would know because I played a couple of games of Dominion with him and we chatted a bit then..."
That really changed your life, didn't it?
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It was also pretty cool that I could brag to the people I was playing with: "Oh yeah, this particular thing is SOOO Donald X. I would know because I played a couple of games of Dominion with him and we chatted a bit then..."
That really changed your life, didn't it?
totes.
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I think you're a little starstruck Adam...
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I think you're a little starstruck Adam...
Is that bad?
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I think you're a little starstruck Adam...
Is that bad?
Nah, I think it's cute.
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Played this for the first time today. It was super fun! Good way to get over Iso's demise.
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Does anyone know what font is used on Kindom Builder cards (or a way to find this out)?
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I have been looking at Kingdom Builder for a few months now. There is no one in my area with the game (that I know) so I looked at a lot of online reviews. I finally decided to just go for it and get the base set. Then I found that they are releasing a "big box" with the base set and all four explanations. Now I am stuck again.
In your opinion is this a good enough game to get the big box for $60-$70?
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I have the base game and enjoy it a lot. Depending on what the big box price in Poland will be, I will either buy it (and sell extra copy of base) or get the expansions soon. Probably I'll get the big box, saving me trouble of hunting for Capitol and Caves promos which will be included there.
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Note that the first expansion doesn't expand the game that much. It contains less than have locations and score cards than the base game.
Not sure about the second one though.
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Played this with a friend at my local game shop.
Really fun.
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Just got the base set. Definitely a lot of fun! We drew Lords, Fishermen, Miners which was a nice gentle introduction.
One thing I find odd is that with all the alternate language versions, the card "Lords" is the only card that the card title is not translated. Whats up with that?
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I played this for the first time today, and didn't enjoy it. I got bad terrain card draws, with nearly half of my draws the same type, and mostly at the start of the game. Once I drew other terrains, I had already filled up the first terrain block, so I had to place adjacent to them and still couldn't escape the single settlement of doom.
By the time all the special tiles were taken, other players had 4-5 while I was stuck on 1. It was a horrible, slogging experience where I barely made any relevant decisions.
Sure, I guess it's just bad luck, and doesn't happen often. But still, just for the game to have the chance of that happening severely undermines my interest in playing it again.
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Yeah, I think I would rather play this with a hand of three. That allows for some strategic choices while not forcing you into a situation where decisions are trivial. You still have the chance of getting all three cards the same terrain, but at least it is mitigated.
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I don't think that'll be enough to alllow interesting decisions.
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Yes bad sequences of terrain are a problem in Kingdom Builder. If your group plays quickly then it's not a problem for a 30 minute game.
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We have everyone draw two cards at the start of the game. On your turn, you play one card, then choose whether to keep or discard your other card. Also, the initial two turns are snaked.
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We have everyone draw two cards at the start of the game. On your turn, you play one card, then choose whether to keep or discard your other card. Also, the initial two turns are snaked.
Snaked?
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Snaked, like Settlers of Catan:
P1 -> P2 -> P3 -> P4 -> P4 -> P3 -> P2 -> P1 -> P1 -> P2 -> P3 -> P4 -> P1 etc.
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also i'm googling this now and what, really, no one else uses that term? i seriously thought that was the standard term, it was the only one i've ever heard
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
First reply!
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
I'm fairly used to this being described with the word snake. Like a snake draft of cards or things.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
Considering that the first thing I think of when I hear "snake" is the Ouroboros, this was not obvious to me at all. But that's really a me thing.
Since it comes from fantasy football, I dislike the use of "snake." I'm calling it oscillating. Power to the nerds!
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
Considering that the first thing I think of when I hear "snake" is the Ouroboros, this was not obvious to me at all. But that's really a me thing.
Since it comes from fantasy football, I dislike the use of "snake." I'm calling it oscillating. Power to the nerds!
Every single person I know who plays fantasy football could also be classified as a nerd.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
Considering that the first thing I think of when I hear "snake" is the Ouroboros, this was not obvious to me at all. But that's really a me thing.
Since it comes from fantasy football, I dislike the use of "snake." I'm calling it oscillating. Power to the nerds!
Every single person I know who plays fantasy football could also be classified as a nerd.
Basically everyone I know could be classified as a nerd... That's kind of a frightening thought, especially since even amongst them I am a nerd.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
Considering that the first thing I think of when I hear "snake" is the Ouroboros, this was not obvious to me at all. But that's really a me thing.
