Tag Archives: Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All

13th December 2022

With this being the annual GOATS UnChristmas Dinner, almost everyone was present for a festival of food and fun, when Blue and Pink arrived with a small car full of party. There were lots of volunteers to help bring everything in and before long, pizza boxes were being handed round along with crackers stuffed full of bling and GOAT Award voting forms. The glittery Wingspan eggs from the crackers were especially popular, partly because so many people have a copy, everyone liked the idea of adding them to their game. As the last of the pizza boxes were being passed around, people started to think about this year’s GOAT awards.

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There was lots of umming and ahhhing as people tried to remember which game was which, but eventually the votes were in and people chatted while the returning officers (Pink and Green) did their counting thing. Then Green announced the winners. The GOAT Poo prize for the worst game of the year went to Villainous – The Worst takes it All and the Golden GOAT went to Everdell. Three epic games, one of Viticulture, one of Tapestry and one of Turf Horse Racing were nominated for “Moment of the Year”, but that somewhat poignantly went to the 2021 UnChristmas Dinner which was the last meeting attended by Burgundy, and the last game he played with us, Santa’s Workshop.

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Eventually, we all started thinking about playing games. Ivory and Indigo were keen to play the “Feature Game“, Merry Madness: The Nightmare Before Christmas, while Jade had specially requested a game of Gingerbread House. Eventually, largely due to logistics and lethargy (perhaps caused by too much pizza), everyone stayed pretty much where they were and played something with the people they were sat next to. First underway was Green, Lilac, Pine, Teal and Lime, largely because they were playing a game they were all familiar with, Carcassonne, albeit the Winter Edition.

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The Winter Edition is essentially the same game as the original “Blue-box” Carcassonne, but with snowy art work. Thus, players take it in turns to draw and place a tile, add a meeple if desired/possible and then remove any meeples that are ready to score. As in the original, the features on the tiles include city segments, roads and cloisters. Players score two points for each tile in a city or road they own if it is completed during the game, or one point at the end if incomplete. Similarly, Cloisters score nine points when completely surrounded or one point for the central tile and each surrounding it at the end of the game.

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The clever part of the game is that while players cannot add a meeple to a feature that is already owned by another player, features can be joined together and then shared so that both players score. Green and Lilac had played the same game last year at Christmas, with Der Lebkuchenman (aka Gingerbread Man) mini expansion which consists of additional Gingerbread Man tiles mixed in with the base game; when drawn, the player moves the brown Gingerbread Meeple to an unfinished city of their choice. Before he is moved, however, the current city containing the Gingerbread Man is scored with each player receiving points for the number of meeples they have in the city multiplied by the number of tiles in the city.

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Thus, even players that have only one meeple in the city when their opponents have more score a few points. This year, in addition to Der Lebkuchenman, the group also added Die Kornkreise (aka Crop Circles) mini expansion. Although they were happy with the Gingerbread Meeple, they were less sure about the crop circles—they looked more like funny shaped snow “angels”. The expansion consists of six extra tiles which allow each player to place a second follower on a feature that they have already-claimed or return an already-placed follower back to their supply. Of course, the group did not play the rules quite right, however, initially thinking that each person had a free choice of which action to take and whether to take it or not.

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It was only just after the second tile was placed that they realised it was the active player that chose the action (add an extra Meeple to the specific terrain type or pick up a Meeple) and everyone else had to do the same (they decided that if the player had no Meeple in an appropriate area then they just skipped the action). As a result of the Kornkreise, Lime ended up with three Farmers on the same tile, which at least it guaranteed him that particular field! The Crop Circle expansion also led to the biggest coup of the game. Lilac had started a city with her first tile and Pine positioned himself to muscle in on it a couple of turns later.

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Their cities were joined, but they just could not get the city closed before Teal then joined the fray. This became a very long city and then in the last quarter of the game, Lime also managed to add himself into the action on this game winning city. Then the final Crop Circle tile came out for Teal. He decided he wanted everyone to add a Meeple to a city, which he, Pine and Lime were able to do. Unfortunately Lilac (who had started the city right at the beginning of the game) had no Meeples left, so couldn’t and found herself locked out of the scoring at the end of the game as it was never completed.

