The game components are a deck of building cards, 8 character cards, gold pieces and a King marker. (The King is one of the characters and the marker just indicates who was that character in the previous turn.) The building cards come in five different colors (Blue -- Religious, Red -- Noble, Green -- Commercial, Grey -- Military, Purple -- Special), with varying subtypes and they have construction costs ranging from 1 to 6. These are also the points they provide at the end of the game; though at least one of the Special cards gives more victory points than it costs to build. In addition, the Purple buildings generally have some special power or feature. (There were those who claimed these may be too unbalancing, but I didn't think so. If it does turn out to be the case, you could easily play without the special powers.)

The main part of a player's turn consists of either taking two gold in income or one random building card and then constructing one building, the construction part being optional. Also, each turn, every player will be a different character and this gives them a special power or two that they may use (generally any time during their turn, but only once).

The game starts with each player being dealt X building cards (6?) and Y gold (3?). One person is chosen randomly to be the de-facto King for the first turn. The King takes the 8 character cards, shuffles them, and depending on the number of players takes some at random and turns them face down and possibly face-up (with 6 players, 1 goes face down; with 5 players 1 goes down, 1 goes up. The 5 player version may be slightly better as everyone knows at least one character that is not in the game this round). The King now looks through the remaining characters, secretly picks the one he wants and passes the rest to the next player. This goes all the way around until everyone has chosen a character. The last person to choose always has a choice of only two and the last unused character is placed face down. Notice that already there are some interesting mechanisms at work here. Only the King knows which one unknown character is out of play at the beginning and the last person to choose knows the other one.

In the order they take their turns, the characters and their special powers are as follows:

• The Assassin chooses a character (not a player). When it is the victim's turn to act, they do nothing that turn. Being dead does that to a person.
• The Thief chooses a character (not the Assassin or the victim). When it is the victim's turn to act, they give all their gold to the Thief (before they receive their income).
• In the above two cases if a character not in play is chosen, there's no effect.
• The Magician can either discard as many cards as desired and replace them from the stock of buildings, or choose a player and exchange hands with them (including a 0 for X swap).
• The King chooses first character next round and receives 1 gold for every Noble/Red building in front of him. (You can take this income before or after you build). The King's other job is do call out the characters in order after they've been chosen, asking them to take their turn.
• The Priest receives 1 gold for every Religious/Blue building in front of them and they can't be targeted by the Condotierre (see below).
• The Merchant receives 1 extra gold and also receives 1 gold for every Green/Commercial building in front of them.
• The Architect receives 2 extra building cards and can build up to three buildings.
• The Condottiere receives 1 gold for each Grey/Military building in front of them and destroys one building by paying the construction cost minus 1 to the bank. (So yes, buildings which cost 1 to build can be destroyed for free). The Condotierre can not destroy a building in a completed city (a crucial rule.

The game ends on the round when one player builds the final building of their city. (The rules say 8 but we played 7 at The Gathering to make for a quicker game). The rest of the players who haven't gone yet that round, take their turns and then victory points are counted. You get a 4 point bonus for being the first to finish your city, 2 for finishing but not being first and 2 for having at least one of each type of building. Add the construction costs, and that's your score.

And that, as they say, is that. Playing to 7 buildings, it all played out in about an hour with 5 and 6 players, playing to 8 would perhaps be a half-hour more.

I found that the balance of the character powers was spot-on, with different characters being more or less powerful/desirable at different stages of the game. Their popularity as targets for assassination also depended on the stage of the game as well as on the threat posed by a particular player getting a particular character. For example, if you are two or three buildings away from completing your city and you pick the architect, you can almost be guaranteed not to be taking your turn.

I only saw one game where a person was out of the running. (They got stuck to the right of the King and the King card kept being out of play). But even then you are still likely to get a character that helps. There is a luck element in the game (as in all of Bruno's) but I found the luck/skill balance very well done.

Highest recommendation (as long as you don't mind some chaos in your gaming).

By the way, for those who are concerned with the obvious borrowing from Verräter, Bruno told me he had the building, scoring and character system for months, but didn't know how to distribute the characters in a clever and tactical way. When he saw Verräter, he thought it was exactly what was lacking and felt it fitted even better in Citadels and so acknowledges this credit for the character system.