Since it comes from fantasy football, I dislike the use of "snake." I'm calling it oscillating. Power to the nerds!
Every single person I know who plays fantasy football could also be classified as a nerd.
Basically everyone I know could be classified as a nerd... That's kind of a frightening thought, especially since even amongst them I am a nerd.
How are you people classifying nerd? I would not classify most of my friends, some of whom play fantasy football, as nerds.
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I would go further and say that I would not classify the majority of those I know who play fantasy football as nerds. Fantasy [any other sport], though, yes, most definitely.
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Turns out that's what it's known as in fantasy football but not in boardgaming. Well, folks, you saw it here first: the re-appropriation of the word "snake" to describe turn order in board games. This is a historical etymological moment.
We have always called it a "switchback start.". Though the meaning of snaked was immediately obvious to me as well.
Considering that the first thing I think of when I hear "snake" is the Ouroboros, this was not obvious to me at all. But that's really a me thing.
Since it comes from fantasy football, I dislike the use of "snake." I'm calling it oscillating. Power to the nerds!
Every single person I know who plays fantasy football could also be classified as a nerd.
Basically everyone I know could be classified as a nerd... That's kind of a frightening thought, especially since even amongst them I am a nerd.
How are you people classifying nerd? I would not classify most of my friends, some of whom play fantasy football, as nerds.
In the specific case of fantasy football, all my friends who partake also play D&D.
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So I was going to say something about how we could do a nerdception thing and create Fantasy StarCraft...
...and then I googled it, and yes, it already exists.
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So I was going to say something about how we could do a nerdception thing and create Fantasy StarCraft...
...and then I googled it, and yes, it already exists.
How about fantasy fantasy starcraft, where you try to get a team of the best fantasy starcraft players?
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I would go further and say that I would not classify the majority of those I know who play fantasy football as nerds. Fantasy [any other sport], though, yes, most definitely.
Fantasy Dominion players? Quite often nerds.
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So I was going to say something about how we could do a nerdception thing and create Fantasy StarCraft...
...and then I googled it, and yes, it already exists.
How about fantasy fantasy starcraft, where you try to get a team of the best fantasy starcraft players?
Oooh.. recursive fantasy sports. That's a good idea. I think you should start with football, though, because there are so many fantasy football players. Once fantasy^2 football gets going, we can move onto fantasy^3 football and so on. The analysis can suddenly get very complex as you can consider how one event on the base level can influence the nth order.
Suddenly, football has been brought into the realm of the nerdy.
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Next expansion finally announced: Marshlands (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/179622/kingdom-builder-marshlands)! Apparently it has a new terrain type (marshlands) and abilities that get stronger when you obtain two copies of them.
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And in a bit of convenient timing, I believe it's also the game being played on Wil Wheaton's TableTop series this week.
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And in a bit of convenient timing, I believe it's also the game being played on Wil Wheaton's TableTop series this week.
Oh sweet.
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And in a bit of convenient timing, I believe it's also the game being played on Wil Wheaton's TableTop series this week.
Nice, I've been looking forward to that since I saw it on the schedule a few months ago. I haven't watched TableTop in a while, but I'm interested to see that episode.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9X2x-OENB0
They seem to be making the normal amount of rules mistakes that Tabletop makes.
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They seem to be making the normal amount of rules mistakes that Tabletop makes.
Not bad. Really the only mistake they made was allowing you to play extra actions on the same turn you obtain them. That makes a difference, of course, but it didn't really detract from the gameplay in their game.
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They seem to be making the normal amount of rules mistakes that Tabletop makes.
Not bad. Really the only mistake they made was allowing you to play extra actions on the same turn you obtain them. That makes a difference, of course, but it didn't really detract from the gameplay in their game.
They misplayed the Tavern a couple times, but I guess that's no biggie.
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They seem to be making the normal amount of rules mistakes that Tabletop makes.
Not bad. Really the only mistake they made was allowing you to play extra actions on the same turn you obtain them. That makes a difference, of course, but it didn't really detract from the gameplay in their game.
Comments in other places say that they messed up more than that. I'm not familiar enough with Kingdom Builder to say though. Something about bonus tile placement.
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
The resolution is that Queen has lost the rights to publish Marshlands; they let the contract expire. Donald has decided not to sign a new contract at this time.
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
The resolution is that Queen has lost the rights to publish Marshlands; they let the contract expire. Donald has decided not to sign a new contract at this time.
