CHOKING HAZARD -- Small parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.
Description:
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 medival 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, Assasin, 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.
Features:
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Spiel des Jahres, Finalist - 2000
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Games Magazine GAMES 100, Family Card Games Honoree - 2003
Average Customer Review:
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Boring and Not Much FunJul 12, 2010 I played Citadels three times, two with the regular rules and once with the included expansion cards, and didn't like it very much any time I played it. The game drags toward the end and always feels too long by 15-30 minutes. The most frustrating part is the high probability of the other players targeting you every turn (regardless of which character you pick to play, which can change every turn, but is often easy to figure out who is going to be who). If you get targeted, you could lose your turn (assassin), gold (thief), districts (warlord) or special ability (witch), none of which is any fun. It makes some characters impossible to choose no matter how much you need their special ability, because you know the other players will target them (especially the witch from the expansion, who steals their special ability and gets to go first). The game's artwork and production values are excellent, except for the gold coins, which are really just unpunched butterscotch-colored buttons and look it. For me, the unpunched buttons were a real letdown after the realistic (if tiny) gold coins that came with Rio Grande Games Dominion: Seaside. My preference for competitive card games suitable for the whole family would be for Dominion, which you can customize to increase or decrease the number of attack cards (even down to zero if you prefer) and is never the same game twice. Citadels is always the same boring game, even though you get random district cards and can't always be the same character every turn.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Love it!Apr 15, 2010 I have wanted this for years and finally was able to buy it. It is a great light game with plenty of oppertunities to have fun.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Great Family Card GameFeb 23, 2010 I've owned this game for a couple years now and must say it is a great game with good strategy and re-playability. The graphics and card quality as usual with Fantasy Flight Games is excellent. The only drawback is that with the cards having a black boarder they are showing some wear and tear with color fading, but as i said I have owned it for a few years and has been in the rotation of the regular games we play that whole time. Overall definitely a card game I would recommend.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Citadels is an AMAZING game for men, women, and kidsFeb 17, 2010 I bought Citadels years and years ago on a whim. (I later got off the whim, but that's beside the point.) It's the single best board game purchase I've ever made.
The game is easy - 2 to 7 players (although the game works best with 2, 3, 6, or 7) each choose a different character from a list. The characters have special powers - the assassin can kill another player, the thief can steal someone's money, the architect can build more than one thing, etc. Once all your characters are chosen, you play out the round, putting down buildings from your hand (paying for them with gold pieces which look a lot like butterscotch candies). The goal is simply to put down as many buildings as possible.
The reason people love this game is the bluffing aspect. With 2 or 3 players, each player takes two character roles per turn and you get an amazing "guess who has what role so I can get THEM" aspect to it. When you guess wrong, it's funny, as your action is either wasted or hits the wrong person! With 6 or 7 players, it becomes a huge group "I'm not that character! He must be!" aspect to it. Not *quite* a party game, but still really fun.
I definitely recommend Citadels. It's no longer my most loved game (I own Dominion now!), but it's definitely in the top three.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Citadels - Deceptively Simple, Outright FunJun 29, 2009 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
based on 15 reviews
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