Charterstone: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Worker Placement, Legacy, Engine Building, City Building
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 1 - 6 PlayersTime to Play: 45 - 75 Minutes
Game Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Rundown:
Charterstone, at its base level, is a worker placement game where you have two workers available. On your turn you either place a worker on any location on the board, bumping any worker there back to that players reserve, or you recall all your workers. Each location has a cost on the left-hand side and the benefit gained on the right-hand side.
The real soul of Charterstone comes from the fact that it is a legacy game. The game is contained within a 12-game campaign, where each game is roughly an hour long. A legacy game is a genre of games that will have unlockables throughout each game that will gradually change the rules, components, board/cards of the game to create a unique player experience. The legacy factor of Charterstone works from players adding new buildings which changes the available worker spots and unlocks the ability to open crates. Crates are depicted on most building cards but can only be used once that structure has been built. These crates reveal new cards, components and other hidden elements. Each game will end once the progress track reaches its end. Every time players use the zeppelin, charterstone, or grandstand (completing in-game objectives) this track will advance. If the player runs out of their 12 personal influence (used often throughout the game as either a resource or place marker) they will also advance the track at the start of their turn.
During end game scoring, players will gain glory for every 10 victory points reached. This glory is used to upgrade bonuses found on the back of a character’s tuck box.
Alteration:
As you progress through the games and unlock chests, more and more alteration comes to light such as different buildings, card types, worker types and rules. However, all of this counts as spoilers so be warned that I will dive deeper into the key alteration parts in a spoiler section below. One non-spoiler mechanism is the goals that will score by achieving them and visiting he Grandstand. These goals will grow to represent the new elements as the game itself grows.
Spoiler Alteration:
Each charterstone type has an unlock path for new worker types and new card types. The new worker type comes in the form of minions. These minions can only be placed in the players own charterstone and the location has to be empty before placing. There are multiple sub-types of minions and when placed each one incites their own bonus such as regaining influence, a resource of your choice, victory points, advancement cards or coins. The real interesting part about minions is that they aren't bumped when a worker is placed on top of them, however, their bonus is reactivated by opponent workers.
Across the campaign new advancement cards will become unlocked. My particular favourite sub-types the guests and item cards. Guests activate whenever the refresh symbol is activated (either found on the progress track or locations).
Upon activation, all the guests you have will either give you one of the two rewards at a higher player count or both rewards at a lower player count. These rewards include resources, coins and points. There are also buildings that activate from the refresh mechanism.
The other favourite card sub-type is the items. These give you a resource goal to aim towards. Once you have gained the required resources on your turn, you can spend them to collect the points and bonus on the card before discarding the card. This is one of the easiest ways to gain a large sum of points throughout the game.
A favourite mechanism that becomes unlocked are the perils. These minature coloured cubes are placed on buildings throughout setup. Whenever you are the first player at that location you collect the cube. These cubes become a coveted resource for scoring as later buildings have a cost of perils used to gain points. These cubes will often entice players to certain buildings that particularly aid their goal.
Additionally, there are personas that work with these tokens that have different effects based on the cube type collected. Personas are different player bonuses/powers that a player can choose to use during setup, an abundance of these personas are unlocked throughout the campaign.
Production:
Since the game is destructible in its nature of being a legacy game, you wouldn't expect the production to have a pivotal focus but it does. Each player has their own tuckbox for storing key unlockables, there is a main magnetic box storing all unlockable cards (with a larger more readable index glossary), and the coins are metal which skyrockets the production value on their own.
Intrigue:
There are two levels of intrigue that both relate to the legacy nature. The first is that players get to unlock new crates and create new buildings at their own pace, which often has players focused here. This is great as it progresses the story and unlocks new elements of play. The second part is the glory that is tallied at the end of every game. Glory will unlock different benefits for the player to gain at the start of every game. There are two main ways to gain this glory; every 10 points gained at the end of a game equals one glory and by winning the objective set for each game. Both of these are competitive, so players have competitive and non-competitive intrigue in this game.
Determination:
- Had us excited to play through the whole campaign to see what was coming up best.
- Really smart track for game length.
- Great influence system.
- Can be replayed after the campaign.
Besides Gloomhaven, I haven't played any large-scale legacy games. There are two aspects I enjoyed with Charterstone, the self-exploring that comes with unlocking new aspects of the game at your own pace, and that the game was a manageable 12-game campaign that turned fully playable afterwards as a standalone game. If you enjoy worker placement games/or trust the upstanding quality the Stonemaier Games collection then Charterstone is an easy legacy game to dive into and I am recommending it with a go-to golden game seal.
Spoiler Determination:
- Minions are great with their bonuses but are balanced with limitations.
- The losing player receives bonuses where the winner only gained points for the campaign. This can be deterring in a two-player game but does ultimately keep the game balanced.
- it's easy to miss some rules in the excitement but there are great FAQs online for this.
Charterstone is a fun legacy game that has interesting card types and engaging elements. The goals on the story post card and persona cards specifically help determine what a player should aim to do during a game. This is helpful as there can be an abundance of options such as creating new buildings, unlocking crates and optimising points. The game feels the most immersive in the first half of the campaign as you are constantly unlocking new elements and card types that keep the game feeling fresh. Once you get close to the end of the game you can be restricted in your options as your charter may not be as combo driven as it was in the earlier games. This can occur if you have focused on high point locations for the end campaign scoring rather than locations that work together effectively. The part that really intrigues me is the fact that the board you have developed can still change post-campaign. Instead of being tied to one charter, you are given a different charter each game, this adds a new level of excitement for smaller player counts as you can modify the charter and create an engine that doesn’t need to cater to end-campaign scoring. I may be finished with the campaign but I am far from finished with my plays of Charterstone. On its own, Charterstone is a smart worker placement game with an abundance of variable card types/workers and is timed by an ingenious system that depends on the players. I highly recommend Charterstone and, as stated in the non-spoiler conclusion, it has easily earned a go-to golden game seal.
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