What would need to happen for Marshlands to be published, whether by Queen or a different company or independently somehow? Because there certainly seems to be demand for it.
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
The resolution is that Queen has lost the rights to publish Marshlands; they let the contract expire. Donald has decided not to sign a new contract at this time.
What would need to happen for Marshlands to be published, whether by Queen or a different company or independently somehow? Because there certainly seems to be demand for it.
Well Queen retains the right to publish Kingdom Builder, and apparently will until they decide to stop printing it (or they go under). So for someone else to publish the expansion, they'd need to obtain the rights from Queen.
As far as Queen themselves go, I'm assuming what it would take is for Donald to feel like it was worth signing a contract with them. Paying him on time for 2015 would be a good start, but I have no idea what it would actually take.
I do hope Marshlands is published someday. Queen released the rules when the Kickstarter went up and it looks like a pretty sweet expansion.
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
The resolution is that Queen has lost the rights to publish Marshlands; they let the contract expire. Donald has decided not to sign a new contract at this time.
A contract with an expiration date. What a concept. Wonder if Jay put one of those into the Goko/MF contract.
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So, barely a week later, and apparently this expansion has been cancelled? Any word on if any resolution has been reached between DXV and Queen Games?
The resolution is that Queen has lost the rights to publish Marshlands; they let the contract expire. Donald has decided not to sign a new contract at this time.
A contract with an expiration date. What a concept. Wonder if Jay put one of those into the Goko/MF contract.
Given that Donald is actually considering suing Queen games, Dominion Online could be a lot worse.
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A contract with an expiration date. What a concept. Wonder if Jay put one of those into the Goko/MF contract.
There almost certainly is one, of some sort. What the details are, is the question. If nothing else, there's probably a clause about "if the product isn't produced by X time", but obviously a product has been produced.
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So I just got the Kingdom Builder Big Box today (I had ordered it before I saw this whole debacle). It's quite a lot of stuff. For some reason it includes rules and cards in four different languages. I mean, what am I going to do with Dutch instructions? Would it really have been so difficult to just have different language versions?
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I don't understand the complaint. In Europe, it is not at all uncommon to have a language-light game have rules in 6+ languages. They are just easier to sell if the distribution of demand does not match the expected one, and it simplifies logistics immensely.
I know Dutch has been qualified as a throat disease, but is having extra rules actually hurting you?
EDIT: Shame, I lost the chance to post something Orwellian to celebrate the post count.
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Yeah, if you publish for multiple language regions, it would be way easier and cheaper to just have one version that packages rules in multiple languages.
That said, I played KB at a con and there were some strange language things. You know those cards with the VP rules, where you randomly chose 3? That box had multiple decks with multiple languages and a flag on the back. The strange thing was that there was a UK deck with the flag and also a deck with no flag at all. Both were English, identical but for the card back. It wasn't even an American spelling thing. Mystifying.
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Lots of my games have multiple rules included for different languages. I'm also annoyed because my Al Hambra is a new edition; originally the different tiles and names written on them "tower", etc. But they removed those for easy of not having to print multiple languages; they removed all references to "tower" and each tile type is just represented with a different color.
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I don't understand the complaint. In Europe, it is not at all uncommon to have a language-light game have rules in 6+ languages. They are just easier to sell if the distribution of demand does not match the expected one, and it simplifies logistics immensely.
I know Dutch has been qualified as a throat disease, but is having extra rules actually hurting you?
EDIT: Shame, I lost the chance to post something Orwellian to celebrate the post count.
Each set of rules is its own ~10 page booklet. And on top of that, each of the victory condition cards comes in four different languages, so I have 3 stacks of cards that I'm never going to use.
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This is an interesting issue for me. A pal and i are working on our own board game and we are still thinking about how to do localization. We want to include german and english, but don't think we'll be able to do pictograms that are language neutral. The only language-dependant thing in the game are the cards, though there are other components too. So, we felt we had two options: Make two versions of the game, one with all the language neutral stuff and english cards, and one in the same way with german cards; or, just print the cards in both versions (there are around 150 cards) and create a 2-language game. The second thing seemed to be much less bothersome to us, mostly because we want to crowdfund the project and don't want to get tangled up in the process of delegating two products (our first project of that kind).
