Castles of Mad King Ludwig Gameplay Runthrough

hey everybody today righto runs through the castles of Mad King Ludwig which is the lace game from designer Ted all spock and it's kind of a sequel of sorts to suburbia which you may recall is one of Jen's of my absolute favorite games from a few years ago absolutely love that game love it to this day and this game has a lot of similarities in terms of gameplay but a radically different theme so let's demonstrate that right now it's jump right into it so in this game players are I guess rket Rhett architects slash contractors all competing to score the most points possible by building crazy insane castles for the Mad King himself at the beginning of the game each of us has a foyer a and 1500 bucks to start building our very own castle although again it's not for us it's for the king which means we are trying to make the King happy even though he's a crazy person so let's find out what the king wants in this particular game we have a whole bunch because there's a big stack of bonus tiles that could come out and in this game in a two-player game there's going to be two of them alright so he wants lots of all what is that symbol this is the relaxation room the living rooms he wants lots of big living rooms and he wants lots of downstairs he wants lots of dungeon e type stuff so go figure that's what he wants and at the end of the game whoever has the in this particular game because in a two-player game only to come out these are the two that came out whoever has the most square footage of living rooms scores eight points whoever has the second most gets four points and whoever has the most downstairs room scores eight points and whoever has the second most scores four points but that's not it he also has other things he wants and so each of us that being a game draws I think it's three just right let me look each player yeah three bonus cards everybody gets three bonus cards so one two three all right and now in secret each of us are going to look at these and pick two of them to keep and one of them to return so these will be goals that we are going after so one point for every round room you've built two points for every 200 square foot room which is this type of room you've built and two points for every was it called activity room let's see now I gotta get rid of one of those and that's interesting these two kind of work at cross-purposes because if I'm trying to build a lot of round rooms chances are I'm not building very many of these rectangle rooms and vice versa so I should probably get rid of one of these too and since strictly speaking there are more round rooms available than these I probably although these are worth two points whereas these are worth one let's see I'll definitely keep this one because these activity rooms you know which is represented by that loot symbol they come in the 150s and all that's interesting in the two hundred rooms there are you can see the two hundred sized rooms are either sleeping rooms utility rooms or eating rooms there are no activity rooms so that means these two don't work very well together so which one do I want to get rid of I think I'll get rid of this and so this goes to the bottom of the deck and so these are now two secret goals that I could earn points forth being at the end of the game and now Jen she's gotta make the same choice two points for every 150 so basically everyone of this size one point for each corridor you build and one point for every five grand you have at the end of the game hmm I think Jen will dump the 150 you know the trying to build rooms of this size because here's the thing there is no guarantee that's in a given game you'll get very many opportunities to build any particular size of room so it's a bit of a gamble taking a bonus that is so limited to just one type I mean I'm taking a bit of a gamble it's less of a gamble because there's two different there's double as many round rooms so I have double the chance I am taking a gamble though because not many loot rooms or what they called activity rooms I'm Lu te by the way not L ot not many activity rooms might come out in this game because if I look around activity rooms well they could be there in the 350s there in the 500s there in the 600's and 250s the 200s no not the 200s right so about half of these potential stacks of decks have these types of rooms but there's no guarantee because in a two-player game as you can see a whole bunch of rooms got removed from the game also a whole bunch of these room cards get removed so in a two-player game you can never be certain that any particular icon or room size is going to come out so that's why gens getting rid of one of those because well she'll go for trying to have a lot of leftover money and she'll try to have a lot of corridors because we already know exactly how many corridors they're going to be every game all right so those are Jen's secret goals and that's it so now we can start playing the game I'm the first player I've got the castles a Mad King Lulu thing that means I this round and the master builder and so the first thing the master builder does is he has to ensure there are five rooms in a two-player game you'll notice if we add if this were a three-player game there'd be six rooms but in a two-player game you ignore time so I'm just covering up you ignore this space so there's one two three four five rooms I have to put five rooms out on display that we could choose to add to our castles and so I do that by drawing five cards from here see I got a 150 and I got a 250 and a 300 and another 250 and finally a another 200 okay so there we go all these cards basically oops go in the discard pile and as the master builder I am the primary builder of this round I'm going to be the one who's building stuff both in my own castle and Jen's castle on a given turn every other player hires the master builder to build stuff so if Jen wants to build any of these things she doesn't put her money in the bank she pays me so knowing that that if I want to build one of these things I've got to pay the bank but if Jen wants to build them she's got to pay me she will be the first to go and so looking around these things I have to assign cost to these because I'm telling Jen how much