[Board Games] Citadels - First Impressions

A new game made its way to the table recently with a group of friends. Apparently the game has been around since 2000, but this was my first experience with it. In Citadels, each player takes on the role of a city builder, trying to erect the city with the most grandiose districts, so as to get the most victory points and thereby win the game.

The districts are represented by cards, and the gold used to build them are represented by tokens. Every player begins with 4 cards and 2 gold.

On your turn, you first Gather Resources by either taking 2 gold, or drawing 2 district cards and choosing one to keep.

You may then build a district, assuming you have enough gold. District cards have the following attributes. The name of the district is in the middle bottom of the card. The cost to build is in the upper left corner, and the type is in the bottom left. The type is important for Character abilities, which we'll discuss next.

The most interesting thing about this game is that each round, each player selects a Character that they will use to help them gain gold, build districts, or gain other benefits. The thief (pictured below), for example, steals gold from another player. The Architect lets you draw extra district cards, the Bishop lets you gain extra gold for each religious district you have built; there are 8 Characters in total, each with distinct abilities. The Characters are selected each round via a card drafting mechanism, and it's also important to note the order in which the Characters take their turn.

The game ends when any player builds a set number of districts. For our 5 player game, it was the first player to reach 7 districts. The first player to reach this number does gain some extra points, but is not necessarily the winner. The main source of victory points is the districts that each player has built; one point per gold cost to build.

I found this game quite fun. The character drafting mechanism is really where this game shines. I found myself having to shift my strategy slightly each round, based on the cards I had in hand, the districts I had built, and the characters available for me to draft. This kept the game interesting all the way through and on repeated plays. I feel like this game would not be as much fun without at least 4 players, but I would have to try it out to be sure. But as it was, with 5 of us this game kept us engaged and left me wanting to play it again.