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It was a game where no-one seemed to be able to get the tiles they wanted. Green regularly selected from the pile nearest to him, but only ever got roads. When he tried from different piles, he still got roads and when others selected from the “Green” pile, they got cities! Pine started to choose tiles from within the middle of the stack, raising cries of “cheat” from Green and Lilac. Pine’s argument was that the tile was still random, which was hard to disagree with and Lime started doing the same later on as well. In the final scoring, Lime surprisingly edged everyone out for the win, with Teal and Pine not too far behind.

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It had been fun though and the Winter edition is certainly the prettiest version of Carcassonne, so Green and Lilac are already looking forward playing it again next Christmas. Meanwhile, on the next table, Blue, Pink, Ivory and Indigo were playing the “Feature Game“, Merry Madness: The Nightmare Before Christmas, a very quick and light dice chucking game where players are trying to gather together all the spooky-themed gifts in Sandy Claws’ Christmas Bag. It really is very, very light and quick: simultaneously players roll their three dice and do what they say (in a similar style to Escape: The Curse of the Temple). The three dice are different: one shows which of the six gift types is moved, another shows how many, one, two or three, and the final die indicates where: to the player on their left, right or of their choice.

Merry Madness: The Nightmare before Christmas

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The group played with the “Making Christmas Toys” variant. Players started with the same number of each of the different toys. The idea is to get rid of all the toys that don’t match the one depicted on their “Wish List” (shown on their player mat). If they roll the toy on their Wish List, they take that toy from the player indicated, whereas for every other type they roll, they gift one of that type to the recipient indicated. There really wasn’t a lot to it, and basically the game was all about who was most awake (possibly correlated to the person who had eaten the least pizza). Blue won the first round, and Pink took the second. Blue finished the game when she took another two rounds and, although it had been silly fun, it was time for something else and Purple joined the foursome from the next table.

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Meanwhile, Purple had been explaining Gingerbread House to Plum and Jade and their partners Byzantium and Sapphire, respectively. In this game players are witches in the Enchanted Forest, building their gingerbread house and attracting hungry fairy tale characters with colorful gingerbread. Each player has a board with a three-by-three grid of building spaces. There is a face down stack of rectangular tiles with the top three turned face up (a little like the train cards in Ticket to Ride). These tiles each feature two squares, similar to Kingdomino tiles. On their turn, players draw one of the face up tiles and place it on their player board, then carry-out the effect of the symbols they covered up. The most likely symbol is one of the four different types of gingerbread, which means they collect a token of that type.

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Careful placement of pieces is important because if a player is able to cover the same two symbols in one one turn, the player gets the effect three times instead of twice. Once a tile has been placed, the active player can use some of their gingerbread tokens to capture fairy-tale characters. If placing tiles completes a level, the active player may also take a bonus card. The group found the game simple enough once they got going, but it took a while to get there. The “wilds” caused problems from the first and the group weren’t sure whether covering two at once meant doing three of the same thing. After re-reading that bit of the rules, it was decided the extra actions didn’t have to be the same, and as a result, Plum was able to make more of her final turn.

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It was close, but despite his super-charged final turn, Byzantium finished two points clear of Plum with Jade coming in third. Everyone had really enjoyed the game, though, so much so that Jade and Sapphire are now on the lookout for a reasonably priced copy! Although it took a little while to get going, once Plum, Jade, Byzantium and Sapphire were playing, Purple was at a bit of a lose end. Nightmare Before Christmas didn’t take long though, so when it was over, Purple joined Blue, Pink, Ivory and Indigo for a game of the husky sled-racing game, Snow Tails.

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The idea is that each player has a sled led by two dogs. They start with a hand of five cards drawn from their personal deck. On their turn, they can play up to three cards as long as they all have the same number. There are three places a card can be played, two drive the dogs, and one activates the brake. The idea is that a sled’s speed is the sum of the dogs’ speed minus the current value for the brake. in addition, the difference between the dog values is the sled’s drift, which causes the sled to move left or right. At the end of their turn, players draw back up to five cards.

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In general, if players hit something, they pick up a dent card which goes into their hand, blocking space and limiting their options. The game is quite simple, but as always, how and when to apply the “drift” caused some confusion; Pink certainly benefited from the rules malfunction, but others probably did as well. The group started out with the “Treemendous” track, but it seemed to take an age to get the game going and everyone was concerned that they might not finish before midnight. So, about half-way through the game, the track was truncated removing the the final bend and finishing with a straight section just before the finish line.

