Kingdom Builder: the other classic Vaccarino game
Kingdom Builder, a classic area control game, keeps me coming back for more.
A happy Friday to you all! I hope you have nice weekend plans — or, if you don’t, I hope you get a few games in around the table. This week, I’m talking about Kingdom Builder, one of my favorite games to introduce to new players. It’s a nice little area control game with little conflict, and it’s packed with variability and options.
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When I hear the name Donald X. Vaccarino, a few things come to mind. In order, they are: “Dominion!”, “is X really his middle initial?”, and “oh! I can’t forget about Kingdom Builder!” The answer to the second question appears to be a mystery, but I sort of suspect he likes it that way. The answer to the first question is “yes, and that’s not really a question,” which is a fair criticism. I hear you. Vaccarino did design Dominion, and it really is one of the most successful games of the modern era.
Kingdom Builder, released in 2011, is a lightly themed game about building settlements in your kingdom on a map. The map, which is modular, has five different types of terrain scattered across it, organized hexagonally. Scattered around the map are eight different locations of four types of actions, each of which provides a different special action should you be able to claim one of the limited action tiles.
On your turn, you’ll reveal a terrain card from the deck, and that’s where you must place three of your settlements that turn. You must place settlements connected to other settlement groups you own, unless, of course, you don’t have any settlement groups to continue extending. In that case, you may place your settlement anywhere you please, so long as the terrain type matches the card drawn. By means of example, you might draw a desert card, and you have no settlements either in deserts or adjacent to deserts. You may place those settlements anywhere you choose, so long as they’re in deserts. However, if you draw a card and you have settlements in or adjacent to that terrain type, you’re obligated to place there. It adds just enough of a constraint to make the game work wonders.
That all seems fairly straightforward until we come to scoring. Each game features a selection of three of the ten Kingdom Builder cards — scoring cards — giving every game you play a sense of newness and variability. Sometimes, you might want large groupings of settlements; other times, you might need to spread your settlements as much as you can. Those Kingdom Builder cards change your dynamic and strategy pretty considerably.
Further, the special actions you have may play really well into those scoring opportunities — maybe you’re scoring based on the number of discrete, disconnected groups of settlements you own, and you have a special action that enables you to move one of your settlements two spaces away. That could give you an opportunity to break your settlements up repeatedly, and that’s a valuable action. You might prioritize your placement such that you can snag one of the two action tiles per location before your opponents have an opportunity. It’s all cascading based on just two variables.
The expansions offer even more variables to keep things interesting — more scoring cards, more special actions, more terrain types, and even additional game mechanisms. While that’s appealing, there’s another appeal to this game: It’s easy to teach, and that means I’m less likely to pull out an expansion for the game. It’s not a problem particularly, but it does mean I have three expansions in one box that I’ve only played sparingly. So, you know, don’t go rush out and buy all the expansions immediately. (That said, you can also get a ‘Big Box’ edition of the game that has everything, so maybe do that? I don’t know — you do you.)
But what is it that makes this one fun, you ask. Variability alone is no pathway to fun, and too often it’s treated as an end in and of itself and not a means toward fun.
There are a few factors that make this one a game I enjoy as much as I do. The decision making process for placement is a compelling piece of that. I appreciate the challenge of deciding how my placement might play into future turns, and I like having to plan just a little bit ahead. I also find fun in trying to balance the three different scoring cards each game, weighing what might gain me the most points at the end of the game. Finally, the special actions make me feel like I’m truly doing something more than typically allowed — it feels powerful and exciting, but it also doesn’t break the game’s core.
All told, Kingdom Builder is a great tactile experience, and it forces you to balance just enough to be compelling, but not so much as to be intensely taxing. That’s a difficult balance to strike, and it does so with aplomb.
Thanks for reading this Friday edition of Don’t Eat the Meeples! I’m not sure yet what I’ll be writing about next week, but I’m sure tempted to do something a bit off the wall this time around. Or maybe I’ll talk two-player games in advance of Valentine’s Day. We’ll see!