Architects of the West Kingdom

26th November 2019

Tuesday evening at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

The second and final game of the night was 'Architects of the West Kingdom'.

As an architect it's your job to rebuild the errr.... West Kingdom!
So it appears that in this game, you'll be rubbing shoulders with virtuous members of the clergy and getting 'down and dirty' with shady criminals. The life of an architect, eh?
 
Architects of the West Kingdom is a pretty standard worker placement game, but a worker placement game with a couple of extra little twists.

What's in a game?
There's quite a lot to Architect of the West Kingdom and this is reflected in the components.

• Game board: As you'd expect for a worker placement game, there's lots of spots to place workers. There's also a couple of card tracks, a 'Cathedral track, a 'Guildhall track' as well as a virtue track. Interestingly there's also tax stand and a prison.
• Tax stand: There's a cardboard cut out basic 3d building that is used to represent the tax stand. When certain taxes are paid, they go directly into the tax stand. This is only 3d building in the game, it's bit unnecessary, but it's a nice touch.
• Reward cards: When a player contributes to the construction of the Cathedral, they earn a reward.
• Apprentice cards: Used with one of the card tracks. Apprentices grant the owning player some sort of bonus when acquired.
• Building cards: These cards contain 'plans' for buildings that players can build.
• Multiplier cards:
• Debt cards: These are double sided cards, one side represents being in debt (Not a good thing.) and the other side represents having paid that debt off.
• Black market cards: These cards are also double sided and represent resources that can be acquired via the black market. one side represents 'small' and the other 'large' markets.
• Resources: There are 6 kinds of resources in this game: Clay, wood, stone, silver, gold & marble.
• Player boards: These are double sided. One side is for the standard game and the other for the variable.
• Meeples: Every player gets 20 meeples to use as workers.

The cards are quite nicely illustrated. The artwork on the board is even nicer, depicting the different buildings and areas that workers 'use'. It's clear some effort has gone into the artwork.

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Game board with nice artwork,

All set up and ready to go.

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Hows it play?
Setup

• Determine the starting player.
• Give each player a personal board, 20 meeples and currency dependant on starting order.
• Give each player 4 building cards. Each player keeps 1 card and passes the remaining cards to the player to the left. This is repeated 4 times.
• Each player puts a marker on the starting spot of the virtue track.
• Construct the tax stand and put 4 coins into it.
• Fill the card tracks with apprentice cards.

Now we're ready to start. But first one of the differences in to normal worker placement games needs to be explained.
There are 3 ways to place workers in the game, this is dependant on the symbol used on the game board:

• First, when placing a worker, the player may have to pay some currency (In the form of tax.) to do it. Depending on where the worker is placed, this currency may go into the tax stand or supply.
• Small circle: Only a single meeple can occupy a small circle at any one time.
• Large circle: Any number of meeples from any number of players can occupy a large circle at any time. Furthermore, the more workers a player places into a large circle, the more they get out of it. If a player puts a worker into the 'forest' region, they will gain 1 wood. If on a later turn they place a 2nd worker into the wood region, they will gain 2 wood, 3 wood for a 3rd worker and so on. Other players' workers do affect each other.
• Guildhall: When a player creates a building, they must place a worker into the Guildhall, this worker is now out of the game.

Now we know how worker placement works, it's time to explain what all the buildings and areas do:

• Black market: The black market consists of 3 small circles. Using a black market space allows a player to carry out the action shown below the 3 circles. This is either acquire the good(s) shown on either the small card stack or large market card stack. Or the player can acquire a apprentice or building card. No matter they choose to do, the must lose 1 virtue when using the black market.
• Cathedral: Players can 'contribute' to the building of the cathedral. This is done by paying the cost and moving their piece up the track, this also grants the player a reward card and whatever benefit it confers. At the end of the game, the further up the cathedral track a player is, the more victory points they acquire during the endgame.
• Town centre: The town centre has a large circle. Amusingly, the town centre allows you to capture workers belong to other players (Or even your own!) and place them on your personal board. Each worker a player has in the town centre allows them to capture all the workers of a single colour on a space. Putting more workers on the town centre allows the player to capture even more workers. Why would a player want to capture workers, well see below.
• Guardhouse: Has a large circle. There are several different actions you can perform when putting a worker on the guardhouse. Firstly you can put workers you've captured in prison! For money! That's right, capturing workers and imprisoning them is a way to make money. Secondly, if the active player has workers in prison, they can release them back on to their personal board. Thirdly, pay money (Or get a debt card.) and lose 1 virtue to take back workers from another player's board. Finally, the active player can pay off a debt card.
• Quarry, Forest, Mine & Silversmith: These 4 locations all have large circles and are used to acquire resources. Placing workers on the quarry gets the active player clay, forest gets wood, mine gets stone or gold and silversmith gets silver.
• King's storehouse: Has a large circle. Placing workers here allows the active player to buy virtue and/or marble with resources.
• Guildhall: Putting a worker here allows the active player to play a building card (Provided they also pay the resources required.).
• Workshop: Has a large circle. Placing a worker here allows the active player to recruit an apprentice. There are 2 tracks of 4 apprentices. To recruit apprentice further along to the right of the track, you either need to have more workers in the circle, or pay. The track behaves like a conveyor belt, so when an apprentice is taken, cards slide to the left to fill the gap and new cards are added to the right.
• Tax stand: Has a large circle. As stated above, money will be paid into the tax stand. If the active player places a worker here they can take (OK steal actually!) all the currency in the tax stand. Doing this costs 2 points of virtue.

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Tax stand (With little box.) ready to be plundered by unscrupulous players!

Personal board at game start with 20 workers.

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And there's still a bit more to go in explaining the game.

• Virtue track: If a player is low down the virtue track, they can no longer make contributions to the cathedral. Conversely, if a player is high enough up the virtue track, they can no longer access the black market spaces. During the endgame, high virtue earns victory points and low virtue loses them. A player with low virtue also pays less tax. Finally a player who maxes out the virtue track may discard a debt card. A player who bottoms out the virtue track gains debt cards.
• Apprentice cards: When an apprentice card is gained, it will have some bonus or ability that the owner will gain (When the apprentice card is appropriately triggered.).
• Building cards: These give a benefit, either immediately, or at the end of the game.
• Debt cards: When a player acquires a debt card, it is always put on the 'unpaid' side. During the endgame, each unpaid debt card costs its owner 2 victory points. If, during the course of play a debt card is turned over to the 'paid' side, it earns its owner a virtue point.
• Black market reset: The black market can be 'reset' either by filling all the spaces in the black market or certain spaces in the Guildhall. When the reset is triggered, a series of actions will occur. All workers on the black market spaces are put into prision. The small black market card is flipped over to the large side and placed on to the large market deck (Revealing a new small black card.). Any player with 3 or more workers in prison loses 1 virtue. Finally, the player(s) with the most workers in prison gain a debt card.

Phew, that's pretty much it for rules! It seems like a lot, but in play it's not overly complicated as a lot of information is given on the board or cards.
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Endgame
Play continues until the Guildhall has been filled by workers (Different according to the number of players.). When this happens, all players get one more turn and then scoring begins. There are several factors that affect scoring:

• Victory points for constructed buildings and endgame bonuses.
• Victory points for contributions to the Cathedral.
• Gain/lose victory points for positions on the virtue track.
• Lose victory points for unpaid debt cards.
• Victory points are earned for every unused gold and marble resource.
• Each full 10 currency earned a victory point.
• Every 2 workers in prison at the game end loses the respective player a victory point.

Final scores are tallied. Highest score wins.

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What Architects of the West Kingdom loots towards the end. Note the workers filling the cathedral spaces.

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Overall
There are a couple of interesting mechanics in Architects of the West Kingdom, particularly how they interact with each other.

Being able to put multiple workers into a space to gain increasing results seems overpowered. But when a player puts a lot of workers into a single space, they can just become a target for another player to capture. Obviously when capturing workers, players will want to do it as efficiently as possible, because there's money to be made when putting them in prison.
If a player can predict their opponent's moves, stealing their workers can really screw with them.
Another thing to consider is that players have no way to get their workers back other than having them captured by other players or capturing them themselves.
Being able to manage your workers in this way can avoid those pesky debt cards, which themselves are a clever little addition to the game.
The virtue track, black market and cathedral also add an extra element that helps differentiate the game.

I enjoyed this game, I think it's fairly good.Generally I felt like I always had options and meaningful decisions to make. Which all I really want from a game.
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If you really like worker placement games, you'll probably like Architects of the West Kingdom. It's just different enough to justify its existence.
Or, if you don't own any worker placement games and you want one. You may want to consider this game,