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Ivory stole a march in the first couple of turns and looked like he was going to leave everyone miles behind, but when he rammed the first corner it let everyone else catch up. Ivory was still the first out, but Pink was now not far behind going into the first stand of pines and was taking a different line. By this time, the damage to Ivory’s sled was starting to take its toll, and Pink was able to take advantage of his balanced sled (his dogs pulling evenly giving him a bonus equivalent to his position in the field) and moved into the lead.

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It was then that the act of shortening the track played into Pink’s dogs’ paws. With just the finish line in front, his dogs stretched their legs, he released the brake and shot through the second stand of pines taking out a couple of saplings on his way through. Everyone could see what was going to happen, but nobody could do anything about it, and Pink crossed the line miles ahead of Ivory who would, no doubt, have taken second had the group played on. Everyone else was far behind, still working their way through the first plantation. It had been fun, but it was time for home, so with many “Happy Christmases”, everyone headed off into the cold dark night.

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Learning Outcome: Turkey, bacon, sausage, cranberry sauce and stuffing really do make a Pizza taste like Christmas Dinner!

Golden GOAT Award Winners – 2022

As usual, the boardGOATS met just before Christmas for a party and to decide the winners of the GOAT Awards. After pizza and crackers and the usual mayhem, the group voted for two awards: the Golden GOAT for our favourite game and the “GOAT Poo” award for our least favourite. Everyone had the usual three points to hand out for the Golden GOAT Award (plus a bonus if wearing Festive Attire), though a maximum of two points could be given to any individual game. Everyone could also nominate up to two individual games for the GOAT Poo Prize.

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This year, there were a few games that received the unofficial “Marmite Award”, that is to say they received nominations for both the Golden GOAT and the GOAT Poo prizes. These included Dice Hospital, Azul, Modern Art and Viticulture. For the GOAT Poo Prize itself, there were several games that received two or three nominations, but the clear winner was Villainous – The Worst takes it All which received six nominations—quite an achievement since only five people played it and one of those wasn’t present for the vote! Villainous is a beautiful, asymmetric card game, but one that we struggled with for several reasons, not least the fact that players had to work out how to play their own character, and we were playing it with five people which is two or three more than it needs.

Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All

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Nominations for Moment of the Year included two epic games, one of Viticulture and the other of Tapestry. The latter nomination included the citation: “I thought I was doing well until Ivory lapped me… twice!” Pine also recalled Lilac nobbling him in Turf Horse Racing. The most poignant moment however, with hindsight, was last year’s UnChristmas Dinner, which was the last meeting attended by Burgundy, who very sadly, suddenly passed away just a few days later. We all still miss him, but the fact we were joined by Jade and Plum and their partners this year is his legacy, and one we think he would have been proud of.

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Pushpendra Rishi

And that just left the Golden GOAT Award for the best game of the year. Previous winners including Wingspan, Altiplano and 6 Nimmt! were ruled out, but there were plenty of options remaining. Lots of games received three nominations including Endeavor, Cascadia, Old London Bridge, Splendor, Tapestry and Die Wandelnden Türme But this year, the clear winner was Everdell. This card-driven game was only played for the first time a few weeks ago, but it is planned to play it again soon with one of the expansions being the “Feature Game” early in the new year.

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15th November 2022

With lots of absentees including Pink, Lemon, Orange and Plum, it was a relatively quiet night, but there were still nine and that left a difficult decision as to how to split up the group. The “Feature Game” was Everdell, and although it only really plays four, Ivory had the new, Complete Collection which includes the Bellfaire expansion which adds two more players. Three players seemed a little on the small side, so a four and a five it was, and the five were keen to give Everdell a go.

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Although Ivory had played Everdell with Pink and Blue in the summer of 2020, nobody had seen the new, Complete Collection which was a recent acquisition for Ivory, and what a box it was—It was humongous! Everyone wondered how Ivory stored it. That developed into a conversation about where people store their games, and it seems pretty much everyone uses a “Kallax” (though some people didn’t know that’s what they are called). However, it turned out the Everdell box is so big, it doesn’t fit onto a Kallax and Ivory stored it under his bed!

