The newest edition has three characters for each number (basically it includes two expansions). With a great variety in both characters and unique buildings (of which you include a subset), the game has immense replayability.
Whenever we play this we almost always swap out the Assassin and Magician for their Dark City equivalents Witch and Wizard (respectively). Being assassinated SUCKS - you get no turn at all; being cursed by the Witch, however, still at least lets you take your basic action (get gold/draw) and there's still a chance the Witch misses and wastes their shot.The Magician's hand swap is similarly awful (although the ability to discard your own hand and re-draw is useful) whereas the Wizard just takes one card from you if you're their target. Oddly we don't usually swap out the Thief for the Tax Collector. Having all your gold stolen is miserable but you're not effectively eliminated for the round since you can always get a gold for the turn and maybe generate a bunch with your character's power.
Doesn’t the magician target a player but the assassin and thief target a character. At least that’s the way we played it. I also like the puzzle of this game, I like that when you are choosing your character you may choose to take a less obvious (sub-optimal) choice to avoid being a target or to try and throw off the other players, especially if you are sitting on money and want to avoid the thief or the assassin. Another example is if you have lots of green buildings and the merchant comes past, you might also not take it even though it would have gained you lots of gold. Then I love that feeling when the thief/assassin reveal themselves and chooses the character you might have otherwise taken and you realize you managed to dodge a bullet but they don’t know that yet. Then you get to enjoy the “ha” moment when you get to reveal that you are not the character they expected. Makes for so many cool moments.
If the magician had to select a character to exchange with you could end up by accident swapping hands with a character who has no cards. The risk with the thief and assassin is just that your plans don’t come off, but nothing negative happens to you as a result. That would be different for the magician. I can imagine that with that risk no one would choose the magician
Citadels is great, but I don't see why the new FFG version had to be in a much larger box (looks Ticket To Ride sized from pics on BGG, which is insane). I own the same older/classic FFG small-box version as you, Jamey, and I think this game suits a smaller box, considering how few components it has. The new box seems to have lots of wasted space inside, judging by pictures on BGG. Even though the new version has I think 3 sets of 8/9 character cards, instead of 2 sets in my version (as it included Dark City expansion) - and it looks like role cards were upsized to tarot size (although for some reason it has role tiles as well) - it should still have fitted inside FFG's smaller sized boxes like they use for "Game of Thrones: Hand of the King" and "Hey That's My Fish" (both of which I bought recently), as those could fit tarot-size cards, as they are slightly wider than the old Citadels box. I guess it was a business decision to go with a larger box, for more shelf presence, and so that they could charge a higher price (classic version used to be around £15 here, new one is around £25). Oh well, it has lost them a sale though - I would have bought the new version, just for the extra/new character cards, if it wasn't going to waste so much shelf space. The last thing I need is games wasting space when I'm already hurtling at breakneck pace towards the point where I may have to start culling games :D
Citadels was one of the first modern games I was introduced to. It's great fun, even though it's probably a little bit too long for what it offers. I'd never say no to playing it though.
Great video and I agree, really clever game. The discard 1 at the beginning and the discard 1 at the end also makes it so that it's not so lopsided in terms of going first or going last in the picking order - everyone has at least some uncertainty. There is a card game we used to play in high school called Sheepshead. It was a 5-handed game, where one person would bid by taking a "blind" (2 face down cards). In Sheepshead, whoever holds the Jack of Diamonds is the partner of the "picker". At the start of the hand, no one knows who the partner is (except the partner). So it's a 2-on-3, but the 2 side has the slight advantage that the partner has all of the information. Once the Jack is played, of course, all is revealed. But on the next hand, the Jack will be somewhere else, so like with Citadels, it changes all the time who is partnered with whom. (It gets even more interesting in that the picker can have the Jack himself, and can thus go "alone", which if successful earns him points for both picker and partner.)
I played it for the first time a few months ago, after learning about it. I bought the new edition from Fantasy Flight, which has beautiful artwork, includes all the expansions, plus some cards that the creator added based on fan pitches. Which is a pretty cool thing for a designer to do.
A classic! I think it gets some negative perception these days because you can, as you said, get destroyed; and sometimes might feel you just lost to randomness. To me it fits in that great little niche of games that creates a lot of great moments of tension and excitement between players, makes players feel rewarded for clever thinking, AND is really easy to get to the table (which, to many of us board gamers, is a HUGE factor)!
