Components: The artwork throughout is extremely good, the cardboard tokens are nicely done as are the wooden pieces. The supplied dice are nicely shaped and of good quality. The Main game board is quite large and easy to see and the various tracks make god use of artwork and icons to help guide you through the game. The rulebook is well written with good use of pictures and examples helping to guide players through each section of the game very well.
Overview:Each player takes the role of a Governor vying for resources to build their provinces, military to help defend their realm and to win favour from the king. The game is played out over five years and the winner is the player with the most VP's at the end of year five.
Each year is split into eight phases: Aid from the King (where the player(s) with the least buildings get help), Spring Production (Where players roll dice and influence the advisor's followed by a building phase), Kings Reward (The player(s) with the most buildings gets a VP), Summer Production (Played same as Spring), Kings Envoy (Person with fewest buildings get aid), Autumn Production (Played same as Spring), Recruit Soldiers (Players pay 2 goods to hire soldiers) finally Winter (where monsters attack, lead player rolls a dice to see how many soldiers the King sends to aid everyone. Those that defeat get a reward, those that fail pay a penalty)
During the production phase the players roll their die and the player with the smallest total goes first in the playing order, the others playing in ascending order. They then use their dice to influence the Kings advisor's in turn until everyone has used all their dice or passed.
Whilst reading the rules through on their own may make the game seem complicated, when read whilst playing through the first year it all falls into place quite well. This is a simple game to learn to play but one of those that will take a few games to learn some of the intricacies as there is a depth to this game not obvious from the simple mechanics.
I found this game very enjoyable and with a few more games under the belt the game should play a lot quicker than the stated time.