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Everdell is a very good looking game, a card-driven, tableau building and worker placement game set in a woodland glade. Players take the role of leader of a group of critters constructing buildings, meeting characters and hosting events by placing workers to get resources and spending them to play cards. Everyone enjoyed the opportunity to choose their own wooden meeple animals out of a selection of over twenty different types. Ivory went for the purple Platypuss, Purple went for a light purple Owl, Lilac went for orange Foxes, Teal chose the grey Hedgehogs , and Green wanted the Brown Bats. By random selection using a mobile app, Teal was to go first.

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It took a few turns to get the hang of the game, although it is not overly complex on the face of things. It is one of those games where there are apparently lots of choices, but in practice they are clear and relatively simple: players either place a meeple to get a selection of resources, or play a card into their tableau. And then, when all possible choices have been exhausted, players move onto the next “season”. The trick is working out how to extend the possible number of turns taken each season. Ivory was the only one of the group who had played it before, so had got it worked out. Everyone else had moved into spring while he merrily carried on taking his turns in his winter!

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Teal was the first to move onto spring, and this order continued through the rest of the game. At one point it looked as though everyone else would have finished completely, while Ivory was still in summer! It didn’t quite work out like that, but Ivory did have several more turns after everyone else had finished. The other trick to Everdell is to pair up the Critters cards with the Construction cards. By building a Construction, a player could then build the corresponding critter for free afterwards, thus giving them extra turns and extra bonuses. Ivory did well in this, and his starting and early meadow cards fell his way.

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Green and Purple also did well getting pairs of cards and playing them during the game. Unfortunately Lilac and Teal just couldn’t seem to get the pairings they needed. So it seems there is still a certain amount of luck in this game. The other thing which surprised everyone was how quickly the group got through a very big stack of cards from the meadow draw pile. After last time where we nearly failed finish Endeavor before the pub closed, the group set an alarm to give them a thirty minute warning before closing time as we were worried we may have the same problem this time.

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By the time the alarm went off nearly two hours later, the game was all but finished—not bad for a new five player game. Playing it again, the same group could probably do it in ninety minutes or less. Would it get another outing though? It certainly has cuteness factor in spades; it is interesting, and the game-play is not overly complicated; it has challenge in random variations, and many good looking expansions to enhance and change the experience. So, it will almost certainly get another outing and Ivory had better not put the box too far under the bed, as we’ll be wanting him to bring it along again in the new year.

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After too much “cards with text” with Villainous last month, it was clear that Everdell was not a game ideally suited to Lime and Pine. Instead, Blue said she had just the game for them: Cascadia. Cascadia won this year’s Spiel des Jahres award, and had not yet had an outing within the group. The game is very simple though: players have a starting three hex terrain tile, and on their turn, they take a terrain hex and a wooden wildlife token and add these to their tableau. Each terrain tile has one, two or three types of wildlife depicted on it, and the wooden tokens have to be placed on a terrain tile with matching wildlife symbol and that is more or less all there is to it.

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The interesting part is the scoring. Players score points for the largest area they have of each of the five different types of terrain with bonus points for the player with the largest area of each. That is simple enough, but they also score points for each of the different types of wildlife, and their scoring is different for each game. The scoring depends on the location of each type of wildlife, for example, this time players scored for each set of three (and only three) adjacent bears. They also scored points for each different type of wildlife between pairs of hawks. Ribbons of salmon and groups of elk also scored as did foxes for each different type of wildlife surrounding them.

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The game play behind Cascadia isn’t very new or terribly original, with the tile laying elements giving a feel similar to games like Kingdomino, or even Carcassonne. The variation in the wildlife scoring (with more wildlife cards available to add more variety), however, and the fact that the wildlife tokens are finite in number and are drawn from a bag, adds just a hint of something reminiscent of bag-builder games like Orléans or Altiplano. As the group played and Lime and Pine got into it, Blue and Black started to appreciate the subtlety a little more. The addition of special Keystone tiles that give players nature tokens when wildlife tokens are placed on them, also help players to mitigate the luck elements.

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This time, foxes seemed to hide in the corner of the bag when players wanted them, then when they didn’t, they all came out of hiding. Pine, inevitably put in a good showing and, despite everyone trying to persuade him, Lime succeeded in ignoring the advice to join his two groups of bears together (which would render them pointless). The scores for the terrain were quite close with a spread of just a handful of points. However, while Lime, Blue and Black had similar scores for their wildlife as well, Pine was eight points clear of his nearest rival giving him a final score of ninety-eight, ten points clear of Blue who was the best of the rest. Pine and Lime had clearly enjoyed the game though and it will almost certainly get another outing soon.

