My Look At Citadels

Citadels is a highly recommended card game of intrigue, strategy and deduction. The game consist of a wooden crown token some plastic orange candy looking tokens for gold and lots of cards that are shorter in width then standard cards. The most current version of Citadels also includes cards from its expansion Dark cities hitch consist of 14 purple district cards most with special abilities and 10 cards representing influential characters of the kingdom. The expansion however does not actually feel like an expansion but more like a variation of the game as the expansion is meant mainly to replace cards and add very little to the deck.

The game seems very simple at first. The goal is to score the most points by being the first to build the most extravagant citadel (8 buildings) with the most variety of districts (5). Each turn a player chooses a prominent figure of the kingdom (9) to influence. The player may then either take 2 gold coins or draw 2 building cards, place one of the cards in the bottom of the building deck and the other into his or her hand. Now the player may choose to pay and build a building. Arther that the next player takes his or her turn.

But that is not all for there are twists to the game. At the beginning of each round the player with the crown marker (marks the first player) takes the deck of influential figures, shuffles it, place a fixed number of cards face down and a fixed number of cards face up, based on the number of players. That player then chooses whom to influence and then pases the deck to his or her left. The influential figures determent the players turn sequence, determines who gets the crown token next turn and gives each player a unique ability.

This element of influential figures and the special ability that they give that adds the intrigue, strategy and deduction to the game. Abilities ranges from making a player with the targeted influential figure skip their turn to the ability to add a gold for each building of the same district and the ability to destroy a building.

Citadels has the components, game play and price that makes it a must have in any game library. It does not take a long time to play making it perfect for a filler game or as a main game.