Silver Line Citadels
Nominated for the German Game of the Year in 2000, Citadels has finally arrived in an English-language edition. Game enthusiasts of all genres will be enchanted by this wonderful game of bluffing, deduction, and city-building. Wrapped in a medieval theme and gorgeously illustrated, players seek to be the first to complete a grand city of their own. Each game round players secretly take the roles of either the King, Magician, Architect, Assassin, Thief, Bishop, General, or Merchant and seek to use the powers of such offices in their efforts to win the game. As an additional bonus, the English version will ship with 10 new cards designed by Bruno Faidutti himself. These cards feature new locations and new characters to make your game of Citadels even more diverse than the original German version. The game is for 2 to 7 players and it takes 20-60 minutes to play.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Citadels - Deceptively Simple, Outright Fun
Citadels has become a great addition to my group’s gaming headliners among Settler’s of Catan and Puerto Rico. Depending on who you play with, this can be a very strategic and tense game as you vie for the best roles and the largest stash of gold.
If you’ve played Puerto Rico, then you might be familiar with the role-based mechanic of the game. There are a total of 8 roles in the base game and 10 more in the expansion that comes included (Dark City). Your choice of role provides you with different options to backstab others, build up your own city, or gather the necessary resources. It also determines the turn order. For instance, the Assassin goes first and can choose anyone to assassinate (who ever took that role skips their turn). The Thief goes next and can steal gold from a role.
Roles are taken secretly, with some put aside at the start of the turn to make sure no one can easily figure out who is who. You must balance between getting the role you need and the role which no one will suspect you of because the Assassin or Thief can shut you down in a pinch. Once roles are obtained, they are called out one by one in order - if that’s your role and you haven’t been Assassinated, you go.
The eight roles are:
Assassin, Thief, Magician, King, Bishop, Merchant, Architech, and Warlord
The expansion adds 14 interesting Special locations. It also adds the following eight roles correspond to and replace ones from the base game (they’re similar in spirit but do drastically different things):
Witch, Tax Collector, Wizard, Emperor, Abbot, Alchemist, Navigator, Diplomat
The expansion, which is included, as features roles that take up position 9:
The Queen, and the Artist
The artwork on the card are all very interesting and roles themselves take on a life of their own with caricature-like depictions. You’ll quickly gain a connection with the style and capabilities of each role (”Damn Warlord!”). We all really get into it.
Expansion cards are marked with stars for easy separation.
2-7 players, 30-60 minutes (depends on who you play with), and ages 10+ (though one or two locations depict naked people in the background, hard to really pick up on at first but when waiting for the roles to be passed around you might notice)
All-in-all, one of my favorite games for casual or intense play. It has plenty of character, quick to pick up, and is deceptively simple - making for great game play on the fly.
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TIPS: For your enjoyment and the preservation of the product, I offer some tips:
-Put the role cards into plastic card protectors; this will prolong the life of them as they will be shuffled and battered by the players throughout the game
-Get more gold counters; this isn’t an issue most of the time, but with more players and with certain roles a player can stock up quite a bit of gold at times (this is important when using the expansion characters); quality of the gold counters depends on the version, from cardboard to plastic pieces
-Print or write up a card with the numbers of each role; at times, people will forget who goes next and a card like this is not provided
5 Stars Comes with Dark City expansion!
The game is awesome; all great reviews are spot on. Just wanted to add that this game comes with the “Dark City” expansion, so that you don’t need to buy it separately. It says this on the box, but it’s too small to see from the product photo.
4 Stars Great game for those looking for something new…
I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed playing Citadels once a friend introduced me to it. I ordered it for myself not long after, and it’s been a blast teaching it to friends.
The game reminds me of a mix between the board game Risk and the bluffing game Mafia, in that there are a lot of decisions where you’ll need to decide what to build or when to take gold, but there is a lot of strategy involved with what you need to do - or in trying to predict an opponents next move.
It does take a bit of time to get the hang of, but once you’ve learned it, you can sit down and play a quick game in no time.
I Highly recommend Citadels if you’re looking for something new to try!
5 Stars Great Game
We haven’t ever been a gaming family but after buying this we are hooked on games. It has all of us - 9, 15, 17 yr olds and me (mom) thinking strategically. I’ve enjoyed watching as the kids become more sophisticated in their strategies. Highly recommend it!
5 Stars Amazing Game
I bought this on a whim at a local hobby shop and it has really been one of my favorites. The game is fun and quick and even comes with extra cards to sub in to make it that much better. The one thing I recommend is that you put the character cards in plastics as they take a beating being passed around so much.
Filed under: Classic Board Game Reviews