I charge to make these things if we all fought like instance this is the only downstairs room that has come out which we know is implicitly valuable because downstairs rooms are a big deal because the king wants them so I should probably make this thing cost a bit more money because if Jen wants to build that I want her to be paying me a lot of money to do it although it's interesting in the first round nobody could build this yet because it's impossible to build a downstairs room until you build some stairs so chances are one or maybe both of us are going to build some stairs this round so that in the following round one of us would be able to build this and start working on the King's request but wait the King also wants a lot of square footage for living rooms a/c so we have an eating room here which is the L ones you can see little icon we have an activity room and another activity room and a sleeping room and a downstairs room so no living rooms have come out but there is a downstairs room looking over at my secret goals I remember I want to build round rooms and I also want to build activity rooms so I'm pretty happy I want to heck if I can I want to build this piano room because it does both things I want to do so I have to be careful I don't want to make this thing so cheap the Jen would build it because I want to build that thing for myself and if I make it really cheap Jen will just pay me the 4000 and she'll build a thing so I want to but I don't want to make this so expensive that it's too expensive for me to build so how high do I make it 8,000 do I make it 10,000 now see here now then it's interesting since nobody is actually going to be able to build this night room I'll go on ahead and make it the cheapest thing there is because no one is going to get to build it so if Jen wants to build anything she's going to have to pay me six thousand eight thousand ten thousand fifteen thousand bucks but here's the thing I'm willing to bet the Jen is going to want to build a staircase this round because until we build a staircase we can't build the downstairs room and she wants to start pushing on that now staircases they don't go on this list when when I'm I saw as the master builder I'm assigning the value so everything staircases have a fixed value of three thousand so if I'm going to bet that Jen is going to go for that then I don't really have to worry so much chances are I could just go ahead and make this the cheapest thing in the world so it only cost me four grand because probably Jen's going to pay three grand but I'm still in danger so I will put this here because no one can build it I'll put it here and hopefully that'll make it too rich for Jen's blood but it's still not so expensive that I feel too bad about getting it and then I got to put the other ones down let's see here and now none of these other ones have anything to do with the stated goals but I do know that this was an activity room I'm going to put this one up really high so the Jen won't build it so that it'll stick around for next turn because there's no way she's gonna pay 15 grand to build that thing no matter what her own special goals are and this thing I got the other ones what the heck I don't care so much about them I'll just go ahead and slap them down like this right that's what you do the first thing as a master builder you draw cards until there are five rooms available or more depending with more players and then you assign monetary values to each them then you even though you're the player who sets the prices you are the last player who gets to build because now it goes around robbing around the table and a two-player game that means now Jen gets can choose any of these things she wants to build and pays me the money or alternatively can pay three thousand to build a corridor or stairs and you know what I believe I guessed correctly because Jen is going to pay three thousand which means all right so that means I need to break this five let me give me five ones to do a TD so here's my fifteen thousand Jen will pay me three thousand bucks so I'll give her two thousand change because I'm the master builder and she says she wants to build stairs although I'm the one who did it that's why she had to pay me now she can take this and she whenever you put a tile down it has to have one of its entrances touch an entrance of an existing room now at the beginning of the game we have this foyer and that's it and so Jen can decide everything has to go 90 green house so it could be facing like this or this or this I think she'll face it like this because that'll give her room to build off in this direction and you don't have to build too far off the edge of the table right so so start like this and she'll put this staircase such now this for a at the beginning is an upstairs room but now she has let's put it over here so she's put a staircase that goes downstairs and now at the end of the staircase she can only place downstairs rooms on the next room next to her if she gets this nice room she could build it down here and start to work on what the King really wants okay so Jen has successfully built that now once in and she had to pay me to do it because I was a master builder now once you build something you have to see if you score any points although a staircase in and up self does not score any points and so Jen she told a staircase she's building for the future and that's all she didn't cost for three grand now it comes back to me and I can build and now I've got tricky situation I want to build this thing it's going to cost me six grand but here's the thing if I build this next turn I won't have a staircase so I won't be able to build this downstairs room but Jen can and Jen's going to know that so that means next turn Jen could make this thing be the cheapest thing in the world and then I wouldn't be able to build it so she would get it at the bare bones low price on the flip side I could compete I could build my own downstairs that you know staircase going down stairs and then next turn either of us could build this so am I going to chase after this which is a perfect room for two of my secret goals or am I going to leave it because I could build it later and instead am I going to build my own staircase so that