Which West Kingdom Game is Best?!

it was the best of times it was the west of times all right enough of this preamble and poetic language it's time to talk about which of these games is the best aka best of the west [Music] what's up everybody i'm michael lee murphy i'm one half of the brothers murph and we quite like the architects the paladins the vi counts of the west kingdom or the whole west kingdom trilogy games which is made by shem phillips and sj mcdonald and produced by garpill games and then renegade games is mass distributed at places uh this is a really fun series of games that are all independent and their own thing but they all take place in a similar world in a similar time and they kind of will tell a story uh in its way with architects being kind of the early days uh where architects are kind of building up a new uh regime a new kingdom and then during paladins of the west kingdom there's outsiders and barbarians coming from from afar that you have to kind of protect yourself against and the paladins or the noble paladins are coming to ward these outsiders off and convert them you're trying to build up fortifications and then by counts of the west kingdom kind of the furthest forward in time uh the king is now aging and and people are sort of seeing what's gonna be next for the kingdom maybe i can come shape the kingdom in my image for the future so you kind of have this whole story that's going on with having three really unique very different games in the way that they play but all have familiarity as well in terms of the art the board style and things like that so i think what we should do is show you a little bit about how each game works really briefly give you an overview then i'll come back and i'll tell you what i think about this series in architects of the west kingdom players take on the role of prominent architects looking to please the king the most by constructing buildings and working on the cathedral each player will use a pool of 20 workers to go to various spaces gaining materials money apprentices to aid in building and more many times in the game you'll be met with moral choices that might impact your virtue having a high virtue means you're in good standing with the king but it makes life a little more difficult as you can't visit the black market to get materials you need if your virtue is too low you can't work on the cathedral but you will be able to skirt some of the ever-present taxes you must pay each time players add an additional worker to a space they have other workers present that space becomes stronger giving more materials and perks for each worker present but your rival architects are brutal and are more than happy to round up your workers and throw them in jail netting some much needed cash as players build buildings and work on the cathedral they will leave workers on the guild hall which will eventually signal the end of the game and the player with the most points from buildings and their virtue wins in paladins of the west kingdom players are tossed into a turbulent time in the west and as the noble men and women of the land you must protect your people from invaders in the name of the king luckily holy knights the paladins are on the way to give aid as you spread faith gain influence and build strength each round players will use a pool of workers of many colors to carry out actions to increase their attributes and strength influence and faith the left side of a player's board often give them provisions in silver and allow them to recruit and use town folks or develop their board with workshops making actions cheaper to carry out once players are stocked up they can assign matching color workers to spaces to fortify and build walls and garrison to protect the lands they can commission to send monks out using faith to gain influence or they can absolve to use that influence to spread the faith the outsiders that threaten the kingdom can be attacked or converted which will again boost stats and possibly offer end game points after seven rounds players will score points for the status of their attribute tracks points for focusing heavily on certain actions and completing king's orders at the end of the game the player with the most points wins in vi counts of the west kingdom players are now dealing with an aging king who wishes to find peace over prosperity as powerful vi counts there is an opportunity to seize hold of the future through decisive action choosing what is best for the people of the kingdom each turn players will be playing one card to their player board creating a tableau of townsfolk with various icons and abilities the card played will dictate how far your vice count must move going always clockwise around the board and then one of four actions will be taken training can convert money symbols and silver into other resources and can help players pay debts and approve deeds hammers and stone can be used to build up the kingdom with guild halls and trading posts giving their player new abilities and perks on the inner track of the board players can add their workers to the castle using gold and fleur-de-lis which will gain influence over the kingdom and transcribing manuscripts using crosses and ink walls can give players bonuses and a set collection element players will acquire and use town folks to build a powerful deck full of useful workers and as destindees are acquired the game end grows ever closer once one or both decks run out the game end is triggered and players will then gain points for the building's built manuscripts transcribed and workers who've been added to the castle deeds and debts can gain or lose players points and at the end of the game the player with the most points wins so like i said you have three games that are all uh familiar in that they look similar they have a similar color palette and stuff obviously the art is all by uh mihala dimitri actually the miko uh and so there's a lot of familiarity and through line but with each game they all play very differently