Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm

Designers: Andrea Chiarvesio, Luca Iennaco
Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games
Year: 2009
Players: 2 – 5
Time: 90 minutes
Ages: 10 and up

A few weeks ago I wrote about Kingsburg, a fun game where you build buildings, influence the king’s advisors and defeat monsters. This is a great expansion. It adds variety and new strategies. Lately I’ve been feeling a little burned out on expansions, but this one really does help the game. It doesn’t feel so much like an expansion for expansion’s sake, as some do.

Actually, the expansion is more a collection of 5 “modules” that can be used separately or in conjunction to change the base game, add a little something different.

The first module is new province sheets. They have the original buildings, but add on two new rows. The second module is single strips of building that can be used over lines in the original province sheets or the new ones. When we played the other weekend, we each got two extra rows and could use both, one or neither. I think we all used both because new building are cool, right? There are seven strips available, two of each, so everyone’s building options are different. Some of the new buildings I remember off-hand are the brewery, the traveling market and the griffin ranch.

The third module is governor cards. Basically, each player gets one of 24 roles, whether it be fairy, trickster, or sculptor for example, each with their own skills or strengths, a benefit they provide to that player alone. I forget the title of my card, but the last time we played at the beginning of year three I could build up to 3 building in the first column for free. Definitely gave me a jump in the middle of the game, but also influenced what I built in the two years before that.

Destiny cards, the fourth module, on the other hand affect all the players. A new one is drawn at the beginning of the year and lasts through that year. I think we had one that said the king is sick, so he cannot be influenced this year. There are some that involve new forests or fog.

The last module we haven’t tried yet. It involves using soldier tokens instead of die rolls for the battles, but the other ones just seemed so much funner that we haven’t gotten to this option yet.

I love the individual strips of building that only replace one row, the governor cards. They each add a little twist and make it so each player has a different strength or different set of options. They add to your choice, while the destiny cards add a touch of randomness. You can’t plan for what the next year has in store for you. The new province sheets are a little too long to fit well on our table, with the board and everything. I know that seems petty, but you have to be able to play the game to enjoy it. I don’t want my little markers falling off the bottom row every time I reach for a cube of gold.

Overall a great addition to our game shelves.

My brother purchased our copy for David for his birthday. Thanks! I am an Amazon and Funagain Games associate.

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