I can compete with Jen for these downstairs rooms that's a tough choice um but you know what I think I am that more it's very very likely that more downstairs rooms will come out over the course of the game so I'll worry about trying to catch up with Jen later although it means Jen's going to be very happy because she'll be able to get this thing at a bear but at a rock-bottom price anyway so I'm going to pay 6,000 and I'm going to build this thing and now I can again I have to make it connect to any of my existing rooms my foyer I'll go on ahead and I'll rotate it and I'll put it like this you can see these two rooms are connecting now this room does score me points you know Jen staircase it didn't score her anything immediately but this thing immediately scores me three points one two three by the way Jen had one bonus point at the end again because she was the second player whereas I had none but now I'm in the lead because I've scored three points on this but now here's the tricky thing you will notice there's some other icons on here well first of all it's a up it's a leisure room or an activity room these rooms typically make a lot of noise now let's go for me remember I get two points for every activity room I put into my castle plus one point for every so this is worth an additional three secret points which no one will know about to the end of the game but because this icon I lose one point for every living room and sleeping room that is put adjacent to this room now this Phi a is considered to be a corridor it has that little - so I don't lose any points but now if I ever build sleeping rooms or living rooms and living rooms of products remember I want to build a lot of living rooms because the king wants lots of square footage to vote the living rooms so I'm gonna have to be careful and build my living rooms off in a different direction so the people in the living room won't be annoyed by all the noise coming from the entertainment room anyway so I built that I scored three points I don't lose any points because there are no adjacent issues right now okay so that was my turn and now at the end of the round the first player marker moves on to the next player and now the next player Jen will be the master builder in the second round and so there's only four rooms out here she needs to draw another card and it is another 200 square foot room not no big rooms yet and now Jen can assign the prices any way she wants and I'll guarantee you right off the bat she's gonna leave this at 4,000 because she's planning on buying it for the cheapest she can and she knows I can't do it because I don't have a staircase but she's also got think about how is she gonna arrange these other things let's see here so again there's no living rooms so there's no implicit value now what did Jen want Jen wants to save money and she wants to build corridors um let's see which she hasn't built in yet but she'll worry about those later she's gonna build this it's gonna be the cheapest thing she can so really she needs to think about pricing these such that well um she can manipulate how much I'm gonna pay now at this point she doesn't really have a good guess as to what I want she has no idea maybe she could guess that I care about activity rooms but maybe not she might just leave all these things as they are and put this room because even if she doesn't know what my secrets are she does know what these rooms do this room is worth four points she probably does not want to make it really cheap for me to buy to build because it'll score me four points so she probably wants to make that cost a little bit more so I'll have to pay more for it but if she knew I really wanted to make it she might not make it all the way up because if I do make it hey I get four points but then I'd have to pay her 8,000 bucks to get those four points so again it's a balancing act I think she'll kind of try and put it you know tantalizingly close um you know she I'll get this thing if I want it but I'd have to pay her 8 grand to get it let's see now these other ones this one's 3 points you'll make it a little bit I see this one that's only worth one point she'll make that the cheapest and she'll make this which is 2 points the most expensive all right so she's done deciding and now it is my turn to do builds I see and there's no round rooms there is this leisure room and I would like to buy it so Jen was very very wise to put it there because it is tempting I've got 12 thousand bucks I could afford 8000 and give that to her give her a grand unbeknownst to me she wants to have a lot of excess money but I don't know that but this thing is going to be worth an extra two points let's see let's look at it now it also like the other one since the entertainment room negative one point for every staircase living room and sleeping room it's next to hmm pom pom pom pom pom did you do hmm no I don't think I don't think I'm gonna do it 8,000 is too much um and I can't do the 4000 so I could pay 6000 and build this meat locker which is an interesting room it would score me one point plus I'll get three points for every outdoor room that this room is adjacent to now there are no outdoor rooms of right now but if I end up building this thing it gives me a goal to focus on for the rest of the game trying to build outdoor rooms next to this thing so I can get more points three points but since there are none of these outright yet I think this turn is going to be the turn where I put the fear back into Jen I'm just going to build my own staircase which means I got a page in on three grand so I give her five she gives me back two and I'll build my own staircase and now that means in the future I don't have to worry about passing on getting a downstairs room so where am I going to put it I can put it next to any of these things there's no particular benefit or or penalty to doing or wherever I put it um let's see but I think I will put it over here so that if I ever want to make any living rooms I'm you know so I'm already starting to separate space away you know because this thing is loud it doesn't want to be next to adjacent stuff so a staircase though doesn't mind being next to a loud piano room so I'll slip it there and there's no particular benefits I don't