So, i was wondering: Is having components in different languages really something that you feel is annoying? We are assuming a case where the multi-language product costs less than the additional effort of having two products, by the way (still need to do research on this). Should this be a big no? After all, we are not talking 10 cards, but around 150 per language (though only two languages). What would you think should be the appropriate way to handle multi-language games, wero?
Sorry for derailing this thread.
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Just got kingdom builder in the mail, took out the pieces, dealt out 3 cards and one was in German... Caught me off guard, but I quickly put the German cards into a different pile. Didn't bother me at all.
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This is an interesting issue for me. A pal and i are working on our own board game and we are still thinking about how to do localization. We want to include german and english, but don't think we'll be able to do pictograms that are language neutral. The only language-dependant thing in the game are the cards, though there are other components too. So, we felt we had two options: Make two versions of the game, one with all the language neutral stuff and english cards, and one in the same way with german cards; or, just print the cards in both versions (there are around 150 cards) and create a 2-language game. The second thing seemed to be much less bothersome to us, mostly because we want to crowdfund the project and don't want to get tangled up in the process of delegating two products (our first project of that kind).
So, i was wondering: Is having components in different languages really something that you feel is annoying? We are assuming a case where the multi-language product costs less than the additional effort of having two products, by the way (still need to do research on this). Should this be a big no? After all, we are not talking 10 cards, but around 150 per language (though only two languages). What would you think should be the appropriate way to handle multi-language games, wero?
Sorry for derailing this thread.
Is it possible to have the cards have their text in both languages? My version of Resistance has the text on all cards in three languages (no pictures though).
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So, i was wondering: Is having components in different languages really something that you feel is annoying?
I might be annoyed briefly by this, but it won't stop me from buying the game. I think that's a more important metric. I can put up with little annoyances as long as the game is a winner.
I think the only concern may be, "Why am I paying for cards that I'm never going to use?!" If it truly is cheaper to package with multi-lingual support, then go the cheap route, but I imagine some gamers may not realize that upon opening the box.
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So, i was wondering: Is having components in different languages really something that you feel is annoying?
I might be annoyed briefly by this, but it won't stop me from buying the game. I think that's a more important metric. I can put up with little annoyances as long as the game is a winner.
I think the only concern may be, "Why am I paying for cards that I'm never going to use?!" If it truly is cheaper to package with multi-lingual support, then go the cheap route, but I imagine some gamers may not realize that upon opening the box.
Well, we don't actually know which way will be the cheapest, we still need to make the complete math. We're mostly afraid of not being able to stem the additional work of producing basically two games, i guess. Also it's currently only about a crowdfunding version of the product, so backers will have direct information on why and what. We'll make an effort to be as transparent as possible and tell them what kind of product we are doing from the start (when the project goes live).
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Is it possible to have the cards have their text in both languages? My version of Resistance has the text on all cards in three languages (no pictures though).
Possible, sure. But i really feel it destroys the atmosphere of the game. We are probably going to add pictograms either way, but card names at the very least are going to stay. Not only for thematical reasons (names will provide a bit of lighthearted humour), but for one category of cards the names are actually part of the game concept. Partially, it's a game about names. You can't talk about a name as well if the name has two names... Also, i'm not sure how important cards are for "The Resistance", but our game has quite a few of them (quite a few different ones, too), so i think it would make for a more confusing/less enjoyable experience to have multi-language cards.
Thanks for your feedback and sorry for derailing, again.
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Concordia comes with both German and English cards. There aren't quite as many as 150, but there are probably more than 50.
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For those of you who are interested, Marshlands is up on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1016374822/kingdom-builder-marshlands). I guess Donald X. and Queen Games resolved their issues.
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For those of you who are interested, Marshlands is up on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1016374822/kingdom-builder-marshlands). I guess Donald X. and Queen Games resolved their issues.
Hurrah! Hooray for actually paying people what you promised to pay them.
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I missed the Kickstarter campaign. Any idea when Marshlands will be released to the general public?
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I missed the Kickstarter campaign. Any idea when Marshlands will be released to the general public?
I don't know of any announcements there. However Greed similarly was expected via Kickstarter in June, and Greed showed up in stores around October (based on the date of me posting the secret history).
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The 4th expansion has been announced (and Kickstarted)! Harvest, it's called. I don't have inside info about this one, so it's been fun to speculate based on the images Queen has provided.
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The 4th expansion has been announced (and Kickstarted)! Harvest, it's called. I don't have inside info about this one, so it's been fun to speculate based on the images Queen has provided.
lol SUPER BIGGEST BOX
Is Marshlands even available yet?
