Ohne Furcht und Adel

Overview

Players are rulers of medieval towns and try to build the most impressive districts.

Game Description

At the start of the game, each player is dealt a four district cards and given two gold coins. During his turn, players may either take a card (draw two and keep one, returning the other to the bottom of the deck), or get two gold coins. The player may then build districts by paying the amount stated on the card.

There are five types of district cards: military(red), religious(blue), trade(green), noble(gold)and special(purple). The first four provide additional income for four of the eight characters if owned by them. The last provides special abilities to the owning player.

The eight characters are: Assassin, Thief, Magician, King, Preacher, Trader, Architect and Soldier. Their special powers are as follows:

• Assassin - The Assassin may choose a character(not player) to assassinate. Assassinated character misses his turn.
• Thief - The Thief may choose to steal from a character(not player). Targetted character loses all his gold at the start of his turn to the thief.
• Magician - The Magician may choose to swap the all cards in his hand with another player.
• King - The King gains extra gold for noble districts owned by him. He also gets to choose character cards first next round.
• Preacher - The Preacher gains extra gold for religious districts owned by him. He is immune to attacks from the soldier.
• Trader - The Trader gains an extra gold at the start of his turn. He may also gain an extra gold for each trade district owned by him.
• Architect - The Architect take two district cards for free at the start of his turn. He may also build up to three districts in his turn. (Other characters may build only one district per turn.)
• Soldier - The Soldier gains an extra gold for each military district in his city. He may also attack to destroy a district in any city by paying the cost of the district minus one.

Players choose their characters via an interesting mechanism. A number of cards are placed face up on the table to leave the deck with a number of cards equal to the number of players plus two. If one of the opened cards is the King, the deck is reshuffled and the process is repeated until the king does not appear. Then one card is placed face down. The player who was king the previous round then selects the one character card, and passes the remainder to the next player. This continues until the last player selects a card.

There is a slight variation for three and seven players. When there are only three players, the Assassin card is removed from play. When there are seven players, only one card gets to be passed to the last player. However, he gets to choose between this single card and the face down card.

The purple buildings bring additional mechanisms to the game, but I will leave you to find out about those for yourself.

The game ends when any player creates his eighth district. Play continues to complete the turn (for all players) and scores are totalled. Players receive points for the value of their districts, for having districts of all colours, and for completing eight districts. In addition, the first player to complete eight districts get additional points. The player with the most points win.

Comments

The game mechanics are relatively simple. I would have expected this to be a filler game. However, the special powers of the characters add much colour to the game. Furthermore, the need to guess and second-guess other players make this an intense game. Nothing beats seeing the Assassin's dagger meant for you stick someone else in the back.

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