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Lime excused himself, leaving Blue, Black and Pine to play something quick, taking less than an hour. Although every time we play it, Pine points out that Bohnanza is not quick, this time he was persuaded because there were only three players and he wasn’t given time to think about it too carefully. Bohnanza is one of the group’s most popular games, yet it hasn’t had an outing for ages. The game play is very simple, but very interactive with a strong trading element. The active player first plays one or two bean cards from their hand into their fields taking care to keep them in the same order and only play the cards at the front. They then turn over the top two cards from the deck and plant or trade them. Finally when everything else has been dealt with, they can trade any cards in their hand with anybody else.

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Cards are played into fields—with more players, each person has two fields in front of them and may buy a third, but with three, everyone starts with three fields. This is important as each bean field can only hold one type of bean at any given time. Beans can be harvested at any time to give coins and the game ends after three turns through the deck. There are a few clever things about the game. Firstly, players cannot harvest a field with a single bean in it unless all their fields have a single bean in them—this prevents players just cycling through beans they don’t want. The really clever part of the game is that the fact that bean cards turn into coins when fields are harvested. As the rarer beans are more valuable, this means they get increasingly rare as the game progresses.

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This time, Blue planted two lots of Garden Beans early in the game which meant there were none available later. Pine and Black shared the Black-eyed Beans, Stink Beans and Red Beans between them. Blue planted lots of Green Beans and took it in turns with Pine to experiment with Soy Beans. By the end, there were really only Wax Beans, Blue Beans, Coffee Beans and the occasional Green, Soy and Stink Beans. With three experienced people playing, it was always going to be a tight game. Pine finished with thirty “Bohnentaler”, a couple of more than Black, and was quite disgusted to find he was pipped by Blue by a single point.

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Learning outcome: Ikea need to sell a bigger Kallax.

18th October 2022

The evening began with introductions to two new people: Indigo and White. As everyone else arrived and we waited for the last couple of people, the group started with a quick warm-up game of NMBR 9. This is a quick and simple tile laying game where players take number shaped tiles and add them to their tableau. Tiles must connect to an edge of tiles already placed in the same layer, and when placing tiles on top of others, they must not create an overhang or sit wholly on one tile. At the end of the game, players sum the face value of the tiles on each layer and multiply that by the “floor” they are on. In other words, the ground floor is “pointless” whilst tiles on the second floor (or third level) are worth twice their face value.

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Although the game plays just four, with two sets squeezed into the box, all eight people were able to play together. Everyone was happily laying tiles, with those who had not played it before quickly getting the hang of it. A few people needed to be reminded of the fact that tiles on higher levels must be supported by at least two tiles and if not the first, must touch another tile on the same level. Most people managed to stay on the straight and narrow though and before long everyone was practicing their mental arithmetic to work out their scores. And it was really close at the top: it looked like Indigo’s score of sixty-nine was the winner until Teal posted his score of seventy, and then Blue just pipped him with seventy-one.

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By the time NMBR 9 was done, everyone had arrived including Lime with his copy of the “Feature Game” Disney Villainous: The Worst Takes it All, that he had borrowed from work. This is an asymmetric card game where players take on the role of a Disney Villain (Maleficent, Captain Hook, Jafar, Red Queen, Ursula or Prince John), and try to satisfy their own personal objectives. Although the game is fairly simple in concept, a sort of worker placement, where players move their “worker” to different locations on their private player board and then carry out all the associated actions. The fact that every character plays in its own way and has different objectives, makes it much more complex than it sounds, however.

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Disney Villainous unquestionably plays best with smaller numbers of players and, with two copies, the ideal would have been to play two games with three players each. However, several people were reluctant because the Disney theme didn’t appeal, or dueling card games weren’t their thing. So in the end, there were five playing: Black as the Queen of Hearts; Indigo as Maleficent; Blue as Jafar; Lime as Captain Hook, and Pine as Ursula (or Arse-ula as she became known). Each player took their booklet with their instructions (their “Villain Guide”), and that was Blue’s big mistake in her preparation. She had deliberately not read all the characters’ details in advance as she didn’t want an unfair advantage. However, because the characters were so very different, it meant she couldn’t help advise.