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The 4th expansion has been announced (and Kickstarted)! Harvest, it's called. I don't have inside info about this one, so it's been fun to speculate based on the images Queen has provided.
lol SUPER BIGGEST BOX
Is Marshlands even available yet?
Nope. Although it probably would be if their first Kickstarter had gone to term. I'm glad they're not pushing back Harvest for it, though I may be in the minority there.
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Very excited for Harvest!
By the way, does anyone have any organizational systems they use for Kingdom Builder? Right now the most time-consuming part of the setup is trying to find all the correct ability hexes, and I imagine this will only get worse once we get Marshlands and Harvest.
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Very excited for Harvest!
By the way, does anyone have any organizational systems they use for Kingdom Builder? Right now the most time-consuming part of the setup is trying to find all the correct ability hexes, and I imagine this will only get worse once we get Marshlands and Harvest.
I keep each board's ability chits in its own tiny plastic bag (bought at a craft store, from the beading section I think). I still have to find the right four bags in the pile, but it's relatively fast. If you're not already doing that, I recommend it! You should never have to sort the chits you need out of a big pile of chits. The pile of bags is much "smaller".
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I like Kingdom Builder a whole lot. But I'm not convinced I should get any of the expansions.
Do you have any arguments either way?
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I like Kingdom Builder a whole lot. But I'm not convinced I should get any of the expansions.
Do you have any arguments either way?
The expansions are fun and add fun stuff?
I mean if you're satisfied with the base game, more power to you. The expansions really ramp up the variety, though, and I crave variety.
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I also use a separate bag for each board's stuff. I just use a ziplock bag. Expansions are great!
I'm excited to see Marshlands and Harvest expansions.
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Necro this awesome game. ;)
Man I am disappointed I missed the Harvest announcement, because I probably want that new empty big box. Marshlands fit in the original one just barely. I wonder if it will be possible to get an empty big(ger) box in any other way.
I made a randomizer for this game because it is awesome.
http://www.makingmorefun.com/kingdombuilder/randomizer/
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Eehh i played some and the game is incredible but so far I couldn't buy it in London/Oxford/Birmingham. I hope i will buy it eventually in Liv/Man.
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I love Kingdom Builder but haven't played any expansions. If I were to buy one, which one should I buy?
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I love Kingdom Builder but haven't played any expansions. If I were to buy one, which one should I buy?
I don't dont own Harvest, but from the other expasions i think Marshlands is the one which pushes the game the most. The new kingdom builder cards are nice there, and the extra actions for owning two of one kind of location are super nice. But I never played this expansion with more than three players...
From Crossroads I really like the cards which reward you for fulfilling certain criteria. Of course if you want to play with 5 players purchase Nomads. Apart from that, this one is ok but it's just not as cool as Marshlands in my opinion.
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When will Harvest be released to the general public?
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When will Harvest be released to the general public?
I won't know until people say it's out.
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Amazon says it will be released July 15.
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Just ordered a copy of Harvest. Should have it Monday.
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Just ordered a copy of Harvest. Should have it Monday.
Meanwhile I still have nothing from the Kickstarter. Why is Queen so bad at this?
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Just ordered a copy of Harvest. Should have it Monday.
Meanwhile I still have nothing from the Kickstarter. Why is Queen so bad at this?
It looks like Tuesday. Perhaps your Kickstarter version will come Monday. Queen seems pretty inept.
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Just ordered a copy of Harvest. Should have it Monday.
Meanwhile I still have nothing from the Kickstarter. Why is Queen so bad at this?
It looks like Tuesday. Perhaps your Kickstarter version will come Monday. Queen seems pretty inept.
Queen has a history of bad communication and being slow. There are too few people doing too much work. That's at least the impression I got from the Escape Big Box kickstarter.
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Queen has a history of bad communication and being slow. There are too few people doing too much work. That's at least the impression I got from the Escape Big Box kickstarter.
I finally got the shipment from the Kingdom Builder: Harvest Kickstarter. It was 10 months late, but they did upgrade everyone to the Big Box for free, so I got base game + all four expansions + promos for only ~$40. I was starting to get worried that it would never come.
It's been really fun and seems well-designed so far. Well done Donald! The downsides, as usual, are Queen Games-related -- rulebook, weird translations, and the poor design of the box insert.
