Keythedral

We missed one important rule: The change of the start player is done through bidding resources. The highest bidder chooses who the start player will be in the next round. Most often it will be himself. One of the images below is a list of the Keythedral tiles, sorted by numbers on their back. This is a handy player aid.

The edition is limited to 600 copies and I have copy no 403.

After a dinner with a large schnitzel menu at a pub nearby we went back to the lounge. There we tested the my new game “Keythedral”, which I later on realised was the best game of the one I tested.

First of all it’s a new set-up of the boards for every new game, where everyone lay out a field tile (large octagons) plus a cottage tile (small quadratics) in order, until all is placed on the board. The used tiles depends on the number of players, so the scalability of the games seems to be good. You have to get a good mix of resources to spend, so the set-up is really important and can be difficult the first time.

The game has several rounds, which may vary and consists of the following phases:
1)      Place worker counters
2)      Collect resource cubes
3)      Spend resource cubes
4)      Retrieve worker counters
5)      Change start player

When the last building tile on the cathedral mat has been taken, then the game finishes.

You have 5 different resources you have to retrieve on the fields: Timber, Stone, Wine, Food crops and Water. With these resources you can also trade to craft cubes: Ironwork, Stained glass and Gold. These are important for the building tiles higher up. If you don’t get one of needed resource cubes, you can use your action to trade 2 of any resources for 1 resource.

You can do any number of actions, until you make your first pass or until you take one of the two law cards, which can give you different kind of advantages later on like “choosing the work order”, “unexpected harvest” or “double production”. In total 20 different cards.

The turn order is very important and every player choose which village number (1-5) and each one place a worker adjacent to his village with the chosen number. If there is no place, he has to pass the placement. (During the set-up you probably has to think of where the player before may lock your resources in this phase.) During your spending phase, you may buy fences to stop your opponents to place their workers in a certain direction, although they may bribe the fence builders with 2 wine resources, to remove it later on…

The game rolled smoothly and was enough varied to keep up the interest and everyone enjoyed it. The only drawback was when someone wanted to upgrade the cottage to a house, as you had to hold the tiles around the tile, when you tried to turn it over. I would have preferred to lay another tile upon it instead. Christina spontaneously called it Settlers without trading. Neither of us have played his former games Keydom and Keytown.
Result: Carl 9, Christina 9, Oskar 13, Fredrik 6 and John 9.
Rating: Carl=8, Christina=8, Oskar=8, Fredrik=7, John=7.