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There are now no copies of ‘Kings and Castles’ left at Ragnar HQ but there is still the odd copy here and there with good stockists.
Plenty of interaction between players as each player at various times will have to use some of their opponents forces to try to achieve his or her own nefarious ends and in the process may have to grudgingly grant them some land that is ripe for taxation.
It is 1066 and Duke William of Normandy is about to cross the Channel to invade England. You are one of his most trusted nobles and stand ready to carve out a barony for yourself in England. For the next four hundred years you and your descendants will serve the king - fighting his wars, building his castles, collecting his taxes - and making your family as rich and powerful as you can in the process. But have a care! Other barons plan to do no less for their families. You will only emerge victorious if you can use sufficient guile, cunning and skill to shape some of the most decisive events in this country's history.
Sounds as if it's come straight off the bottom of the box doesn't it? Well it did actually....
This is a game that doesn't try to give you anything but a good time, however, I'll bet you leave the table with a bit more history up your sleeve than when you sat down.
Kings and Castles - a boardgame for two to four players, aged eight to adult.
Game components include:
Cloth map. Four counter sheets. Four faction cards. Cloth bag. Rule booklet.
Minimum playing time: One hour.
Some gamers have commented that they find too much 'down time' in the game and while not necessarily agreeing totally with this we have cogitated on the matter and have come up with some changes that should reduce the 'down time' and increase the enjoyment of the game - read on for said addenda.
Kings and Castles - addenda.
The following rules are currently being used to speed up play, and to prevent what has been referred to as 'extended downtime'.
1. The end of the turn
The Rules state that Player A must complete his turn before Player B begins his. The in-house system allows Player B to select his bonus before Player A restocks his Array. Thus Player B can begin his turn, whilst Player A is finishing off his previous turn. This was not included in the Rulebook simply because it would have required rather a lot of explanation, and might well have confused new players. If you have played the game before, it does make good sense. It does, though, rely on a high degree of integrity amongst the players!
2. Combat Resolution.
Whilst it is the King who places the attacking counters into a region, it is the duty of the player seated on the King's left to remove the 'dead' units. This ensures that all players can see what is happening.
3. The selection of the Kings
(These rules are for the full game only; the Short game remain unchanged).
i) the two- and four-player games
A. The selection of the Kings now takes place at three points in the game: at the start of the game, before the reign of Richard I and before the reign of Edward III-Part 2 (ie: every eight Kings).
B. The selection of the initial eight Kings is carried out exactly as stated in the rules. No Crown markers may be placed after Henry II-Part 2. All restrictions on adjacent placement are in force.
C. The other two selections (the one in the gap between Henry II-Part 2 and Richard I, and the one between Edward III-Part 1 and Edward III-Part 2, are resolved in exactly the same way. However, the 'First Player' is not now decided by the drawing of lots. Instead, each player adds up the value of their controlled towns, and the player with the lowest total becomes the new 'First Player'.
Note1! No doubling of revenue is involved.
Note 2! The previous Crown marker (whether it be Henry II-Part 2 or Edward III-Part 1) does count when determining adjacent placement.
ii) the three-player game
In the three-player game, there will be four selections of the Kings. One at the start, and the others between the reigns of Stephen and Henry II-Part 1; Henry III-Part 2 and Edward I-Part 1; and Richard II and Henry IV (i.e: every six Kings). A total of six Kings will be selected each time.
4.Omission: Short game Final taxation
All players receive the face value of their controlled towns. They do not receive double, as in the full game.
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And now a review!
KINGS & CASTLES
Ragnar Brothers
2-4 players, 2 hours,
designed by Steve Kendall & Gary Dicken
reviewed by Stuart Dagger
The Ragnars are back — Ivar the Boneless and his brother Halfdan. (One of these days I must remember to ask Steve and Gary which of them sees himself as Ivar. And why.). After a flurry of activity in the early nineties with the classic History of the World in 1991, Backpacks and Blisters in 1993 and 1500 Gold in 1995, they went silent. I had come to the conclusion that the disappointing reception that 1500 Gold got had made them decide that there were more enjoyable ways of spending your time and money than being a small games company. So this return came as a very nice surprise. And to answer the obvious question: yes, the game does feature a tea towel. The last English King (as opposed to King of England) died in 1066. This game is about what happened next. The men who occupied the throne for the next 400 years were a particularly unpleasant bunch, whose main thought was of personal aggrandisement. Having deprived the English of the right of self-government, the more energetic of them set about trying to do a similar job on their neighbours. In Kings & Castles the players take the part of these men as they pursue their ambitions at home and abroad. The treatment is broad-brush and fairly abstract: there is a map and the counters carry pictures of castles and soldiers, but you don't have to start worrying about dice and combat results; this is not a wargame. The game lasts for 24 turns, which sounds a lot but isn't as these are player turns, not game turns. On each of them, one of the mix of castles and mercenaries and here too the strength values run from 1 to 3.