get any points that was it now Jen she's old so happy because she will pay four grand not to me but to the bank she's the master builder and build the Knights room now it can't come here off her foyer cuz that's upstairs and this is a downstairs room so she has two ways to build this she could build it like this or she could build it like this I don't think she wants about like this because then she's got a doorway going down here she wants to try just to keep stuff away from the edge of the table she'll build like that okay now first of all this is going to be a much more interesting turn she scores two points for having built this one two we're all tied up now this thing will give Jen two points for every sleeping room in the castle and when you know there's a guest bedroom here so wherever when if Jen could build this guest bedroom wherever she builds it it'll score her two bonus points because the night's room gives two bonus points for sleeping rooms so now Jen basically has an extra goal of always building sleeping rooms if she can and I know that so if I'm smart I need to make those things cost more money so that she'll have to pay more than normal all right but she's not done yet another thing she's done as you can see she has successfully completed this staircase and now what that means to complete a tile whether it's a stair a corridor a room or whatever when you complete a tile that means you have put an entrance next to every other entrance of that and completely closed it off and so you know this entrance is closed off and this entrance is closed off so that means Jen gets a bonus this is a corridor you can tell from the little - corridors when you complete a corridor place a free halt all way or stairs one per turn so now Jen gets to place another stairway or another corridor her choice for free normally those things cost three grand but Jen gets to do it now for free and tell you what she's gonna do hmm I think she is going to take a hallway and now this could be an upstairs hallway or a downstairs hallway she's going to make it a downstairs hallway and she's going to place it like this and so now in doing that Jen has just completed another room all the exits from the night room are now connected to other tiles so Jen now gets another bonus for her downstairs room although unfortunately the bonus for downstairs rooms are you only get a bonus for a downstairs room for every two downstairs rooms you do so one downstairs room does do anything but now if Jen can get another downstairs room and complete it she will get any bonus she wants that's the bones you know what actually I don't think she wants to do that cuz I forgot you don't immediately get a bonus for that so instead I think Jen will take this of this corridor and put it up here so it's it's creating a hallway off of her main foyer okay now then and but that didn't score any points but she did get to build a 3,000 point corridor for free or $3,000 corridor for free okay so that was Jen's turn the end of the turn the first player marker moves back over to me I am the master builder I got a build another thing it's a little tiny tiny room it's the buttery which might be Jen's favorite room because who doesn't love a room devoted to butter although I think there's more to it than that but all right so I've got to rearrange stuff now and I know Jen wants this sleeping room so do i price it up really really high so she just can't afford it cuz I can see she's only got 11 grand if I put this in 1,500 she simply can't buy it at all but I can't put it at 10 because she'd have to completely bankrupt herself to build it but it might be worth it because she gets the three points plus two more points well thick I'm going to put it there and make it very very tempting for her to buy well not very tempting she'd have to pay a premium but she could afford if she wants to and now I've got all these other things to arrange also and remember I want to build this because I want to build more rooms but again if I put it down here it's probably too tempting in general end up building it so maybe I want to put it up here see the thing is if I can I want to make this really cheap on a turn when Jen is completely broke because then I know she'll be able to buy it and I'd be able to get it myself for free or not for free but for cheap so maybe if I tempt Jen a little bit more at eight grand I think she would be very very tempted to build this thing and I'd because I'd be given her two extra points and that would be interesting but that means and she'd be broke because she'd have to pay eight thousand so she would not have enough to get the this and I'd be able to get it next turn so let's just put this out of range out of reach and um let's see here see this is I'll put the I'll put the buttery here and the meat locker here and the to point washroom there okay so I've arranged everything and now it's Jens turn and you know what and for opinion four pound jen is going to pay me the 8 grand so if i if i put it up too high she probably have done but eight grand is pretty expensive but she thinks it's worth it to score bonus points off her nights room so she just paid that she's going to get three points for this one two three because you always get score the points in the corner and now now Jen cannot connect it to her nights room because you cannot put in upstairs room next to a downstairs room so Jen can either connect it off her FOIA or off of one of any of these million different little corridors off the hallway I think she'll put it think she'll put it like this okay boom and she scored her three points but she's not done yet she has now just completely closed off her foyer a um you know it's all completely it's completed so it's it's considered a corridor because it has the corridor symbol and what does that mean Jen gets to place another hallway or another staircase for free right now and so if say she grabbed another hallway and put it here downstairs or no put it here upstairs she could now complete this guest ballroom hmm see actually maybe she doesn't want to do that yet actually I'm thinking she's gonna instead of putting this here because she doesn't necessarily know where the best place to put another corridor is so I think she's just going