This is interesting to me because it puts in to words a conflict between players I've seen too many times. There are those that enjoy games because of the unknown, random luck factor and those that enjoy games because they can master a strategy. It's hard to have both at the table. Luck angers the strategy people, and lack of luck and the unknown bores the gambler.
@@angiedebernardo2010 Oh, definitely! I find myself somewhere in the middle in most cases, and luckily so do a lot of people I play with. I'm happy to work my brain to its limit and plan 5+ turns ahead in Tzolk'in or Caverna, but I'm also happy to just chuck some dice in Arcadia Quest. All I want is for a game to be fun, and fun can come in many different forms. There are a few who are strictly one side or the other, though. I have to respect that everyone has their own preferences, and I do the best I can to select a game based on the group I'm hosting. As advocates of the hobby, we have the tough task of showing the depth and breadth of what board gaming can offer, while also avoiding the pitfalls of frustration and boredom around the table!
I think the newer version is published by Z-Man Games. This is one of the games that we are including for our game night tonight. We're combining our two game groups into one game group this time. So when looking at games that can handle up to 8 players Citadels should be a good choice. We could try this at 8 players or we could have two tables going and play this at a lower player count. @Jamey- One of the couples for tonight's game night is bringing their copy of Wingspan. Another couple is new to board games yet love birdwatching and have not played Wingspan yet. They have played some games at 2 to 2.5 level difficulty. If we get Wingspan to one of the tables it'd interesting to see what people, who are not hardcore gamers, think of it. Thanks for the video.
I own it and play 3 player all the time with my two daughters. We like the double character use. Very fun and works with the assassin because even if you get hit you have an extra character to play. I like the art better on the new reprint. It really needs a small box.
It works very well with three and the double characters. First of all the game moves much faster due to the double actions and, while it slows you down, the "take that" cards are not nearly as harmful and, through thoughtful selection, can be mitigated. It's a game, for me, that feels almost like a different game at three than five. We also like it at two to be honest finding it more strategic in a way.
The newest edition has three characters for each number (basically it includes two expansions). With a great variety in both characters and unique buildings (of which you include a subset), the game has immense replayability.
Whenever we play this we almost always swap out the Assassin and Magician for their Dark City equivalents Witch and Wizard (respectively). Being assassinated SUCKS - you get no turn at all; being cursed by the Witch, however, still at least lets you take your basic action (get gold/draw) and there's still a chance the Witch misses and wastes their shot.The Magician's hand swap is similarly awful (although the ability to discard your own hand and re-draw is useful) whereas the Wizard just takes one card from you if you're their target.
Oddly we don't usually swap out the Thief for the Tax Collector. Having all your gold stolen is miserable but you're not effectively eliminated for the round since you can always get a gold for the turn and maybe generate a bunch with your character's power.
Doesn’t the magician target a player but the assassin and thief target a character. At least that’s the way we played it. I also like the puzzle of this game, I like that when you are choosing your character you may choose to take a less obvious (sub-optimal) choice to avoid being a target or to try and throw off the other players, especially if you are sitting on money and want to avoid the thief or the assassin. Another example is if you have lots of green buildings and the merchant comes past, you might also not take it even though it would have gained you lots of gold. Then I love that feeling when the thief/assassin reveal themselves and chooses the character you might have otherwise taken and you realize you managed to dodge a bullet but they don’t know that yet. Then you get to enjoy the “ha” moment when you get to reveal that you are not the character they expected. Makes for so many cool moments.
Indeed, you are right about the Magician! Interesting that they designed it that way instead of like the Assassin and Thief.
If the magician had to select a character to exchange with you could end up by accident swapping hands with a character who has no cards. The risk with the thief and assassin is just that your plans don’t come off, but nothing negative happens to you as a result. That would be different for the magician. I can imagine that with that risk no one would choose the magician
Citadels is great, but I don't see why the new FFG version had to be in a much larger box (looks Ticket To Ride sized from pics on BGG, which is insane). I own the same older/classic FFG small-box version as you, Jamey, and I think this game suits a smaller box, considering how few components it has. The new box seems to have lots of wasted space inside, judging by pictures on BGG.
Even though the new version has I think 3 sets of 8/9 character cards, instead of 2 sets in my version (as it included Dark City expansion) - and it looks like role cards were upsized to tarot size (although for some reason it has role tiles as well) - it should still have fitted inside FFG's smaller sized boxes like they use for "Game of Thrones: Hand of the King" and "Hey That's My Fish" (both of which I bought recently), as those could fit tarot-size cards, as they are slightly wider than the old Citadels box.