At the start of the game all provinces on the map apart from Rouen contain an enemy unit and each player has a "household" made up of 12 of his own units — four of each of the three types. These household units are a non-renewable re- source and how wisely you use them will have a significant effect on how well you do. Players also have a set of crown markers and three taxation markers. The remaining player units, enemy units and all the castles and mercenaries are put in a bag, from which the players draw further units to help fill up a 10 space array on each of their mats. When filling up this array you may take some units from your household and some from the bag, but the household ones must come first. Once you have taken a unit from the bag during a turn, you can't take further ones from your household. The advantage of drawing from your household is clear: these units are guaranteed to be in your own colour and that is a good thing. However, you will be filling up this array each time you are king and so can't really afford to blow your inheritance all in one go. As I said, the household units are not things that you get to replenish and once they are gone you are wholly dependent on the luck of the draw from the bag. That done, players take it in turns to choose which kings they are each going to play. This is done round the table, one choice at a time, with the crown markers being placed in the king boxes to indicate possession. The game proper is now ready to start with William I, bonus number 4, country of interest England. The player who is William draws further units equal to the bonus number and adds these to the 10 in his array. So William will have 14 units which he can use in his campaign. He may campaign in England (the country decreed to be his main interest) and at most one other. "Royal units" (those in his own colour) may only be used in England; the others in either place. Mercenaries can't fight on their own and castles will be placed after the fighting in order to boost defences in readiness for future turns.
To take a province you simply have to move in enough units for the attacking strength to exceed that of the defenders, but there are some restrictions on the make-up of an attacking force and on which units can attack which other. Apart from the possible inclusion of mercenaries, all the units in the attacking force must be the same colour. You must also, for reasons which will be- come apparent in a minute, use minimum force, by which I mean that you can't attack with a force from which you could remove a unit and still be stronger than the enemy. The other restriction is that royal units can not be used to at- tack baronial units (those belonging to other players) if the country still contains enemy units. In other words, no civil wars until the place has been properly pacified. At the end of the combat, all the defensive units are removed together with any mercenaries and all bar one of the attacking units. This one remaining attacking unit is left in place as the new owner/defender of the province. At this point you are probably wondering how you handle an array which contains military units that aren't your own. So suppose that you are William, that your colour is green and that in your array are a couple of blue pikemen, a black (enemy) pikeman and a black archer. Suppose also that Canterbury — the province which the rules say that you must use for your invasion of England — is defended by an enemy knight. You begin by sending in the two blue units. Their combined 4 beats the knight's strength of 3 and so they win. Off comes the knight and one of the pikemen. The province is now defended at strength 2. Next you use the two black units to launch an Anglo-Saxon counter-attack from neighbouring Winchester. Another win. Off comes the other blue unit and since you get to choose which black unit stays on the map, you naturally opt for the archer. The defence of Canterbury is now down to 1. Time to use your own guys.
At the end of your turn as king you may opt to declare a taxation round. In a four player game you will be king six times and can tax on just three of them. It is your choice as to which three and that is what the taxation markers are for — you hand one in each time you declare a tax round. In a taxation round everybody scores victory points and you do this by adding up the revenue values of the provinces you control. For players other than the king, this number is what they score; the king doubles the basic revenue count and scores that. The game contains a fair amount of luck in what you draw from the bag, but there is also a lot of scope for subtlety, both in the psychology that is always present in these games of whom you help and whom you hit and in the choice of kings. You aren't allowed to be king twice in succession, but having two turns close together and with only one other intervening tends to put you in a good position for a scoring on the second of them. Having nearby kings who campaign in the same non- English country is also a good idea, as your rivals may find that the job of dislodging you would take up more resources than they can conveniently commit.
The rules are short and for the most part clearly written, though there are one or two places where more examples would have been helpful. My only problems were with the procedure for filling arrays, where the rule as written is ambiguous (the correct version is as stated above) and with the question of where you can place castles. This isn't addressed, leaving open such matters as whether or not you are allowed to place a castle in a province you don't control. The answer to this is that you may. The components are good, although I do think it was a bad idea to have dark blue as one of the player colours and black as the enemy one. Even in a good light they are too close for comfort. But these are all minor glitches and I regularly come across worse from professional companies. All in all this is a good and interesting game and I hope it does well.
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