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City of Kings

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19 Apr 2018 20:01 - 19 Apr 2018 20:02 #267871 by Gary Sax
City of Kings was created by Gary Sax
Respect to Charlie for not pimping his own work, but he just put up an interesting review for City of Kings.

geekandsundry.com/the-city-of-kings-is-a...ossing-fantasy-epic/

I mean, it's a kickstarter that's expensive. I'm just not in a 100+ dollar place after the GCACW shipment I just got and I've been good about skipping expensive kickstarters recently that sounded high quality (e.g. 7th continent). This does sounds really intriguing though for my adventure game tastes (a little more abstract). I like the parts of Shadows of Malice this is bringing in a lot w/randomized monsters---and I like worker placement and resource stuff.

Anyone else played this? Opinions?
Last edit: 19 Apr 2018 20:02 by Gary Sax.
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19 Apr 2018 20:18 #267872 by Cranberries
Replied by Cranberries on topic City of Kings

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19 Apr 2018 20:24 #267873 by Gary Sax

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20 Apr 2018 09:01 - 20 Apr 2018 09:04 #267891 by charlest
Replied by charlest on topic City of Kings
I'm not surprised this hasn't been talked about much here. Besides the obvious lack of Kickstarter enthusiasm, its original campaign was running when the Gloomhaven reprint was going wild, overlapping with Rising Sun as well I think.

I could barely recall its original campaign until I heard about it a couple months ago and started looking into it more. I'm thinking the Euro-aspects may turn off some here, although I figure this crowd would be more down with the Shadows of Malice-esque abstractions to enemies.

I may write a more in depth review on Player Elimination in the near future, as there's a lot going on in this game (not necessarily in complexity but in dynamics). For instance, it can be a brutally hard game if you don't prepare appropriate, which I allude to in the review. I found it easier, overall, than Mage Knight with the Lost Legion expansion, but City of Kings has this quality where certain enemies are just way outside your purview until you level up and reach a tipping point - then you can easily dispatch them. That's troubling if you run into them unprepared, but it feels great when you've levelled appropriately and filled the different niches of tank/DPS/healer in your group.

Also, the game's damn expensive but it doesn't feel inappropriately so. It kind of depends what you go in for.
Last edit: 20 Apr 2018 09:04 by charlest.
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20 Apr 2018 11:05 #267896 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic City of Kings
I ignore Kickstarter these days unless someone here posts about something interesting there. So this is the first time that City of Kings has gotten my attention.

Cardboard standees are absolutely fine with me, though these particular standees look a bit drab. The location tiles are nice, but I don't quite like the style of art used with the characters. It's not bad art, just not quite my taste. I really like the color and icons used for the various enemy factions. The tokens, bits, and bobs all look good. I am normally indifferent to custom dice, but the euroglyphs on these look fairly easy to interpret. Overall, based on the visuals, City of Kings looks like something I would enjoy. However, the character boards look like a nightmare of overwrought complexity. The control panel for the space shuttle probably looks less complicated than this.

But the description of gameplay sounds like a no-sell to me. The absolute last thing in the world that I want from a boardgame is abstraction. I specifically want the opposite of abstraction. I want mechanics and components that successfully evoke concepts in a way that contributes to at least the illusion of an unfolding story. Without that anticipation of what will happen next, a game becomes boring busywork. Worker placement is usually low on my list of preferred game mechanics, and I generally prefer non-deterministic combat to deterministic combat. Furthermore, the decision to include farming and mining of resources in an adventure game seems like the ultimate euro-wanking, and seriously undermines the essential concept of Adventure.

City of Kings looks like the unfortunate cumulative result of nearly two decades of BGG brainwashing gamers into worshipping eurogames. It's perfectly reasonable to want to design a game about exploration and adventure. It is perfectly ridiculous to try to shoehorn boring work stuff like farming and mining into an adventure game, and the desperate need to control combat outcomes instead of embracing risk seems a bit sad.

No, I haven't played City of Kings. So my comments here are pretty over the top for not having played the game. But I have played a lot of games over the years, and I know myself well enough to know what I do and don't enjoy about gaming. If a friend bought City of Kings and was desperate to get people to try it, I would reluctantly play City of Kings once just to make that friend happy. Otherwise, I have zero interest in playing some eurogamer's awkward attempt to reconcile his preferred style of gaming with the style of books/tv/movies that he enjoys.
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20 Apr 2018 11:21 - 20 Apr 2018 11:24 #267898 by charlest
Replied by charlest on topic City of Kings
Just want to make two points - there's no worker placement, just workers you move around and then roll dice to gain resources with, they function more as civillians on the map. The resources are used for quests as well as crafting items (the only way to get items).

This doesn't feel like an Uwe Rosenburg game at all. It does have many Euro elements but it doesn't feel like a natural evolution or continuation of modern Euros. It feels pretty unique to me.

Also, the character board does look crazy, but it's actually intuitive once you understand how the game works and it's simple. It's mostly just your stats with escalating scales that you move cubes down to track. So stuff like your movement, attack values, range, and so on. The bottom left of the player board is kind of a tree of skills you earn through play. The bottom right is used to track your four action points during the round.

Play is focused on the main board, it's not an optimization game with actions or resources on your player board. You just use your player board when levelling up as well as tracking your action points (which you could effectively ignore if you want to do it in your head). Your player board is more like a D&D character sheet combined with a space for action point usage.

It's odd because it is very abstract and it is deterministic, but scenarios do have narrative interludes and the actions you're doing feel like they fit into a greater whole. For instance, I understand more of what's happening in the context of the world than I do in Mage Knight.

I definitely think you wouldn't like it though Shellhead.
Last edit: 20 Apr 2018 11:24 by charlest.
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20 Apr 2018 11:48 #267900 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic City of Kings
Charles, we may have somewhat different tastes in board games (though there is certainly some overlap) but I have always appreciated your reviews. You consistently do a great job of analyzing the essential elements of a game without doing a box inventory or a tutorial. The enthusiasm in your review is enough to make me willing to try this game once, just in case I might like it. But even with clarification on some details, it does not sound like my cup of tea.
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20 Apr 2018 12:01 #267902 by charlest
Replied by charlest on topic City of Kings
Appreciate the kind words Shell. I'm not trying to convince you as I have no stake and would 100% rather someone avoid the game than buy it based on my recommendation and regret it - that's the worst. Repo picking up Warfighter based on my review and then disliking it a few years ago still bothers me to this day.

I'm glad you posted what you did and you make some great observations. Enjoying the discussion.
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20 Apr 2018 19:57 #267921 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic City of Kings
I actually think adventure games are one of the few genres that could still use some experimentation from eurogames.
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