Architects of the West Kingdom

Good evening everyone, for our game today Hector, Amanda and I have selected Architects of the West Kingdom. Architects is the first game I played in the “X of the (cardinal direction) Y” series of games, and is definitely a good jumping in point for anyone interested.

A components review for pretty much any of the games in this series would be the nearly identical, the bits are both of good quality and very consistent in quality across games. Excellent wooden meeples and resources, solid cardboard tokens and an exaggerated, caricature style of art for the cards. The art style is a take it or leave it sort of thing, I personally enjoy it but I wouldn’t really call it “good”; It looks very sloppy and exaggerated which players are likely to find either very charming and comedic, or just straight hideous depending on their personal tastes.

If you’ve played another game in this series, you can already guess what sort of game it is, go ahead guess. Yes! It is indeed a mid weight euro with worker placement elements, surprising no one. That being said it’s a solid once, which takes a little something from Pillars of the Earth in both mechanics and theme, although very little. Players are building a kingdom through various means, attempting to score victory points at the end through their contributions.

The way this is done is very different to Pillars. Although building the cathedral is a surefire way of earning victory points, there are several more, including building other buildings and having a high score on the virtue track. Player start with a handful of meeples and place them out one by one on various spaces throughout the board. With very little exception, having more meeples on one space improves that spaces action. You either get more resources or are allowed to perform the action multiple times. However players need to beware as at any point, another player can capture all of their meeples at any given space and later send them to jail for money. I’m not sure what the thematic explanation for rounding up all the local tradesmen and selling them to the local guard tower is, but it works extremely well mechanically.

Players can also take actions such as gaining apprentices to improve their engine, building the cathedral or other buildings for points and bonuses, trading resources, breaking their meeples out of jail, visiting the black market or robbing the tax office. There is also a virtue meter, doing good actions raises it and gives bonus points at the end of the game, and being shady lowers it, imposing a point penalty but allowing the player to cheat on their taxes. After a set number of constructions are completed, the game ends, players count up their points for the cathedral, buildings, virtue and remaining resources and the highest points is the winner.

Architects of the West Kingdom has a lot of moving parts going on, but they all flow together well and make more or less thematic sense. It makes far less concessions for it’s mechanisms to fit the theme than many euro games do, and there is frankly something diabolically fun about rounding up your opponents tradesmen and tossing them in jail.

I have not played this with more than 2 players yet, but there are obviously some serious changes to the dynamic. The largest being that since there is only one action before yours, you will always have a chance to get your meeples out of jail before the black market resets go off, where you might be a lot more cautious about sending meeples to the black market or leaving them in jail as there is a penalty for having the most there during said reset, they will also happen less often. The second is there is just a little less drama on the board, there is only going to be one other color of meeples to look out for, and certain actions, like robbing the tax office, will happen far less often when there are only 2 people contributing to it. Overall I think player count changes the gameplay a bit, but not in a bad way, there is just a slightly different ebb and flow to the game.

I would recommend this to nearly anyone looking for a midweight euro, especially if you want worker placement with a bit of a twist. However I probably wouldn’t recommend this to a player new to worker placement; there is a lot more going on in this than a typical game in that genre.

Note: I love this game and have quite enjoyed the playthroughs we have had. Even when you lose, it’s still enjoyable trying to come up with a strategy to get ahead. I also think the artwork is very cute and I enjoy my character (the purple).

The Teal Deer

Designer: Shem Phillips, S J Macdonald
Price: $55
Players: 1-5
2 player Scaling: Changes the dynamics a bit, but good
Playtime: 45-75 minutes
Estimated Lifespan: 10+ games
Average Play Frequency: Monthly
Complexity: 4
Components: 4
Bang for Buck: 4.5
Value for Time: 4
Fun Factor: 4
Overall: 4