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I like my games intense, exciting, fast-paced and action-packed; on the other hand, I’m still a total sucker for anything that pulls at the heartstrings. Phillips has thought of every eventuality, from double-sided player boards to aid replay-ability, down to multiplier cards for mid-game resource scarcity. It doesn’t take long to realise, however, that unlike in other worker-placement games, you don’t pick your workers back up. You play one of your twenty workers to one of the action spaces on the board and do what it tells you. It’s an easy way to get a lot of points, but your Virtue will suffer and you’ll find yourself barred from working on the Cathedral.
So if you can deliver six workers at once, you get six coins – which is just as much as when you deliver three workers twice, except it saves you an action. Think of the classic games you used to play with your family like Risk, or new hits like Dice Throne.When you place a worker here, you collect all the coins in the Tax Stand but then you must lose 2 Virtue. The game also came with a way to take back workers and with a clever mechanism of both timing and push-your-luck, which Architects also has.
The aim of Architects of the West Kingdom is to be the player with the most Victory Points (VP) at the game’s end. In addition to including components for an extra player, Age of Artisans adds the new Craft Cards, a dual-layered Guildhall Board, two new Player Boards and a variety of new Apprentices and Buildings. When I played this game digitally, it became an almost instant purchase and was followed up by a rare five player game and a solo game! Architects of the West Kingdom is the latest board game in a line of “It's a standard worker placement game, but…” style of design. This deluxe Collector's Box is designed to fit Architects, Works of Wonder, Age of Artisans, and all additional content, such as promos and metal coins.The first worker you place in the forest gives you one wood; if you put a second worker there it’s two wood, and so on.
Architects is a new entrant in the Worker Placement genre, and it brings a few new ideas to the table which I have found interesting to explore. In this way, players can control their opponent’s supply of workers, forcing them either to pay to get their workers back, or limit their options significantly until you hand them over at the Guardhouse. Satisfyingly thinky without making it complicated, and it feels fun to come back to time and time again.Architects of the West Kingdom begins with the first player placing one of their workers onto any space on the board, taking the requisite action. It may not have a lot of fresh ideas, but the biggest fresh idea it does have is like a welcome waft of cool air flowing through a dusty cave.
They also have different starting setups; Caroline for instance starts with ten silver and eight workers already in prison. The more workers you put in the same spot, the more likely an opponent (or the AI) is to take your workers into custody. Even as I was leafing through the manual it felt like maybe Shem Phillips, designer of both games, was cleaving to the Kairosoft model for his growing resume of releases.
When the owner places a worker at the Wonder’s location, that worker either counts as two workers or they gain one Influence, the owner’s choice. It mimics a player’s need to spend turns visiting those locations, but doesn’t cripple the bot’s ability to build when it’s sent to the Guildhall.
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