Build lucrative districts quickly to win by earning the most points. In a round, each player secretly selects a uniquely ranked character from a deck of nine characters. Everyone takes a turn in order of rank. On a turn, a player either takes two gold pieces or obtains a new district card for his hand. He may play one district card in front of him, paying its cost in gold. (More expensive districts earn more points at game's end.) The character he plays entitles him to a special action, such as building extra districts, obtaining more gold, or destroying someone else's district. The game ends when someone has built eight districts. It's the perfect game for those who enjoy character-building experiences.

The designer acknowledges his debt to Verräter (a selection in last year's Games 100), a game he improved upon to create this finalist for Germany's prestigious Game of the Year award. You are a city planner trying to develop a prosperous metropolis with building cards representing five districts. Rounds begin with the starting player secretly selecting any of the eight character cards; the remainder are passed clockwise for others to choose. Characters, benign or malevolent, offer a vexing array of interactive services, and turn order depends on who you pick. When it's your turn, take two gold pieces or a building card. You may also construct a building by paying its cost (from one to eight gold pieces), and use your character's special power. When a player constructs his eighth edifice, the city with the highest total cost of construction wins. Faidutti has constructed a masterpiece on an excellent foundation.

Citadels

Citadels is a character selection and building game by Bruno Faidutti (Queen's Necklace and many more), every turn the group of players selects one of a pool of characters, this character will give that player a special ability. On their turn a player may collect gold or more ‘district’ cards, build a ‘district’, and/or use their character’s power.

There are typically eight characters to choose from, the regular ones being the Assassin, the Thief, the Magician, the King, the Bishop, the Merchant, the Architect, and the Warlord. Each of these characters provides a different ability, the Assassin can kill another character (good deduction and a pinch of luck are required to assassinate the character owned by a particular player), the Thief can steal gold, the Magician cards, the King can take extra money and is the first next round to select a character from the pool of eight, and so on.

The expansion that comes with Fantasy Flight’s new version of the game includes a bunch of new characters that can be exchanged with the regular ones, a bunch of new special district cards, as well as some gorgeous plastic ‘butterscotch’ appearing gold pieces and a small wooden crown marker to indicate who the King is. Citadels is a game that can be played with between 2 and 8 players (there will be 9 characters to choose from in an 8 player game), the length of the game will depend on how familiar everyone is with the process, and how many people are playing, the more people the longer the game.

The object in Citadels is to build the best and most wealthy Fantasy city (yes it does say Medieval on the box), the game ends when someone builds eight districts – although this person may not be the actual winner of the game! This game involves clever character selection, an ability to think on your feet, intelligent play, a dash of luck and a good sense of humour (especially if you get assassinated regularly!).

Check out Bruno Faidutti’s web site for tons of information about the history of the game, about the making of it, as well as many variants – including a great drinking game!

If your group has a penchant for Role Playing – an accent for the characters doesn’t go astray – nor does a large golden crown to be worn by the undisputed King! The object of playing these games is fun after all; Citadels will provide that and more!

I used to enjoy Verräter very much but Citadels goes much beyond.

I agree that when you get killed several times in a row sucks, but it can be avoided if you if you just forfeit the what would be right character choice.

Although I think the original character´s set is the best, I also like to change the bishop and the warlord for there equivalent.

In Citadels, each turn has two rounds...

Step 1. Secretly choose a role to play (King, Assasin, Theif, Merchant, Architect, etc.), which gives you certain abilities. This changes each turn -- you might be the assassin this turn, and choose to be king the next!

Step 2. Try to build a city! The role you chose in step 1 tells the order which characters will play, and what (if any) special abilities you may have. Some roles allow you to kill or steal from another player, some allow you to get more gold for certain buildings, and some allow you to build more buildings to complete your city.

The combination of the two-steps allows for some interesting strategy, and a different game play every time. AND, it forces you to change startegies throughout -- if you ALWAYS choose to be the Merchant, others will figure that out and either assasinate you or steal all your money.

In a few rounds you'll get the swing of things; you'll learn the intricacies of the game quickly. You have limited resources, so you'll have to budget wisely, but also build quickly in order to complete your city first.

The addition of complete set of different characters adds to the variety of play... it's fun to experiment with different combinations of characters to see which ones work best.

The art on the cards is beautiful... the characters and buildings are dramatic and appealing.

The only problem I found is that the character cards used in step 1 tend to get grubby quickly (especially if everyone is sitting around snacking as you play! Greasy fingers = greasy cards). I bought some plastic card protectors just for them --- problem solved.

It is a great game for 4-7 people (the 2 and 3 player versions I found much less dynamic... but still fun).