For various reasons, gaming (in general) has taken a hit for me over the last few months, but I was happy to get
The City of Kings in the mail as I had some time this weekend to punch, sort and play a few rounds. This game is way outside of my wheelhouse. It's arguably a Euro title - which I know immediately turns people away. I am not a Euro guy at all, but after seeing this game consistently named as a solid solo title, I had to push through my comfort zone and give it a try.
That shot is a few rounds in. For the first chapter, I'm tasked with getting at least one of my characters to an already revealed tile to advance the story. While doing so, I'm also moving across the tile map, revealing them and resolving whatever events pop up. As a solo game, you're required to play to characters (at a minimum) and to make it even more complicated, each of those characters starts with one worker. You can eventually upgrade to two workers (each), and the workers let you harvest resources which can be used to purchase items or fulfill quests.
In true Euro form, there's no die rolling for combat - everything is resolved with looking at the stat cubes on your character. That being said you can roll dice as part of having upgraded Luck skill and that might change your combat output. Similarly there are dice for harvesting resources and scrounging - so I guess it's not a pure Euro title without any random elements. More to that point, the tile setup is random as well. Every version of Chapter 1 will start with the same set of tiles (they're numbered), but they are all randomly placed on the map and are only revealed through exploration.
Anyway, despite looking like rule and maintenance overload, I really like the game. It has enough story and theme to keep me motivated to find out what's next. There's also a bit of a puzzle element each turn trying to figure out how to address any of the chapter goals or quests that are revealed. The rub is that there's always more choices than actions, so you're always thinking about what you should do next given what you know.\
There's a timer that manages world effects (frost, fire, poison) and takes away hope (when hope reaches zero, it's game over). Your characters can't die, but when you run out of life, you end up losing stuff so it's not a good move.
The monsters are all represented by war banners and are abstract in execution. When monsters arrive on the board you draw random tiles that not only give them basic statistics (health, damage, defense, etc...) but also random skills (poison bolt, teleport, tracking, etc...) I think I've seen people knock this part of the game as they would rather fight a distinct, specific monster but I actually like that they have random statistics and skills - adds a ton to the replay.
By way of example, this monster (IIRC) is a female tribe of warriors, corrupted and rotting from the evil that has infested the world. They have 3 health and start with one green (easy) ability. The tile they spawned on gave them another random green ability. They can heal themselves every round for 1 health, and do 1 damage to characters within range of 2. They also do an area attack (the three blades) of 1 damage to everyone within range. The fire bolt ability is one of the random green ability tiles and it gives them a ranged fire attack. The tracking ability allows them to chase player characters around the board.
That stat tile is unique. The subsequent tiles that a used for the next set of monsters will have different statistics and they'll have different random abilities. If I were to somehow cycle through all the monsters and then re-draw this one, it wouldn't have the same statistics as the same-named monster I fought at the beginning of the game.
Anyway, my copy is from the second printing, just released this month. It's expensive (because it's coming from the UK), but copies are allegedly hitting US retailers next month. I like what I've seen so far and don't recall anyone else mentioning it so I figured I'd promote it (and the Solo guild).
It's not like anything I own and while it shares similarities with a few other games, It feels unique enough that I think I'll keep it around.
I did opt to get the wooden tokens, storage trays and clear anti-knock sheets as an add on. I probably would have been better off just paying for the deluxe KS set. You live and you learn. While the wooden tokens and storage trays are optional, I don't know how anyone could play this game without the anti-knock sheets. Those things (IMHO) are borderline mandatory. You bump the table and it's goodnight moon for your character stats.
For those (like me) that prefer to watch videos to learn, there are a few Youtube tutorials. One from the game creator and another from Rolling Solo are the ones I used. The rulebook is excellent, but I just prefer seeing it in action.
