Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm

I might as well come right out with it- reviewing expansion sets is rough! Of course this isn't to suggest it's any harder to tell if an expansion is fun to play, easy to grasp, or any other factor used to rate a game, but where things get a little fuzzy is in the specific area of determining how much of an expansion's value stems from the base game it expands upon or whether or not it adds to or takes away from the charm of the original. In the case of Kingsburg, it was quite a risk going in simply because the base game is a staple among my collection and I am, apparently, a subscriber to the theory that things unbroken need not be fixed.

Fortunately such concerns for "To Forge a Realm" proved unfounded after only a few moments of play. While packaged and labeled an expansion set, To Forge a Realm is in fact five individual modules that can be used separately or in conjunction to alter some of the strengths and weaknesses of the base game, while tossing in a healthy dose of variety for good measure.

Consisting of 5 new province sheets, 14 alternative building rows, 24 new governor cards, 29 destiny cards, and 30 soldier tokens, the set appears fairly modest upon initial inspection. However, as anyone who has played the base game can attest, it's what is done with these components that determines the level of impact.

In this case the first module involves simply kicking the original player-province sheets to the curb (or leaving them in the box as the case may be) in favor of using the new sheets, which include two entirely new rows of building options to tempt you out of your supplies. The new sheets still go four-across (one for each year + the fifth and final let's you build from any of them), the new sheets run seven structures deep and include all sorts of cool structures from a quarry that allows you to trade a stone for 3 gold pieces to a recruiting center that let's you treat the +2 dice tokens as if they were resources.

The second module actually works in conjunction with the first one (if you choose to use it) and adds a bit of randomness to the mix. Here we have 14 single-row strips of buildings different from those on the new player province sheet. The rules tell you to lay them out face down and have players pick either one or two with which to slide over their province sheet before playing. What this does is arranges it so that not everyone's building options are the same. Just like with the first module, this one presents some really cool buildings that grant all sorts of new abilities and bonuses/punishments.

The third module comes in the form of the newly added governor cards. These babies are chosen at random and one goes into the player's inventory. The governor he ends up with can be used throughout the game for all sorts of new twists. Since there are 24 of them in total, I cannot possibly highlight them all here but a few examples include the sculptor who grants his player a stone piece at the end of each year and the ability to spend stones as if they were gold pieces. The schemer gives his player a victory point every time one of his opponents influences an adviser on the game board #14 or higher. The thief lets you start the game with 4 gold pieces but at the cost of 3 victory points and the Mercenary automatically adds +2 to your battle ranking. This addition is a great idea and good fun in action.

The fourth module is the all-new feature of destiny cards. A card is drawn from this deck at the beginning of each in-game year and everyone playing has to adhere to its effect. It can reward everyone like in the following example: "A new forest is grown, each player rolls a die at the beginning of each productive season, roll a 4 or higher and you earn a wood piece". Or they could punish everyone: "The King is sick, players can no longer influence the king (#18) on the board this year. Pull the card twice and the king dies- Game Over."

Again, this module represents a fantastic little addition that adds a nice bit of randomness to the game.

The fifth and final module addresses those players who felt it was a bit too easy to win the battles at the end of winter what with the king's aid coming in the form of a roll of the white die and all. Rather than getting that roll to determine how many reinforcements can be added to your battle rating, this module introduces soldier tokens. Each player gets a 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, & 4 token at the beginning of the game. Each one can only be used once and it is this token's value that determines how many reinforcements they earn per given battle. I protested this one early on when, for the first time, I lost a battle to the orcs and had to destroy one of my precious buildings but my tendency to be a sore loser aside, this is a much more balanced system that forces players into taking the annual battles more seriously.

In all, To Forge a Realm does what I would have thought impossible right up until the moments prior to playing it: It improves upon the already outstanding formula that is Kingsburg. The fact that it is broken down into 5 separate modules works very well in allowing players the ability to integrate the new features into play at their own pace. Plus mixing and matching modules only extends the game's replay value exponentially. I may even be so bold as to say that it's the first two modules that really cover the cost of admission as introducing dozens of new buildings to purchase just pumps the in-game possibilities through the roof.

This expansion succeeds because it wisely does not tamper with any of the fundamental elements that make Kingsburg such a joy to play but rather simply enhances the aspects that do work by providing players with more options.

I would like to say that Fantasy Flight should include this kit in future editions of Kingsburg but fear that it may actually overload beginner players with too many options and variations. As it stands, Kingsburg is a very enjoyable experience on its own and players should go in with the confidence in knowing that the moment things start to get a little stale, To Forge a Realm is there to completely refresh the excitement.