Winter Kingdom

Winter Kingdom is a re-implementation of the famous Kingdom Builder, a Spiel des Jahres award-winning game. Both titles are the work of Donald X. Vaccarino, author of the also famous Dominion, and the design is signed by Markus Erdt. Winter Kingdom is a game completely independent of Kingdom Builder, in which 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up, can participate in games that last between 45 and 60 minutes. The game challenges us to get the highest possible score by building houses and forts to expand our kingdom.

Throughout the turns, the players must place three of their buildings on the board, in the hexes determined by a terrain card that is randomly drawn from a common deck. In Winter Kingdom there are 7 types of terrain where you can build (flower field, meadow, tundra, forest, ice, hill, and snowy peak) and 4 hexes where you can't (mountain, tunnel, town, and castle). As a general rule, whenever possible, buildings should be built on hexes adjacent to hexes containing friendly tokens. When one of the players has built all their houses and forts (which are worth twice as much as the houses) the end of the game and the scoring phase is triggered.

The games to Winter Kingdom are always different. This is done by the 7 pieces of modular terrain, printed on both sides, which form the board on which we will build our kingdom. The deck of winter cards also assures us that each game will be unique, since of the 18 available we will only use 3. These cards detail a series of conditions to add bonus points at the end of the game. Another element that will vary between games is the way to get the coins, since only one of the 8 different economic cards will be used.

Winter Kingdom is a game with a great strategic component. With the coins that you will earn as you build houses and forts you will be able to buy and improve skill cards. With these powers you will be able to reach areas of the board where it would not normally be possible to build and thus have options to add more points during the scoring phase. And if you want to raise the level of the games, you can use the turn cards, which add a new dimension to the game by modifying some rules.

Whether you are a lover of the Kingdom Builder saga or if you have never tried the original title, Winter Kingdom promises to be a challenge for any player. The skills that you will gradually buy will guide your strategy, which can suffer an unexpected setback with the turn cards. The great replayability offered by its components ensures an infinite number of varied games, so that your kingdom will always be different from the last one you have built. Will you manage to expand the most prosperous empire of the winter kingdoms?

Author: Donald X. Vaccarino
Illustrator: Markus Erdt
Mechanics: Worker Placement, Contracts, Hand Management, Modular Board
Player Type: Specialist, Regular, Gamer
Game Scenario: Duel, Less than an hour