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[Donald X.]

Question for people who've seen the Empires rulebook: Am I allowed to peek at the next Castle card?  I know I'm not allowed to do that with Ruins.

Yes, you can look through the Castles or split piles.

[Dominionaer]

Am I allowed to peek at the next Castle card?  I know I'm not allowed to do that with Ruins.

Ruins are shuffled, Castles are ordered by costs.

[Elanchana]

I walked past a Castles game when I was taking a break from a game day with a couple of playtesters and I only got to see that it was a "variation pile" before they were all like "NO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT THESE DO IF YOU ARE NOT PLAYING." So it's nice to finally know what I missed.

I mean, as a concept, I love it. In practice, probably not so much? Castles seem to have the disadvantage of forcing you to decide on a very specific strategy before you make your first buy of the game (and I know there are a lot of cards like that, but Empires seems to be throwing more in than usual). As someone who's lost way too many games either not reacting to their opponent's strategy enough or not compensating for far-from-ideal shuffle luck, I can't help but get nervous when I go into a strategy blind. This should be my cue to suck it up, but that isn't as easy as it sounds. It doesn't help either that Castle-friendly boards will probably be much harder to spot than, say, Gardens- or Vineyard-friendly ones. Leaving this up to you guys.

[Beyond Awesome]

You can't really ignore Castles. The question really is at what point in the game do you go for them, or at least contest them as to prevent your opponent from outright winning. I think 2P Castle games will very much play out like a game of chicken, especially because of the existence of Small Castle being present, allowing for the possibility of the opposing player to snipe bigger Castles.

By the way, I'm pretty sure Small Castle is the strongest Castle out of all of them. That's the one you want to get whether you are going for a Castle strategy or not.

[junkers]

It doesn't help either that Castle-friendly boards will probably be much harder to spot than, say, Gardens- or Vineyard-friendly ones.

How so? Given the pile is packed with a lot more variety, and therefore they need a variety of supporting cards?

I think that King's Castle getting sniped is the biggest worry with this strategy, and therefore preventing that is going to be the toughest task.

[Watno]

I think I wouldn't like a lot of the things in this expansion in 3+ player games. Good thing I don't play those anyway.

[Watno]

Does the Castle randomizer reflect the cost of Humble Castle (the split pile preview said the randomizer "usually" follows the top card), making all of these suitable as Banes?

Yep!

Does this also mean this is a Treasure pile, and not an Action pile?
That would mean the only token you can get on it is the +buy token.

[werothegreat]

I think that King's Castle getting sniped is the biggest worry with this strategy, and therefore preventing that is going to be the toughest task.

You want to make sure your opponent is in Debt, or bogged down by Attacks, before taking Grand Castle.  Or try to take Grand and King's at the same time.

[werothegreat]

Does the Castle randomizer reflect the cost of Humble Castle (the split pile preview said the randomizer "usually" follows the top card), making all of these suitable as Banes?

Yep!

Does this also mean this is a Treasure pile, and not an Action pile?
That would mean the only token you can get on it is the +buy token.

[Watno]

Well, you can play 3/8, or 6/12 in a 3p+ game.

[GendoIkari]

Does the Castle randomizer reflect the cost of Humble Castle (the split pile preview said the randomizer "usually" follows the top card), making all of these suitable as Banes?

Yep!

Does this also mean this is a Treasure pile, and not an Action pile?
That would mean the only token you can get on it is the +buy token.

No, it was said earlier that the randomizer just says Victory-Castle. But also, how would you get the +buy token on a treasure?

[Watno]

Seaway doesn't specify a pile type, you can gain one of the Action - Castles with it after reducing the cost.

[crj]

Hmm. It occurs to me that games with both Rebuild and Castles would be pretty brief and wild. And there'd only really be one strategy in town...

[Triumph44]

I walked past a Castles game when I was taking a break from a game day with a couple of playtesters and I only got to see that it was a "variation pile" before they were all like "NO YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT THESE DO IF YOU ARE NOT PLAYING." So it's nice to finally know what I missed.

I mean, as a concept, I love it. In practice, probably not so much? Castles seem to have the disadvantage of forcing you to decide on a very specific strategy before you make your first buy of the game (and I know there are a lot of cards like that, but Empires seems to be throwing more in than usual). As someone who's lost way too many games either not reacting to their opponent's strategy enough or not compensating for far-from-ideal shuffle luck, I can't help but get nervous when I go into a strategy blind. This should be my cue to suck it up, but that isn't as easy as it sounds. It doesn't help either that Castle-friendly boards will probably be much harder to spot than, say, Gardens- or Vineyard-friendly ones. Leaving this up to you guys.