I guess it was a business decision to go with a larger box, for more shelf presence, and so that they could charge a higher price (classic version used to be around £15 here, new one is around £25).
Oh well, it has lost them a sale though - I would have bought the new version, just for the extra/new character cards, if it wasn't going to waste so much shelf space.
The last thing I need is games wasting space when I'm already hurtling at breakneck pace towards the point where I may have to start culling games :D
The new box is ridiculously over-sized. I have the old one. I wish there was a way to get just the new characters.
Citadels was one of the first modern games I was introduced to. It's great fun, even though it's probably a little bit too long for what it offers. I'd never say no to playing it though.
Great video and I agree, really clever game. The discard 1 at the beginning and the discard 1 at the end also makes it so that it's not so lopsided in terms of going first or going last in the picking order - everyone has at least some uncertainty.
There is a card game we used to play in high school called Sheepshead. It was a 5-handed game, where one person would bid by taking a "blind" (2 face down cards). In Sheepshead, whoever holds the Jack of Diamonds is the partner of the "picker". At the start of the hand, no one knows who the partner is (except the partner). So it's a 2-on-3, but the 2 side has the slight advantage that the partner has all of the information. Once the Jack is played, of course, all is revealed. But on the next hand, the Jack will be somewhere else, so like with Citadels, it changes all the time who is partnered with whom. (It gets even more interesting in that the picker can have the Jack himself, and can thus go "alone", which if successful earns him points for both picker and partner.)
I played it for the first time a few months ago, after learning about it. I bought the new edition from Fantasy Flight, which has beautiful artwork, includes all the expansions, plus some cards that the creator added based on fan pitches. Which is a pretty cool thing for a designer to do.
A classic! I think it gets some negative perception these days because you can, as you said, get destroyed; and sometimes might feel you just lost to randomness. To me it fits in that great little niche of games that creates a lot of great moments of tension and excitement between players, makes players feel rewarded for clever thinking, AND is really easy to get to the table (which, to many of us board gamers, is a HUGE factor)!
This is interesting to me because it puts in to words a conflict between players I've seen too many times. There are those that enjoy games because of the unknown, random luck factor and those that enjoy games because they can master a strategy. It's hard to have both at the table. Luck angers the strategy people, and lack of luck and the unknown bores the gambler.
@@angiedebernardo2010 Oh, definitely! I find myself somewhere in the middle in most cases, and luckily so do a lot of people I play with. I'm happy to work my brain to its limit and plan 5+ turns ahead in Tzolk'in or Caverna, but I'm also happy to just chuck some dice in Arcadia Quest. All I want is for a game to be fun, and fun can come in many different forms. There are a few who are strictly one side or the other, though. I have to respect that everyone has their own preferences, and I do the best I can to select a game based on the group I'm hosting. As advocates of the hobby, we have the tough task of showing the depth and breadth of what board gaming can offer, while also avoiding the pitfalls of frustration and boredom around the table!
I think the newer version is published by Z-Man Games. This is one of the games that we are including for our game night tonight. We're combining our two game groups into one game group this time. So when looking at games that can handle up to 8 players Citadels should be a good choice. We could try this at 8 players or we could have two tables going and play this at a lower player count.
@Jamey- One of the couples for tonight's game night is bringing their copy of Wingspan. Another couple is new to board games yet love birdwatching and have not played Wingspan yet. They have played some games at 2 to 2.5 level difficulty. If we get Wingspan to one of the tables it'd interesting to see what people, who are not hardcore gamers, think of it. Thanks for the video.
Any thoughts on the minimum “fun” player count? I’ve had this in my collection for a while, but I never think I have enough people around!
I'd say 5-6 works well, but I've also heard that 3 is fun, because each player gets 2 roles.
I own it and play 3 player all the time with my two daughters. We like the double character use. Very fun and works with the assassin because even if you get hit you have an extra character to play.
I like the art better on the new reprint. It really needs a small box.
It works very well with three and the double characters. First of all the game moves much faster due to the double actions and, while it slows you down, the "take that" cards are not nearly as harmful and, through thoughtful selection, can be mitigated. It's a game, for me, that feels almost like a different game at three than five. We also like it at two to be honest finding it more strategic in a way.