Kingdom Builder

[Zarniwoop]

Components
As with other Queen Games the components are of a really good quality. The artwork is really excellent, though a quick glance the Chasm and Desert art looks very similar on the cards, thankfully the Hex symbol on each card is a good match for those on the board.  The main game boards have the score track printed on the reverse so one unused one can be turned over to score. The artwork on the Location tiles and guides are well done and fitting for this game.

Setup
From the 8 game boards 4 are selected and arranged to form the game board. On each of these boards will be depicted some Special Locations. The tiles matching these are stacked on each one (2 on each), again there are 8 different types but only 4 will appear each time.
You then shuffle the Kingdom Builder Cards and deal 3 of them faceup near the board. There are 10 of these but only 3 are used each game and they provide the many ways of scoring this game.

The Terrain cards are shuffled and each player dealt one to start with.

Gameplay
At the start you have only one action - which is a Mandatory build of 3 settlements which have to be placed on hexes matching your terrain card and adjacent to one of your settlements if possible.
When completed you discard your card and draw another.

As things progress you may end up building next to one of the special location tiles, if so you grab one (but only one from each stack) which can be used on subsequent turns. These tiles provide means of making additional builds or moving your existing pieces, these allow you to improve your scoring chances by manipulating your settlement placement.  These tiles can be used before or after your mandatory action so sometimes careful planning is required to maximise the benefits.

The mechanics of this game are really simple to pickup and teach, but with the various scoring methods (some of which fight against each other) it is difficult to try and score on everything especially as getting your settlements down in the right places can be hard. The variety provided by the random setup means that each game is unique, presenting a new challenge meaning it is difficult for someone to come up with a single winning strategy to use each time. This game is really good fun and is one of the few games I have played multiple times in one game session.

The game progresses well with very little downtime and you can think about your moves between turns, although the turns are usually quite quick even when people have the additional actions. There is also the opportunity to use your placements to block or otherwise scupper your opponents plans.

The end game is triggered once someone has placed there last settlement, the round is then completed back round to the start player and then the game is scored.

There is a fixed score each game of 3 gold for building next to a castle, the rest is determined by the various cards which I will not go into detail here but you score each card for all players. The player with the most gold at the end wins.

Conclusion
This is a real gem of a game that will see a lot of time on the table for me, I love the way it plays and the fact that no two games will be alike. The total game time is reasonable and the game does not drag it always feels quite pacey.

There are real decisions to be made here as well as opportunities for strategy, there is a degree of player interaction as your placements can seriously disrupt other players plans.

All in all a great game worthy of a place in your collection.