None of the Castles seem to be way worse than the other VP options at their price point besides the King's Castle if you have no other Castles.  If your opponent somehow has made it clear that he or she is going 'heavy Castles', it doesn't seem hard to break up that strategy by buying your own Castles.  The difficulty would seem to be in rare games where one person goes Big Money variant hoping to win the game quickly and one player goes for a huge, difficult to assemble engine that intends to clear the Castle pile in one turn.

[Watno]

Hmm. It occurs to me that games with both Rebuild and Castles would be pretty brief and wild. And there'd only really be one strategy in town...

You mean the same strategy as in many Rebuild games without castles? I don't see much of a reason to go for Castles with Rebuild

[eHalcyon]

Hmm. It occurs to me that games with both Rebuild and Castles would be pretty brief and wild. And there'd only really be one strategy in town...

Games with just Rebuild are brief anyway. But Rebuild-Castles seems like a bad idea to me because you'd be trashing Castles you want to keep.   Also, many of the Castle-to-Castle jumps would be only 1VP increase.

[Triumph44]

Hmm. It occurs to me that games with both Rebuild and Castles would be pretty brief and wild. And there'd only really be one strategy in town...

Granted I am terrible at Rebuild but I'm not so sure how good Rebuild would be with Castles.  You can't protect more than one of your Castles when you name a card.  The Sprawling Estate looks really good with Rebuild as does the Small Castle, but the gaps in Castle costs will cause a problem as the pile runs, and the King's Castle is less appealing as you smash your Castles into other ones.

[Watno]

The main problem is that getting all the Castles with Rebuild doesn't end the game.

[crj]

I'm thinking that firstly it's pretty rare for some other strategy to be better when Rebuild is on the table.

Beyond that, if one person starts going for Castles, other people need to as well. Yes, you can only name one card when playing Rebuild, but you do know what's still in your deck, if you're careful.

You could Rebuild stuff into Castles, Castles into other stuff, and I'm not sure Castles into Castles would be especially infrequent either, if multiple people were buying them.

Hey, in a few weeks' time, I can try it and see what happens. (-8

[Triumph44]

Beyond that, if one person starts going for Castles, other people need to as well. Yes, you can only name one card when playing Rebuild, but you do know what's still in your deck, if you're careful.

Yes, by deck tracking you can know what's in your deck.  This is still not going to assure you of hitting a card or not hitting a card.  You can give yourself better chances.  But with all the reshuffling you do in Rebuild games you can get yourself into difficult spots.

You could Rebuild stuff into Castles, Castles into other stuff, and I'm not sure Castles into Castles would be especially infrequent either, if multiple people were buying them.

The Castles are largely predicated on getting a lot of them.  The Small Castle is the best one to get as you can smash it and get a Province and a Castle out of it, but I'm pretty sure I would switch off Castles once I got the Small Castle in a Rebuild deck.  If you get the bigger Castles, you can't prevent yourself from smashing all of them, and unless it's a Colony game you have to turn them into Provinces which isn't much of an upgrade (and indeed could be a downgrade in some cases). 

[Watno]

The Small Castle is the best one to get as you can smash it and get a Province and a Castle out of it

You can't. You only get a Castle when you trash Small Castle with its action.

[Triumph44]

The Small Castle is the best one to get as you can smash it and get a Province and a Castle out of it

You can't. You only get a Castle when you trash Small Castle with its action.

Oh, oops.  Missed that.   Yeah, then I probably would avoid Castles entirely in a Rebuild strategy, if I could.  I guess I probably can't, but I'd only get one or two.

[math]

Crumbling Castle might be worth it in a Rebuild game, since it gives you an on-trash benefit.  The problem is that you can't buy Humble Castle, since that would let your opponent buy the Crumbling Castle.

[dane-m]

I think I wouldn't like a lot of the things in this expansion in 3+ player games. Good thing I don't play those anyway.

I play mostly 4-player games, sometimes 3-player, and there are certainly some features of this expansion that I suspect I'm going to find unsatisfactory in those games.  My two worries are (a) the potential significance of seating order when Temple or Farming Village are in the game and (b) the complexity of scoring as a consequence of some of the Landmarks, e.g. the one that gives 2VP for having the most, or joint most, of a card (Battlefield?).  There are, however, plenty of things about this expansion that I'm looking forward to, so if as a group we finish up excluding a couple of kingdom cards and a few Landmarks from our games, that's not a big issue.

[Accatitippi]

Crumbling Castle might be worth it in a Rebuild game, since it gives you an on-trash benefit.  The problem is that you can't buy Humble Castle, since that would let your opponent buy the Crumbling Castle.

Well, in a rebuild game it shouldn't be too hard to hit 4 after you Rebuild an Estate.
But suspect you want the Duchy in most of those situations. 2 free vp's are probably not worth the risk of losing the Duchy split.