Citadels

Citadels is a card game in which you collect gold in order to build "districts."  Each district costs a certain amount of gold.  The game ends when one person has built 8 districts, and whoever's districts are worth the most (including some end of game bonuses) wins the game.  Every turn you have the option of either taking two gold pieces or drawing two cards and keeping one.  You then have the chance the build a district.  Then your turn is over and it's on to the next person.

It sounds pretty simple, right?  Well, the twist comes in with the roles/characters.  There are 8 characters, each with its own special ability.  The thief can steal gold, the merchant gets a gold bonus, the architect gets extra cards, etc.  The cards are passed secretly around so that you can select your role - and try to guess what the person before you took, and what the person after them took.  It's not as easy as it sounds to pick a role.  If you want more gold, you'll be tempted by the merchant - by the assassin might want to prevent you from getting that gold and will kill the merchant.  It's all about strategy, and who you pick can make or break the game.

2-7 players.  45-60 minutes.  Dark City expansion available.  Medium learning curve.

Becky says:

For some reason, Citadels tends to fly under my radar.  I'm never dying to play it, and I don't think I'd ever suggest it, but if someone else suggests it I'll definitely play.  I just tend to forget about it, mostly.  It is a fun game, it just isn't a stand out for me like some of the others that we've played.

Our group tends to have a rather large problem that others might not experience, and that's how much downtime there seems to be.  We play with many people that really take a lot of time to strategize and plan out exactly what move they're going to make.  The process of choosing what role you want and then pass the cards around can take over 5 minutes for us.  I've heard from other people that their games don't take nearly this long, so this might only be a concern if you know you play with a group of people that like to take their times with stuff like this.  Also, once the round begins, you take your turn one player at a time, and the majority of other players turns don't affect you, so there's some down time there as well.

But on to the good things: it does take some interesting strategy to try and win the game.  If you want to do well you'll be tempted to take the more powerful characters, like the merchant, who gets plenty of extra gold.  But the powerful characters also have a big target on their backs, so you can be sure the assassin and the thief are after them.  You not only have to make good decisions for yourself, you have to predict what you think your opponents will do and how it will affect you.  And they're doing the same thing, so they might do something different than they normally would if they're thinking about what you're doing.  It's definitely a game where it helps to know your opponents and their style of game play.

One other comment - the two player version of this game is a big flop, in my opinion.  Even though they try to change the rules up to make it less predictable, it doesn't really work.  You can still tell pretty easily what your opponent has chosen.  Plus, the person that goes first seemed to have a gigantic advantage and pretty much controlled the game.  I wouldn't bother with it if you've only got 2 players.

Overall, we play Citadels infrequently enough these days that I enjoy it when it does come out, but I'm never dying to play it.  It's good when we need a change from the regular games we've been playing.  I'm also surprised to find out that Jason enjoys it much more than I realized, as you'll see below.  As for me, I give it a 6 out of 10.

Jason says:

Citadels.  It's a game.

Yep.

It's one of my favorite games, actually.

What stands out about this game is the characters and how much sway their powers hold.  Picking the wrong character can cost you a turn, or all of your gold, or a large portion of your points, maybe a combination of the three.  So basically, the stakes are really high every turn.

Also interesting is that it isn't a matter of numbers or excellent strategy, it's actually a matter of understanding your opponents' motivations.  When you lose your gold, it's because someone else decided to steal from your character; tough luck, you might've avoided it had you considered that that person would steal from the character you picked.  Lots of people suggest that they just have rotten luck playing this game.  However, I say that luck really isn't much of a factor in this one.  Instead, it's about figuring out what everyone will do and how you can maximize your profits from the way things will go.  The strategy eludes lots of people, and lots of other people just don't want to put forth the effort to think things through.  Of course, flying by the seat of your pants is a legitimate strategy, but if you're playing with someone who is really attentive, it is also a losing strategy.

So my short description of the game's great qualities is this: the strategy is person-centric and relies only a little on luck; any single turn in this game is high-stakes, giving the game an extra sense of intensity; the game is simple to learn, but monolithic to master.

Citadels has drawbacks too, and one of them is that some people will be intimidated or discomforted from the intensity of the game.  Some people show this through nervousness, while others simply fail to see why it is so intense.  The game is not for everyone.

So, when playing with those kinds of people (the people that this game isn't for) you get several phenomena; they get distracted during character picking, or they stop caring because they don't "get it."  Unfortunately, this brings the game down for everyone, because it's such a person-centric game.  I'll admit, it feels like a slow game, but it will only feel slow if you fail to see the value of paying attention to the important decisions.

This was a tough review, because no words can truly describe what it feels like to play a good game of Citadels.  I will give Citadels a 8.8, and that is out of a possible 9.999995, but since 99.99995% (also known as 5σ) is good enough to declare a discovery in high-energy physics, it's as good as a 10 for me.  So, 8.8/10.