to put it over here at the end of this get of this hallway the guest bedroom now it's going to be impossible practically impossible to completely close off this hallway and score it because she'd have to put an exit next to every one of these exits there just it that's impossible as soon as she like covers this up now she can never cover up that doorway and so she'll never be able to complete this hallway but one more room should be able to complete this guest bedroom and I think she's gonna leave this open like I said until she decides maybe she wants to build another staircase for free to get back upstairs off of this night room so she's just gonna do this so she doesn't get any bonus for completing anything but she got her three points and because this is a sleeping room she checks her nights room and gets two more points one two all right and so now it's my turn Jen's giving me a lot of cash so I could easily afford the 10k I want to but I'm going to wait until the next time I'm master builder and make it super cheap so I can get it on the cheap or well we'll see we'll see what happens but in the meantime what am I going to build although what the heck I mean maybe I should go on ahead and build it now I mean Jen's just given me 10k I'll still have seven thousand which is for K more than her Jen just gave me a bunch of money I could afford it now because here's the thing if I wait on this because I what one thing I haven't mentioned is when it's your turn to buy a room if you either you don't want to you can't afford it whatever you can pass and instead of building a room that turn you can make five thousand more bucks so it's very likely on Jen's next turn that she's going to pass and make five thousand bucks at which point she would suddenly be able to afford this thing again and I wouldn't necessarily be able to get it on the cheap so you know I think I'm done messing around I'm just going to go ahead and pay the 10k eight of which came from Jen so she really made this possible and I'm going to get this oratory right and we're manned which is going to score me four points and I got to put it someplace now again I can't put it at the end of this staircase because I'm leaving this staircase for all my downstairs stuff actually I say all my downstairs stuff goes off in this direction let's say I put it that way so I can I can connect it to my four yay or I could connect it over here to my piano room if I do something like that you can see that my piano room is completely enclosed and I get the bonus for it so maybe I should do something like that but here's a tricky thing I am now making it tougher to fill in this hole I could do it say with the buttery because you can't make tiles overlap or I could do it with okay yeah it's still gonna be possible to hold off this I'm pretty happy with that so I'm going to place this oratory right here next to the piano room I score four points one two three four and I now I lose points if it's next to a living room next to a downstairs room which it's not I don't have any downstairs room or next to a sleeping room so I have to bear that mind as I continue to build alright so I paid through the nose for it and now Jen's got to be suspicious the fact that I paid eight ten grand for that means that maybe um maybe I have the objective to build activity rooms but for all she knows maybe I have the secret objective to build 250 square foot rooms instead she can't be certain but she now has a little bit of a hint as to what my secret goals are alright so that was that we both bought a room and now Jen becomes the master builder she's God draw two more cards it's another little dinky hundred room and a Wow where are all the big room so far we haven't had any big rooms at all yet this is crazy but hey look another round room and you know I loves oh and it's an underground room - it's a bottomless pit so this is something that both Jen and I are going to want pretty badly because we're competing to have the most underground rooms plus I want this even more because it's round anyway Jen's the master builder so she gets to assign values and here's the problem this is a turn where Jen is kind of broke she can't afford anything with 3000 bucks so she's going to have to pass but she knows I have seven so I guarantee you she's going to make this thing cost eight thousand because then I don't have enough money to buy it um although she could make it 6,000 if she wanted me to pay her 6 grand but she does not want me to get that she doesn't want me to catch up so she'll put this out of my price range and now she has to arrange this other stuff too knowing full well that I'm not going to that you know she's not going to be able to benefit for me of this stuff but let's see what she want to do now she can see for example that I need to have something with a nice little corner like one of these three like the washroom I would not be able to build here um you know and so I'd be a little bit less efficient to put the washroom down so that's interesting didn't think about that oh dear so I do that I yes I could see because here's another thing I'm thinking about I'm thinking about now that I put this oratory here if I want to oh wait oh wait oh wait wait I forgot at the end of my turn since I had successfully completed this activity room all the entrances are adjacent to other interests is the bonus 20 of activity is 5 more points 1 2 3 4 5 almost forgot so I'm in the lead now by 4 points and Jen is the master builder she's gotta decide how to do all this stuff but you know what this is a half an hour now I think you get the basics we're going to keep on playing until this deck is completely empty and that triggers the end of the game and then that's when we reveal our bonuses we score points and see who wins who's built the craziest castle the most nonsensical goofy castle and if you'd like to watch a little bit more action see how Jen's going to arrange this stuff see what I'm going to buy because I've got 7 grand if she puts something any of these spaces I could buy it but heck maybe we'll both take a pass this turn and both get some income but if you want to see what's going to happen you can hit the button that's on screen or follow the show notes in five four three two one