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For example, each character has two decks of cards: a Villain deck and a Fate deck. Players have Villain cards in hand, while other players (mostly) activate their Fate deck. The Villain deck includes Ally and object cards which are played below the action spaces on a player’s player board and usually enhance the actions in that space. The Fate deck on the other hand includes Hero cards which are played (usually by other players) above the action spaces on the player’s board and reduce the number of actions a player can carry out when they activate that space. Hero cards are a pain and most people can get rid of them by carrying out a Vanquish action, however, Ursula does not have a Vanquish action and instead defeats Heros using Binding Contract cards.

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The second mistake was that most people didn’t read their instruction booklet properly, partly because without knowing the game, it felt very abstract, and partly just because the situation wasn’t conducive to sitting down and concentrating. Indigo had watched a play-through video, so had a better idea of what was going on than most—Maleficent’s winning condition was to start her turn with a curse at each location. Curses are a card type unique to Maleficent and have an Ability that affects Heroes at that location. While Lime was still hunting for his Never Land Map to unlock the Hangman’s Tree and Pine was searching his deck for the Trident and the Crown, Indigo suddenly threatened to win as she had Curses at all four of her locations.

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This seemed to organise everyone else, as they collectively worked out how to stop her from winning. Meanwhile, Black was doing something odd with his cards, turning them sideways or “tapping” them. He, as the Queen of Hearts had to have a Wicket at each location and then successfully take a Shot to win. Wickets are Guard cards that have been activated. A Shot is then taken by revealing the top five cards of the Villain deck and if their total cost is less than the total strength of the Wickets then he would win. With several Guards played and and activated, he was making progress too, and aside from luck, nothing the others could do was going to stop him winning when the time came.

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While players took it in turns to prevent Indigo from succeeding, Blue had found the Scarab Pendant and the Magic Lamp cards that Jafar needed. Having not read her booklet properly, when she got her Magic Lamp at the Sultan’s Palace, she thought she was there, only to realise there was more to it than that and had to work out how to fix it. There was a feeling of achievement when Lime finally unlocked Captain Hook’s Hangman’s Tree and had found Peter and Pine finally found one of his special objects, but was still struggling with lots of power and no way of using it. By this time though, the game had been going nearly two hours and although nobody was going to just “let” Indigo win, most people had had enough and were starting to secretly hope someone would do the decent thing and end the game.

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Eventually, Black took a shot, and was unsuccessful. Blue, having worked out how to hypnotize the Genie had a path to the end, though someone ensured that would take several more turns by judicious application of a Hero card. Indigo was still doggedly playing Curses when Black finally had a Shot on target and everyone else cheered with genuine relief. Unquestionably, the game had outstayed its welcome, though that was largely caused by the number of players—three would have made it easier to focus on what others were doing and would have had much less downtime.

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The biggest problem with the game though, was the mismatch between the cutesy theme (and gorgeous artwork from the Disney films) and the isolated nature of the asymmetric multiplayer solitaire which means it is definitely not a kiddies game. This mismatch perhaps partly explains why there are so many copies of Villainous for sale cheap in online auctions. It would have felt a lot less isolated though with fewer players. That said, to some extent, the game is all about the individual players finding a way to solve their own personal puzzle, while trying to throw just enough spanners in other players’ works to delay them and ensure their own victory.

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In this sense, once a character has been played and “solved” it reduces the replay-ability, especially against new players, who have to solve their puzzle from scratch. This is perhaps why there are several other Villainous character sets available, and even Marvel character sets (which seem to be more popular). Lime though, was not looking forward to playing the game again (one of the conditions of borrowing it) and ultimately was very pleased when he was able to postpone the replay, indefinitely. That said, both Lime and Blue commented that they felt they had unfinished business with Villainous and would like to try it again sometime, though there are so many games and so little time, it’s not clear when that might be.

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While the first group fought with their Disney villains, everyone else settled down to a six-player game of Citadels. In this game, players take on new roles each round which represent Characters they hire to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The numbered Character cards are drafted in secret at the start of the round with one taken out before the draft and one left unused at the end, to ensure everyone has imperfect knowledge. Then, each number is called and the player with that Character enacts it. When called, each player takes their turn. First they take money (two gold from the bank) or draw two District cards and choose one to keep, then they may build one District paying the cost in “toffee-look-alike” gold coins.

