I find the city-state of Tempest an interesting concept. Developed by AEG, it's a living, breathing source of information that gives game designers the opportunity for forget about working on backstory and focus on the most important aspect: how the game plays. In Courtier, the first release in the line, Philip du Barry has created a game that requires one skill above all else - adaptability. If you're going to win, you must be willing to change your plans at a moment's notice. Fail to do so and defeat will surely be yours.
The game centres around the Royal Court, the characters within and the influence they wield. Players will play cards from their hands that come from two piles, Influence and Power, that allow them to seize control over various elements of the Court in different ways. Influence cards are the most straightforward, either showing a single character from the game or a certain section of the Court that you can affect. You'll generally be placing a cube of your colour on the central board, filling up slots that show how influential you are over that character. Having the most cubes in a coterie also bestows a special ability on you - more on those shortly.
The cards from the Power deck work in a more devious fashion. These mainly allow for manipulation of cubes on the board along with the introduction of white 'neutral' ones that are useful for filling spaces up on the members of the Court. Having the majority over a character is vital, as this lets you use them to score points by claiming Petitions - the main aim of the game.
Four of these Petitions are face up and open for all to grab but players also have a single, secret one that they can work towards. Each Petition lists a selection of members of the Court, and if you manage to have the most influence over all of them when they're filled with cubes, you claim the card and are on your way to winning. Some may show only a couple of characters and are worth a small amount but other, larger groups can bring in a huge amount of points. It's a matter of balancing your decisions - do you go for a selection of low-value cards to race the game along or aim high, hoping to get those big scores?
Once a Petition is claimed it is replaced with another from the stack, but there is also a second effect. The Queen of Tempest, notorious for her random demands, will make an announcement via the pile of Fashion cards that can be found in the middle of the board. The player who claimed the Petition flips one of these proclamations and reads it aloud, following the instructions stated. This can be total gamechangers, massive events that can see your plans thwarted in an instant or open up a whole world of new opportunities. The Fashion deck also contains the card that concludes the game, randomly shuffled into the lower half of the stack, that can immediately dash all those grand plans you've been building up all game. As I mentioned previously, adaptability is vital in Courtier. Hold on to someone for too long and you may find it's too late...
This is a game all about control. Having power over the many characters in the Court gives you the chance to claim those all-important Petition cards, but also bestows those special abilities if you have the largest single amount of cubes in a section of the board. Having the majority in the Church area, for example, lets you play two cubes per turn rather than one. Power over the Culture area brings a bonus point at the start of each turn. The Royal Family grant protection over other characters you influence. There are several others but all you need to know is having a good combination of these abilities can really be a massive help in pulling out the win.
The more I play Courtier the more I find myself enjoying it. Early games felt overlong, not enough happening quickly enough, and it's true that complaints could be made about that - after all, most of the time you're only placing one cube down each turn. However, by giving the game the time it deserves to learn its nuances, to work out those most useful combinations, to really get into the meat... then you'll find a rather splendid affair filled with deviousness and cruelty, pleasure and pain. Nothing is finer than when someone switches one of your cubes to some lowly member of the Court, only for you to then reveal on your next turn that it was precisely what you needed to pull off a 16 point Petition.
It's not for everyone. Some may find it a little dry, the very definition of cube pushing. Others may disregard it solely down to the subject matter (after all, manipulation of a fictional Royal Court isn't everyone's cup of tea) but those who give it a chance will discover a very enjoyable brain teaser spiked with a healthy dash of deception.
The game centres around the Royal Court, the characters within and the influence they wield. Players will play cards from their hands that come from two piles, Influence and Power, that allow them to seize control over various elements of the Court in different ways. Influence cards are the most straightforward, either showing a single character from the game or a certain section of the Court that you can affect. You'll generally be placing a cube of your colour on the central board, filling up slots that show how influential you are over that character. Having the most cubes in a coterie also bestows a special ability on you - more on those shortly.
The cards from the Power deck work in a more devious fashion. These mainly allow for manipulation of cubes on the board along with the introduction of white 'neutral' ones that are useful for filling spaces up on the members of the Court. Having the majority over a character is vital, as this lets you use them to score points by claiming Petitions - the main aim of the game.
Four of these Petitions are face up and open for all to grab but players also have a single, secret one that they can work towards. Each Petition lists a selection of members of the Court, and if you manage to have the most influence over all of them when they're filled with cubes, you claim the card and are on your way to winning. Some may show only a couple of characters and are worth a small amount but other, larger groups can bring in a huge amount of points. It's a matter of balancing your decisions - do you go for a selection of low-value cards to race the game along or aim high, hoping to get those big scores?
Once a Petition is claimed it is replaced with another from the stack, but there is also a second effect. The Queen of Tempest, notorious for her random demands, will make an announcement via the pile of Fashion cards that can be found in the middle of the board. The player who claimed the Petition flips one of these proclamations and reads it aloud, following the instructions stated. This can be total gamechangers, massive events that can see your plans thwarted in an instant or open up a whole world of new opportunities. The Fashion deck also contains the card that concludes the game, randomly shuffled into the lower half of the stack, that can immediately dash all those grand plans you've been building up all game. As I mentioned previously, adaptability is vital in Courtier. Hold on to someone for too long and you may find it's too late...
This is a game all about control. Having power over the many characters in the Court gives you the chance to claim those all-important Petition cards, but also bestows those special abilities if you have the largest single amount of cubes in a section of the board. Having the majority in the Church area, for example, lets you play two cubes per turn rather than one. Power over the Culture area brings a bonus point at the start of each turn. The Royal Family grant protection over other characters you influence. There are several others but all you need to know is having a good combination of these abilities can really be a massive help in pulling out the win.
The more I play Courtier the more I find myself enjoying it. Early games felt overlong, not enough happening quickly enough, and it's true that complaints could be made about that - after all, most of the time you're only placing one cube down each turn. However, by giving the game the time it deserves to learn its nuances, to work out those most useful combinations, to really get into the meat... then you'll find a rather splendid affair filled with deviousness and cruelty, pleasure and pain. Nothing is finer than when someone switches one of your cubes to some lowly member of the Court, only for you to then reveal on your next turn that it was precisely what you needed to pull off a 16 point Petition.
It's not for everyone. Some may find it a little dry, the very definition of cube pushing. Others may disregard it solely down to the subject matter (after all, manipulation of a fictional Royal Court isn't everyone's cup of tea) but those who give it a chance will discover a very enjoyable brain teaser spiked with a healthy dash of deception.
