''Kingdoms'' is a

German-style board game A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game (generally just referred to as board games in Europe), is a class of tabletop games that generally feature indirect player interaction, lack player elimination, ...

for 2-4 players designed by

Reiner Knizia Reiner Knizia () is a prolific German-style board game designer. He was born in West Germany in 1957 and earned a doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Ulm before designing games full time. He is frequently included on lists of the gre ...

and released in 2002 by Fantasy Flight. The game is based on Knizia's original

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

game ''Auf Heller und Pfennig'', but has been given a

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

theme. In 2003, ''Kingdoms'' won the

Origins Award The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the gaming industry. They are presented by the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for games released in the preceding year. For example, t ...

for ''Best Abstract Board Game of 2002''.

Rules

Players take turns drawing tiles from a stack and laying them on an orthogonal grid, representing a kingdom being settled. Tiles can be either resources (with value +1 to +6) or hazards (-1 to -6). The sum of all tile values on a row or column determines the score for that row or column. A special case is the ''mountain tile'', which splits the row and column it occupies into two, so that each section is scored separately. Players may also play castle tiles, ranked 1 through 4. To score points from a row or column, a player must have a castle there; castles score the points of the row and column they occupy times the rank of the castle. This score may be a negative number. A player has a limited number of castles; castles other than rank 1 cannot be reused. There are three special tiles, besides the mountain tile mentioned above: the

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

, the gold mine and the wizard. The dragon negates all resources in the row and column it occupies, leaving only the hazards. The gold mine doubles the value of that row and column. And the Wizard raises the castle-level of any adjacent castles by 1. When the grid has been filled, the round ends, rows and columns are scored and each player earns points. The board is emptied and play continues for three rounds.

Strategy

Players cannot move tiles once they have been placed. They must also play their castle tiles when there are still empty places on the board, else they risk not scoring the best rows and columns. This requires tactical thinking; each player must balance the need to score points with the risk of having their valuable castles negated with a dragon or hazard tile later in the round.

References

External links

*{{bgg, 119, ''Kingdoms''
Kingdoms Walkthrough
a
I Play Red
Fantasy board games Origins Award winners Tile-laying board games Reiner Knizia games Board games introduced in 2002