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The game ends at the end of the round when one player builds their eighth District. Players then score the cost of each District they have built, plus three points if they have at least one District in each of the five colours, plus four bonus points for the player who triggered the end of the game and two for anyone else that succeeded in building eight Districts. This is an older game (one of Green’s first apparently), but nobody had played it in years so the group decided to play with just the basic characters:

Assassin — Names another Character that misses their turn;
Thief — Names a Character and at the start of their turn, steals all their gold;
Magician — Swaps their hand with another players, or replaces some cards;
King — Receives one coin per noble (yellow) District and takes the start player Crown;
Bishop — Receives one coin per religious (blue) District and protection from the Warlord;
Merchant — Receives one coin per trade (green) District and receives one extra coin;
Architect — Build up to three Districts and draw two additional District cards;
Warlord — Receives one coin for each military (red) District and destroys one District.

At White’s suggestion, the group tried a new method of choosing the start player, namely picking a character card at random and counting round the table to the number of that character. The King was the card revealed, and counting round four places landed on White himself. And so the first round started.

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There was no Assassin in the first round, so a gentle start. The Thief, White, decided to steal from the King; often a dangerous thing to attempt, but not so much in this game. Thus, the game began, with players taking money and building Districts, at least for White and Lilac, who had chosen the Magician. The King came next, and Green duly handed his starting money to White. With nothing much he could do, he took two gold coins and could build nothing, but did take over the calling of characters. Pink and Teal continued the round with taking money and building Districts.

– Image by boardGOATS

The next round was even more equitable as neither the Assassin nor the Thief were chosen. Teal took reign as King this time. Green was able to build his first District and everyone else was on two. During the third round there was much mirth as Green tried to steal from the Merchant, who turned out to be Lilac, his partner — how dare he! However, she had no money so it was fruitless anyway. Green’s starting hand was such that he still could not build, just as everyone else went ahead and built their third District.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the fourth round, Lilac was the Thief and chose to steal from the Architect, little realising that this time that was Green, and like last time, he had no money either! While all this was going on, the others had been building up some several Districts. Pink had blue and red Districts, Lilac had a green and a couple of blue, Teal had a couple of green and a red, while White was also mostly targeting red Districts. By this point, everyone was really getting into the game and there was a lot of good natured banter round the table. Somehow, Green was being picked on as usual, but this time not with intent. Teal was beginning to look strong and Lilac had a lot of Districts, but all relatively low in value.

– Image by boardGOATS

At the mid-point in the game, the Assassin finally came into play. Green chose him and selected the Merchant as his target. It turned out that was Teal, a good choice considering that by then he had three green Districts, which would have given him a lot of money. The King finally moved away from Teal (to White), but overall there were very few yellow noble Districts being built. During the second half of the game, the Magician began to cause a little chaos as hands of zero cards got exchanged with hands of four, five or even six. It was still looking like Teal was strongest, just as he nabbed back the King, but then White built a nice big purple Dragon Gate. This cost six Gold, but would be worth eight at the end.

– Image by boardGOATS

Somehow Teal had managed to get to seven Districts with the others on five and six. Green, sitting directly after Teal in turn-order, chose the Assassin and took one for the team. Since he picked second, the information available to him told him that Teal could only be either the Architect or the Warlord. He decided to try for the Warlord, on the basis Teal had two red Districts and a couple of Gold already, so could probably build his final card and finish the game. It wasn’t until the the very end of the round before this was confirmed, and Green had indeed been successful. Teal missed his turn. So everyone else was now on six Districts while Green was still only on five.

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In the final round, Teal was still the King; would Green try again? This time he chose a different approach and decided to try and steal from Teal instead. Teal was the Merchant this time, so although Green was successful, he could not not stop him from building his eighth District. Teal’s three green Districts gave him three coins, plus an extra one for the Merchant and the two he could take anyhow—more than enough to build his last District. No one else managed to build eight, though almost everyone else managed to get seven. Only Teal and Lilac got the bonus points for building at least one of each colour however.

– Image by boardGOATS

That meant Teal was the runaway winner with thirty-two, with White and Pink very close to each other in second and third with twenty-six and twenty-five respectively, and Lilac not far behind that. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed it regardless of their final score—Citadels is good classic that works better with more people and this time it did not fail to deliver as everyone really got into the spirit of the banter. Players drifted away and once Villainous finally came to an end, there was time for some chatter about things including Christmas party plans, before everyone finally went their separate ways.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: In asymmetric games, someone has to know how the rules apply to everyone.