Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Kingmaker

Zoltan Grose <zoltan@slip.net> writes:

>Has anyone played this game? I believe it is Avalon Hill.
>Set in Middle Aged (?) England. Players run around trying
>to be king. Good, bad, don't know?

Good.  The game gives a rich feeling for the historical terrain.
Lots of squabbling between political factions, and some of the
inconveniences of drawn out wars before modern professional
armies.  "Sorry about your siege.  I really do want to storm the
castle, but I my peasants are revolting so I have to go home and
crack some skulls."  

One of the more clever wrinkles of the game is the meeting of
Parliament.  If Parliament is called, you must scramble to put together
a political alliance because votes will be made on various spoils that
happen to be available.  If you haven't been making friends before
Parliament is called, or at least making the right enemies, you may
find yourself cut out of the goodies.

The weak points of the game:  (1)  The rules in the AH box need a little
honing; the few glaring weaknesses are fixed with errata in the extra
card expansion.  The rules are hardly complicated, so an experienced
gamer could always cook up something.  (2)  If a good portion of your 
players do not have a vicious streak, it is possible that the game drag out, 
with large armies hunkered down in difficult to access corners of the 
board.  If you and your buddies are agressive players, this will not
be a problem.

BTW, one of my favorite games is Republic of Rome, which could be
described in a nutshell as "Kingmaker without all that mucking about
the English countryside."  If you have played one, this might give
you an inkling about whether you would like the other.

--Peter
p-white@uiuc.edu

Buchanan in '96!  Why settle for the lesser evil?

Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: Kingmaker

Zoltan Grose wrote:
>
> Has anyone played this game? I believe it is Avalon Hill.
> Set in Middle Aged (?) England. Players run around trying
> to be king. Good, bad, don't know?

It's not exactly like that. Players run around, having several factions,
headed by a noble. The ultimate goal is to end up with the last
remaining crowned heir. This means that you'll have to kill 6 of
the 7 royal heirs initially placed on the board. When you control
a heir, you may shoot it at any time, or crown it when it's the
next in line of one of the two competing 'lines', the Lancastrians and
the (???). You gain control of a heir by capturing its initial city
or by defeating its controller (when he/she hasn't shot it).

Their are a number of titles and offices to give to your nobles,
making them stronger - but the offices also place a demand on your
nobles, e.g. a peasant revolt summons the Marshal of England to
a small village near London. That's pretty nasty if you're trying
to beseige someone up in the north.

Multi-player games are characterised by lots of shifting alliances,
to capture heirs, punish big-grown factions etc.

Well, just an impression of the top of my hat (I just played a
game yesterday evening).

Mark.

-- 

        Mark J. Sinke
	Stephensonstraat 58
	5621 GV Eindhoven	

	Current project at:
	Philips Research Laboratories --  Building 
	Prof. Holstlaan 4
	5656 AA Eindhoven
	The Netherlands

	Phone:  +31-40-2773833
	E-mail: marks@stack.urc.tue.nl