Board Game Analysis – Citadels

This is my analysis of the board game Citadels.

Introduction

Citadels is a turn based card game for two to eight players. In this game the player hires different characters each round to help them build a city and collect gold. With the games expansion called The Dark City there are a total of 18 different characters numbered from one to nine. In the base game there were only eight characters numbered from one through eight.

The characters have different ability’s and they represent different colors.

Each round, every player secretly chooses a character that they think will benefit them. In addition to choosing a character each round, the player can also choose to build a district card in their city.

The district cards also have different colors, for example the color blue that is associated with religion. For example the temple and the church are blue districts, and the blue characters are the bishop and the abbot. So if you happen to have some blue districts you might want to think of choosing either of those two characters because they benefit the blue districts. The Abbot for example gives you one extra gold coin for each blue district in your city every turn you play the abbot. He also forces the player with the most gold to give you one gold.

Gold is used to build the district cards and they all have different gold costs which are shown in the upper left corner of the cards. Like the church costing two gold coins.

When someone builds their eight district the game ends and the player with the highest score by then wins.

Score is calculated by the combined gold cost of all the districts that the player has built. So by placing down your eight district card doesn’t automatically mean you win. Someone with less but more expensive district cards might still have a higher score.

District Cards

There are five different colors for the districts, the same as for the characters. Each color represents a different category. Red is military, blue is religious, yellow is noble, green is trade, and then there are the special ones with silver color. These districts are not associated with a specific character but instead they have their own n ability’s that take effect once you build them in your city.

Game example

In the beginning of the game the oldest player starts as the king, the king is represented by a little plastic crown. The king shuffles the character cards and hands out the starting district cards to every player. Everyone also starts with two gold coins. After the characters are shuffled the king chooses one or more characters to eliminate from that round, depending on how many players are in the game. After that he gets to choose a character from the remaining ones in the deck, hidden of course, and then hands the remaining characters to the player to his left.

That player chooses a character and continues to hand the remaining ones to his left until the last player only gets a select few characters that are left to choose from.

After that the second stage of the round starts. The king announces “number one?” and the player whose character has the number one, must reveal his character.  That player uses his characters ability’s, for example he might have the Assassin character that means he must announce another character who he wants to kill. Once it’s the announced characters turn to play his character dies and that player loses his characters ability that round. But of course he won’t know for sure who chose or if someone chose the character he wanted dead, so his attempt to kill might fail if no one played that character.

After he has chosen his victim he continues his round to earn two more gold coins or pick up two new district cards from the upside down placed district deck, and discard one of those cards. And optionally build a district card by placing it in front of him for all to see. He pays for it with his coins.

The gold coins end up in a pile in the middle called the bank. It’s from here that the players earn their gold each turn as well as pay for the districts.

Then when number one is done the king announces number two… and the next player whoever has the number two character gets to go. If no one chose a specific number you skip to the next character. When you have gone through all nine characters the round ends and the king starts the next round by shuffling the character cards and choosing one again.

There are five different colors of district cards and the characters each benefit different colors. For example, a player with very many green district cards would benefit more from choosing the merchant character because he gives extra gold for each green district you have built. Much like the abbot does for blue districts. On the other hand the other players might guess that you choose the merchant because they know you have built a lot of green cards, so someone is likely to use the Thief character to steal your gold. this results in a lot of mind games because the thief have to select a character he wants to steal from, but he can’t know for sure in advance who chose what character. Unless someone makes it very obvious what character they choose of course. So if you have a lot of green districts, you might even try to choose another completely unexpected character to guard yourself from theft or even assassination.

The good

Its very fun to choose a character each round, you have to think and plan ahead, and try to remember and guess what characters your opponents might have chosen by seeing what characters are left in the deck when it’s your turn to choose. Or by analyzing what district cards they have already built.

Playing one versus one is feels completely different than if you are playing with more people. It’s faster paced which is a fun contrast to the slower game you normally get. I think it’s very good that they managed to balance the game to work very good both one versus one and all the way up to eight people.

The different Characters feel overall well balanced, and so does the district cards.

The bad

The characters with very high numbers, like 8 or 9 seem less popular simply because they get to play last in the round. Same goes for the ones with number one and two, they are almost always preferred over the other cards. Like for example the assassin with number one. He gets to kill another character that he chooses, and then hope another player plays the card he chooses to kill. But he has no drawbacks. The worst case scenario is you don’t get a kill. And because he is a number one card you get to play first, and that means you reveal that you are the assassin and therefore the thief who is number two and plays after your turn, cant steal from you either because he to have to guess his target.

The characters abilities are not fully described on the card itself so you have to look for them in the rule book to learn exactly what they can do.

Most interesting system

I think the bluffing part of the game is the most interesting system. I feel it is what makes the game fun. It’s very strategic and you have to actually think before you act which I think is a very good thing. It makes it so much more interesting to play. And you get a really good feeling when your plan of deception actually worked the way you intended. Or when you fool everyone into thinking you have one obvious character and you actually don’t.

However, this is not always the case, sometimes (in my case most times) your excellent plan will get shut down with incredible swiftness, probably by someone assassinating you. This is a good thing because the more bitter your defeat, the sweeter the revenge is next round

Target audience

I think this game could be played by everyone, perhaps except for the very young. I believe the box said 10+ and I think that’s a good age statement for this game. I had fun with it and I could very well play this with my family for example. And i know they would enjoy it. It’s not that complicated to learn, the cards don’t have super much text on them, mainly cool art. And it’s playable with larger groups of people as well as with only two. Its medieval fantasy theme probably attracts a pretty wide audience as well, since that is a very large, popular and widely used theme.

Summary

This is a nice game, I liked it a lot. The Dark City expansion added many interesting character cards to mix it up a little. I really liked the strategy part of the game, like when choosing what character to grab for yourself, or deny the other players. And I think it’s good that it’s playable by a small group as well as a large group.

The strategic depth is just enough in my opinion, it’s not too complicated, but still complicated enough to add that intrigue and spice to the game.

I also like that the strategy is not always to rush building eight districts first, since all that does is end the game. Another player might still have a higher score in the end and all you did by rushing would be to let that player win.