Castle Raisers: Review
Information:
Player Age: 8+
Player Count: 1 - 4 Players
BGG Weight: 2.50
Year Published: 2020
Introduction:
As the wolves increased in size over time, the pigs have gotten older and learned how to work together to build a castle that incorporates the combined materials of straw, wood, and stone. Players must use what the pigs have learned to recruit more villagers, strengthen the walls, and ultimately repel the wolves. The player with the strongest (highest value) castle will showcase their skill and win the game. This game can be played either competitively or cooperatively, however this review is focused on the competitive mode.
Game Anatomy:
Board:
There are three boards in the game; the piggy game board where players will draft age walls,
the village board where villagers are gained, and individual castle boards. The player’s castle board is divided into three sections: sand, forest, and sea. These sections collectively contain 5 starting wall sections and 9 villager spaces.
Villagers:
The villagers have two abilities, amplifying one of the four actions when activated in their section,
and an end-game scoring condition that only relates to the section the villager is placed in.
Prestige Tokens and Arrows:
Prestige tokens are worth a baseline of 2 points each at the end of the game. If there are any villagers in that section, they can increase this baseline value.
Arrows are worth negative one point at the end of the game.
Wolfs:
Four wolf types will be drawn from the bag throughout the game;
- The wolf archer (red border) will shoot one arrow per archer wolf surrounding the castle at the end of each age.
- The shielded wolf that requires a strength-2 cauldron action to eliminate.
- The ladder wolf who brings a ladder so he can help all of the wolves scale your castle at the end of the game.
Walls:
Over the course of the game, players will build walls from three ages; straw, wood, and stone. Each wall contains symbols that correspond to actions and these will be built-over as the wall gets higher. Besides settling villagers, each action will be amplified in strength/quantity based on the number of villagers in that section which matches the symbol. Each board has a starting strength of one for each action (for each section), as represented in the middle of the board.
Wall Placement Actions:
Settling Villagers:
The player will gain one villager of their choice from the face-up display or the top of any villager pile, then add them to any available villager spot within the wall. Three locations on the board will count for both of the sections that it is adjacent to.
Establishing Prestige:
This action will gain the player prestige tokens equal to the strength of this symbol in the section. It will also award the player the mother pig, where the player with the mother pig will be the first player at the start of each turn.
Fortifying the Walls:
The height of the walls can score players a good amount of points and repel wolves at the end of the game, so it is crucial to add non-wall structures to help improve the height. This action will add fortification tiles to the player's castle (meeting regular placement rules of walls) equal to the strength of the action amongst the villagers in this section. The image displays an already fortified wall placement next to a wall placement.
Dispatching Wolves:
Wolves will be sent to all opponents equal to the strength of the villagers in the section. The location they will be sent to is randomly determined by an attack token. This attack token is then placed in the allocated spot on the player's section and will be worth a baseline of three points at the end of the game.
Defending the Castle:
Equal to the strength of the cauldron villagers in this section, several wolves here will be defeated. The attack can be spread across as many wolves as you want in this section, however, the shield wolf, requires a single attack with a strength of 2.
Setup:
Game Setup:
- Organise and shuffle the other wall pieces into the three separate age piles.
- Shuffle the villagers into their four piles and draw two face-up for each type.
- Place the wolf tokens in the wolf bag then place that bag, the prestige tokens, and the arrows into separate piles nearby.
- The last player to have heard the three pigs story goes first.
Player Setup:
- Draw six wolves randomly and place two into each outer section on the board.
- Choose one villager to be placed on the semi-transparent villager location in the inter board.
How to Play:
Each round will see four wall pieces displayed on the piggy board. Each wall piece will be drafted by the players, although in a two-player game, each player will discard one wall piece after selecting their two. Players will place their piece onto two different wall pieces of an equal height, like a pyramid structure. Any symbols that these walls cover will now activate the corresponding abilities (explained above). These abilities will have a strength equal to one (the starting middle number of the castle) plus any villagers in the colour of this symbol from the activations section. Any symbols displayed along the walls do not count towards this strength.
There are three ages with different wall pieces. Once the wall tiles run out for one age, the archer wolves will shoot arrows at the castle (giving that player a negative point token). Before this attack, any visible cauldron on the walls could be used to eliminate any wolf (shield wolves needing two) in that section.
At the end of the third age, following the cauldrons and arrows, players will score. There are several scoring conditions which can and will be modified by villagers in each section. The scoring conditions include:
- Deduct arrow tokens.
- Attack tokens.
- Highest wall section multiplied by five. This multiplier may be modified by villagers in that section.
- Any other villager scoring condition.
- The highest wall of each section will repel wolves equal to that value. Any surviving wolves will invade your castle. The player with the most wolves in each section will lose ten points, followed by the second highest, losing five points.
Final Thoughts:
- Villagers are tough but rewarding to coordinate as they only amplify and score in their section.
- Fun theme.
- Challenging but possible management of keeping the wolves away.
- Memorable rules that make the game easy to play.
After reading the rules for Castle Raisers, I thought it might be a bit light for my collection. However, like their other game, Loco Momo, Wonderful World Board Games has released an easy to learn but deceptively hard to strategise game. This comes from a few intuitive and challenging factors, such as; action selection when placing down the wall tiles, wolf management in relation to covering or leaving exposed the cauldrons, and lastly, management of the villagers. Since each villager only scores and amplifies for their small section, it become a big challenge on how to optimise strong turns in certain sections while meeting these scoring conditions. Although, when this is pulled off correctly it feels very fulfilling. For the welcoming theme and deceptively challenging gameplay, Castle Raisers is easily receiving a Go-To Golden Game Seal.
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