Channel: Rahdo

Views: 81,098

Rating: 4.7578945 out of 5

Keywords: baordgame, boardgames, radho, baord game, baordgames, rahdo, board games, baord games, boardgame, game, rhado, board game

Id: 8RZ58y8wYhs

Length: 30min 41sec (1841 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 16 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Warning, I was an idiot all through this video... I'm even more embarrassed than normal! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nQJsOJnEd8

[u/Stillhighinprison420]

I thoroughly enjoy your videos. For the past few months I have been dealing with a newborn with severe colic. To get me through this tumultuous time in my life, I have been falling back even harder on my hobby of board games. I have spent many a sleepless nights, with a crying newborn in hand, watching your videos. I can honestly say that out of all the reviewers out there you are in my top 2. I just want to thank you for all the hard work you put into your craft.

[u/MrMountie]

Every time I watch a Rahdo video it just makes me sad there hasn't been a Syphon Filter game in forever.

[u/thewoj]

Bucks bucks bucks bucks bucks bucks bucks. I love Rahdo's run throughs for that reason alone.

I cannot decide if this game completely replaces Suburbia or not. After watching this and Tom Vasel's review, I think the increased player interaction with the Master Builder mechanic, means that this game has a little more value if your group likes friendly competition. If everyone likes kind of playing their own game and building their own machine, then Suburbia may be a better fit.

[u/WilderPegasus]

I wish the whiners who always complain about Rahdo's Run Throughs would show him how it is done instead of whining about what they think he's doing wrong.

Rahdo does a great job already and to change anything would probably mean fewer Run Throughs. It's unfortunate that he's too nice of a guy to tell the whiners where to go and tries to make everyone happy.

[u/inertiadriftsc]

Sweet! Been looking forward to this one.

[u/[deleted]]

Can this come out in England already? With a reprint of Suburbia? That'd be swell.

[u/FUNKYDISCO]

I honestly appreciate what Rahdo does... but I just can't watch these videos. He drives me insane with his never ending thought process for each move. I get that he wants to explore the players options, but sometimes I just want to see what happens after everyone's move is over, and a lot of times that's 40 minutes into a video.

[u/ctharsis]

My brother has Suburbia (And Suburbia Inc.), so I may end up getting this - looks like a lot of fun, and I LOVE Suburbia!