Conversely, if you get too high a reputation, you can’t be seen cavorting around with the criminal underworld, so you avoid the black market like the plague. The resources and money you collect go mostly towards building buildings and working on the cathedral.

And yet, it all plays in a fresh way because of the way output is exponentially influenced by input. I’m slightly disappointed by the chosen card size as it is difficult to find good-fitting sleeves for them currently, but this is only a minor concern for me, and should be no concern at all for people who do not sleeve their cards. Architects of the West Kingdom offers theme, form and substance in a concise package that offers not only decision making, but also adds impact to your decisions with plenty of ways for players to interact with one another.

Satisfyingly thinky without making it complicated, and it feels fun to come back to time and time again. This deluxe Collector's Box is designed to fit Architects of the West Kingdom, Works of Wonder, and all additional content, such as promos, metal coins, and sleeved cards. You can capture a different group of workers from any (or the same) location, for every additional worker you have at the Town Centre. If you find you’re getting bored with the standard setup, the variant play changes things up wildly. Also, we could either find some two player variants on the internet or turn to a solo game if we don’t have anyone to play with.

Not to mention that in pursuing this strategy I’m not actually making too much progress towards my own building goals, and without the right assistant to mitigate black market virtue loss, you can’t be hitting that black market over and over like a drum lest you accumulate a bunch of your own debts. The cost is so high – you could lose all that momentum invested into an area of the board if you don’t take advantage now. One of the spaces on the board is a town centre action and it lets players capture groups of workers.It is nice to have another color option (orange), but I do not play this game with more than four players.