Ring Side Report- Kingsburg Game Review



Producer-Fantasy Flight Games and others


Set-up/play/take-down-~1 hour


Price– ~$50


TL;DR–  Good game of Kingdom building-80%


Basics-In Kingsburg, each player takes the role of different governors in border territories to a large kingdom.  Each year the players roll three dice and spend dice to influence different patrons.  Patrons are influenced by spending dice that exactly total a patron’s value.  Theses patrons give the players gold, wood, stone, military support, surveillance, dice change values, or victory points.  Each patron can only be influenced once per season.  After each season, each player can build different structures for his town.  After each season, the king helps the leading or losing player, and the process repeats.  After three seasons, monsters attack all the towns and each player sees if they were able to fend off the hordes or if the hordes destroyed part of his or her town.


Mechanics-The game is somewhat a eurogame, but with some strong American style themes.  The dice can be somewhat swingy, but the fact that the king helps each player really does help balance the game.  No one really spends to much time far behind the other players, and that is excellent game design.  My only major problem with the game is the way the king helps each player.  One player each year rolls a d6 and that much military aid come to all the players for fighting the hordes.  This really makes this part of the game swingy and can lead some lucky players to victory instead of smart players.  Also, some buildings are completely useless and far to overpriced.  3/5


Theme-This game has some problems with theme.  I like it, but I don’t completely feel like I’m a governor at the edge of the known world.  It’s not a major problem, but I don’t feel taken away.  Also, since this is a eurogame, the game has to use small wooden cubes.  Now I know it’s not a large thing, but why not use small things that look like what they are?  You never have huge piles of the resources anyway; why not give me something that makes me feel a bit more in the game?  Another problem is the swingy nature of the game.  Since you roll for what you can play, it does take a bit away from the nature of smart play, but could be interpreted as you harvesting what you can, when you can.  While I am complaining, I did like this game and really liked the fact that only one player can influence a patron each season.  It really does add to the theme of working in a feudal government. 3/5


Instruction-They game is well written, and the board and player mats are built to execute these instructions well.  I had absolutely no problems playing the game as written. 5/5


Art and Construction-The art isn’t bad.  It has a distinctive style and nothing is too small to be visible.  Everything is written in icons on the main board, so the board reads fast.  I liked what I saw and think it’s built pretty strong. 5/5


Final Thoughts-This is a pretty decent game.  I’m glad my wife owns it.  It’s one of the game we play pretty regularly, and I’m not disappointed when we bust it out.  It does have its flaws, but those are usually something I can overlook.  Good game that you should give a try if it comes to the table.  80%


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