Wallets at the ready! Clear some shelf space! New games incoming!
Crusader Kings
After kicking up a storm on Kickstarter, the board game version of the PC masterpiece is nearly ready to break out into the wild. Yes, Crusader Kings will ship to backers in the next few weeks! The regular retail edition will follow afterwards. After playing a demo at last years GenCon we were very happy on how faithful this is to its PC counterpart.
From the publisher:
The board game Crusader Kings captures the essence of the Crusader Kings video game experience in a physical tabletop format. This is a strategy game at heart, but with a special focus on characters, intrigue, and drama. It’s a big, beautiful game centred on a map of medieval Europe, using cards for actions, characters, and events and well-crafted plastic miniatures to represent knights, armies, castles, and more.
In this game, your goal is to spread your influence over medieval Europe and lead your dynasty to triumph over its rivals. To do that, you need to groom your family over the generations, build and develop your dominion, be shrewd in the realm of diplomacy and intrigue, and use your vassals wisely to grow your wealth and military power, while at the same time fulfilling your duty to partake in the crusades to the Holy Land.
To win, you need to survive invasions, plots, crusades, and even marriage! Or at least have children or siblings standing by to take over the throne if your regent dies. Failure to raise a suitable heir can mean the end of your dynasty.
We are very much looking forward to this. With games running at around 3 hours, this is definitely a meaty game and worth the time given to it. Time to get those diplomacy hats on (or sharpen your swords..).
Suburbia: Collector’s Edition
Suburbia is, without doubt, a great city building game. It’s a pity that it wasn’t much of a looker. Well, that’s about to change with the brand new Collector’s Edition that revamps all the artwork in the game and includes all the expansions that were previously released. A bigger draw is the fact that it includes a brand new expansion called Nightlife. From what we understand though, the new expansion won’t be available on its own. You can only get it in this box. Tough luck on those who already own the original. Hopefully, Bezier Games sees the light and offers it up as a standalone purchase.
From the publisher:
This strategic tile-laying game has players use hex-shaped building tiles to create their own unique city. These tiles include residential, commercial, civic, and industrial areas, as well as special points of interest that provide benefits and take advantage of the resources of nearby places. Your goal is to have your city thrive and end up with the greatest population.
Each player builds up their own economic engine and infrastructure that will be initially self-sufficient, and eventually become both profitable and increase your population. As your city grows, you’ll increase both your income (giving you more cash to spend) and your reputation (growing your population). The winner is the player with the largest population.
During each game, players compete for unique goals that offer additional population boosts – and with the many varying buildings and properties, you’ll never play the same game twice.
We never owned the original but we like city building games so this is on our wanted list. Will it be on yours?
Conspiracy: The Solomon Gambit
Rob Daviau’s Restoration Games continues to hit it out of the ballpark. If you didn’t know, Restoration Games takes old games and updates them for a modern generation. Last year we had Fireball Island and the year before that Downforce. Both excellent. Now we have Conspiracy.
Conspiracy: The Solomon Gambit, is a restoration of the 1973 classic game conspiracy (duh!), where players vie for control of the agents by secretly paying them off and using them to move the briefcase across Europe, trying to get it to their HQ. But other players can challenge and stop an agent from moving if they have paid more than you — and for the right price they can even assassinate another agent.
In addition to a slick new look, this restored edition offers two new twists on the original gameplay. First, each agent has a unique ability that lets them move an agent or the briefcase for free. Second, an alternate win condition eliminates stalling and potential stalemates. If no one wins within a certain number of turns, Dr. Solomon can end the game immediately, and whoever has paid off the most to him wins the game. However, if you pay off too much to Dr. Solomon early in the game, that can leave you with little control over the other agents, forcing you to strike a tricky balance between immediate and long-term goals.
The original was a pretty great game for its time but the revamped version looks like it’s going to be a winner. Also on our wanted list. Damn, we were hoping 2019 was going to be easy on our wallets! 🙁
Circadians: First Light
Woot! Our favourite publisher/designer Shem Phillips has a new game coming out. Yes, not Paladins of the West Kingdom. We are talking about a brand new sci-fi series of games! Colour us mega interested. Designed by S J Macdonald and currently on Kickstarter where it’s fully funded with 11 days to go, this is definitely getting a backing from us. These guys can’t go wrong. Every single game from them has been amazing. You can check out the game and pledge HERE.
From the publisher:
The aim of Circadians: First Light is to lead a team of researchers on the planet of Ryh. Players need to manage their crew (dice) to visit various parts of the planet for trade, farming, construction and research. Players score points for negotiating with the locals, harvesting resources for the depository, upgrading their research base, exploring the planet, and collecting gems. The game is played over eight rounds. At the end of the final round, the player with the most points wins.
Worker Placement, Dice Rolling and Set Collection. Must have! Runs off to back it! *wallet screams*
See you all next week!