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I finally got the shipment from the Kingdom Builder: Harvest Kickstarter. It was 10 months late, but they did upgrade everyone to the Big Box for free, so I got base game + all four expansions + promos for only ~$40. I was starting to get worried that it would never come.
It's been really fun and seems well-designed so far. Well done Donald! The downsides, as usual, are Queen Games-related -- rulebook, weird translations, and the poor design of the box insert.
Thank you, thank you. I still do not have my copies.
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There seems to be a lot of waste in the game. This isn't Donald's fault at all. This is how they shipped it. This wouldn't be the first game where I had four or five translations of the rule book, but I think this is the first time I've seen multiple translations of the cards. I even had two copies of the English translation. I can see why they did that, since some cards have the flag on the back and some don't. Still, I have an entire deck of cards that are all useless to me. I feel like I paid for something that will never see the light of day. I guess I can offer to ship them to anyone who needs replacement cards in that language.
I've now bought another copy of the base game and the first two expansions in Germany. While my base game is German-only, I also received 5 different-language copies of each Nomads Kingdom Builder card. I don't mind the superfluous extra versions, but in my copy all the cards have a corresponding flag on the backside. This way I can distinguish the (German) base game KB cards (which have no flag) from the expansion's KB cards when shuffling them together. That's not quite as bad as printing the expansion icons of Dominion cards on the back would be, but it's still annoying. Does someone know if you can get a set of German KB cards with matching backsides from Queen Games, either all with flags or all without?
FWIW, my base game version also didn't contain any white settlements (but 80 orange ones ???), so I guess I have to make a complaint with Queen Games anyway...
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Does someone know if you can get a set of German KB cards with matching backsides from Queen Games, either all with flags or all without?
Nevermind, they did indeed send me replacement cards with flagged backsides for the base game; now I only need to get the wrong settlements from them...
Is this the right place to ask rule questions about Kingdom Builder (or rather, its expansions)?
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Is this the right place to ask rule questions about Kingdom Builder (or rather, its expansions)?
Sure, it's one of the right places.
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Great, so I have the following questions:
1. Does moving a settlement due to a special ability (like Tavern or Caravan, or one of the special pieces from Crossroads) count as building them for the purposes of Families and Ambassadors?
2. Can you place the special "7 settlements hexagon" piece from City Hall anywhere on the board if there's no way to put it adjacent to your settlements, or do you just have to wait until you can place it? Can you use it to score with Fortress? (I assume so, but it seems like a too trivial synergy to me). Do the board spaces it occupies still count as part of their terrain area for the purposes of scoring points for a completed area, although the terrain is no longer visible?
(I hope I have given the right English names of the cards/ abilities, I've tried to translate most of them from the German version of the game.)
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1. Does moving a settlement due to a special ability (like Tavern or Caravan, or one of the special pieces from Crossroads) count as building them for the purposes of Families and Ambassadors?
Families only works on your three pieces placed for your terrain card; moving/building extra pieces doesn't involve it. Ambassadors only scores for building, not moving.
However the Tavern (build at the end of a line of 3 or more of your pieces) is building. The Caravan (slide a piece until it's blocked) is moving.
2. Can you place the special "7 settlements hexagon" piece from City Hall anywhere on the board if there's no way to put it adjacent to your settlements, or do you just have to wait until you can place it? Can you use it to score with Fortress? (I assume so, but it seems like a too trivial synergy to me). Do the board spaces it occupies still count as part of their terrain area for the purposes of scoring points for a completed area, although the terrain is no longer visible?
If there's no 7-hex spot adjacent to you, you can't place the City Hall at all. It can score for Fortress. Those spaces do count for their terrains for Shepherds.
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Kingdom Builder big box 2nd edition is $10 off today at miniature market. Maybe I'll finally buy it and see how I like it.
Is it worth it to get the big box?
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Kingdom Builder big box 2nd edition is $10 off today at miniature market. Maybe I'll finally buy it and see how I like it.
Is it worth it to get the big box?
If you like the game, yes. Personally I love it.
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The amount of variety in the (2nd ed.) big box is just about perfect for Kingdom Builder. There's enough that you don't see the same things too often, but not so much that you forget what the different tokens do. I highly recommend it.
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My brother picked this up for 8 (!!!) dollars on amazon a week or two ago. I had played it once before several years back, and it left a lukewarm impression. However, we played three 2-player games in a row and had a good time with it!