Kingsburg - Tips & Strategies

You need to know what you’re going to build, especially in later turns. But not only that, you should have something to build as a backup that requires different resources than your first choice, if possible.

It’s not necessary to build something every single turn, but if you skip too many turns because you didn’t get the right resources, you’re probably not going to win.

Three resources! Two recourse is the standard, but not what you should be settling for or satisfied with. Very one is getting two resources. Your goal should be to manipulate your die to offer you three resources. Even if you are breaking your higher number into three separate numbers, if you can get three resources that is what you should be going for.

The Embassy has the highest potential return for victory points for any one building. The sooner you are able to build it, the more points you’ll gain.

While you’ll only gain 7 points from the buildings, each turn after that, you’ll gain more points. If you build the Embassy as soon as possible, you’ll be able to gain an additional 12 points, plus you’ll be able to exchange excess goods or +2 tokens for additional points via the Town Hall for another potential 13 points in the game..

To build up to the Embassy, you only need 2 gold, 5 wood, and 4 stone, and you’ll have to build the crane along the way, so any buildings in columns III and IV are cheaper and easier to build.

All this lines up with advisors 7 and 12 very well. They are common dice combinations, especially 7, they let you be more selective with what resources you gain, and you’ll be rolling in +2 tokens, which helps get to 12, or can trade in for points.

And unlike a building like the Cathedral, if you lose the Embassy from an enemy, you actually aren’t losing a bunch of points in return, so it allows a little more high-risk decisions at the end of the game.

This is really only half-strategy for a game, as you’ll need to find what else to do after you build the embassy, but it does allow you to invest in a stronger military strength or even take a risk with going after a Cathedral.

Just try and get +2 tokens, and you’ve got a very powerful set of buildings.

There are alot of tips here about not going for the highest advisor and, for the most part, I believe that’s true. I roll low all the time and still manage to get alot out of my rolls.

But the Queen…..THE QUEEN! Our playgroup as more or less decided that if you can hit the queen, there’s no reason not too. We even joke that the winner of the game is usually whoever lands the queen the most.

When playing with larger parties your ability to influence will quickly dwindle as more players are filling the same amount of spaces on the board. This will make your ability to manipulate your die results, and the use of the Merchant path buildings, more important than in two or three player games.

If you are going to utilize these buildings in your game it is best to make the Inn the very first building you construct. The Inn offers you a +2 token every summer. However there are only five summer seasons in the game. If you can construct this building in your first season then you will be able to use it in your first year. A twenty percent increase verses waiting on it for the second year.

Usually I will building defenses first and move forward from there, but I have developed this strategy with larger groups and made my second building a defensive construct while the attacking armies are still small and weak.

Unless this is your first time playing you should have a general strategy and know what buildings you want to build and most likely even in what order you want to build them all. However, the resources you collect or fail to collect and push you into a certain path and you should go with the flow.

Let’s say you know later in the game you want to venture down the religion building path and collect some of those big victory points, but early you want to build your defenses. Good Strategy! However due to die rolls or player placement you don’t have the resources you need to create your Barracks. But you do have the two gold you need for your statue. Build that Statue!

You only have so many rounds that you can build in so you want to use as many of them as possible. Especially early in the game you want to build something every season that you can. If you can stay even or in the lead for most buildings you will gain an extra victory point over those who are waiting and this is a great “rich get richer” mechanic you need to exploit.

If you have the game and the expansion, but haven’t played this one much lately and want something to stimulate interest at the table I recommend you go to the Fantasy flight Games site and look at the Kingsburg page. There you will find 5 scenarios the company posted to give you some variety while players waited for the expansion to come out. Try them out and I think you will find new enjoyment in the game.

Always remember to watch what other people roll if you roll the lowest and are going first. That way you can claim some advisors that are important to the other players and put them back down in resources.
Remember you are not just playing to build whatever you can you also need to stop others building what they need.

I almost always build the Crane (bottom row, column II), which reduces the gold cost by 1 for columns III and IV, early on since gold can be hard to get.

As with many game mechanics (and general life situations) you want to build your base first and grow up and out from there. In Kingsburg your base is going to defenses. These should be the first buildings that you add to your land. The only threat that you have of losing anything you have built is due to a lack of defense. Do this before winter season comes and the hordes attack, then you can move forward with building the nicer buildings.