which is really neat one of the things i really like in the strength of this series and also with the north uh c series i know that all three of those games were quite different although i've only played raiders of the north sea um so i'm going to talk about pros a couple little nitpicks or cons for each game and then i'll tell you what i think about them all overall though i really love this series there's no game here that'll be like this is straight trash so if you're looking for that take you're not going to get it from me because i really like all three of these games i think they're really uh all valid because they are all different so with architects of the west kingdom some of the things i really love is how fast all the actions are you have all these worker placement spaces and many of them are go here to get some wood get some stone brick or gold depending on how many workers you have there so it's kind of go there grab some stuff it might get a little bit longer if you're figuring out who to round up and throw in jail and stuff like that but all the actions are really slick so the actions keep moving you're taking one turn at a time placing one worker so it keeps on moving which i really really appreciate i also like that none of the workers spaces for the most part there are a couple but most of them are unlimited they don't have any limit to how many people can be there how many different players can be there so i don't have to spend time thinking of like oh wait which places are blocked uh uh uh i can just do what i want to do because they're all for the most part open and that's really the funnest thing about this is that we always talk about it being a worker investment game because i can put the same you know i can go to the same spot over and over again with multiple workers and the more workers i have the better that action becomes you might throw down a worker and get six wood if you haven't been rounded up already you probably are becoming a juicy target at that point to be rounded up and tossed into prison but you can do these kind of big moves and and really invest in a space to get big halls of materials and then start to use those materials to work on the cathedral or build your buildings which is how you get your points in the game a nitpick with this one i feel like i have the hardest time out of these three games focusing in architects of the west kingdom just because you're trying to build cards is the main thing you can build building cards those greenback cards will give you your main hall of points they might have end game scoring and stuff on them uh but because i'm kind of drawing cards from a deck and then getting my hand at building cards then trying to figure out a direction i can't go into that game with a really clear purpose because it's kind of dependent on the types of cards i get and that might dictate then which which of the apprentices i might need to have the right icons to then build so i find myself basically whatever cards i start the game with getting those built and then i'm kind of like uh what should i do now and that's not really good when you're kind of racing to the end of the game because as people are building their building cards or working on the cathedral it's also timing out the game so with this one i usually and this is a personal problem i run into um the issue of playing too slow as it were i'm just i'm not about my my business quick enough so that's that's a me thing and i struggle with that kind of thing in most games that have that element scythe and whatnot uh but architects of west kingdom is really fantastic so next up the second game of the series was paladins of the west kingdom and this game i really really enjoyed right out the gate it has kind of an orleans feel because you have these different color workers that need to go to certain spaces some spaces require a specific color other ones can be whatever color you want so you're kind of trying to get the right pieces to the right action space it's not a bag builder like orleans like i know what i have but you're kind of trying to try to put the right spaces to then activate an action so i really enjoy that and one thing i really like is this game is all about efficiency it's all about trying to stretch your round out as long as you can there's certain uh areas if you put a garrison out if you if you use one of your monks you place them out on the central board it might give you more workers that you can then use that round so you're really trying to kind of stay in the game as long as you can you want to be able to do as much as you can on a round before having to pass and then have to wait for everyone else to finish all their business and then you get more workers because you always get six but you can try to get more in the rounds it's all about efficiency it's all about stretching out your round as long as you can and how how can i do that the best uh the other thing i love is there's synergy between there's six actions basically on the right side of the board and each set of two will be synergistic with with each other meaning one will require strength but will give you faith the other one will require that you have a certain amount of faith and will give you strength so if you start working those two actions you can start working those two attribute tracks and bumping up and up and kind of get you know stronger in those areas so you can kind of focus uh in that way in a really satisfying way that is also kind of my nitpick for this one and again these are nitpicks they're not huge but paladins i have found to be difficult to get up on those attribute tracks and you know when you start doing fortifications you're building up that wall you're gonna start needing a lot of influence pretty quickly so you need to make sure that if you're going to be doing that that you pair uh different actions that are going to give you that influence it can kind of be hard to get going and with paladins you really have to focus basically don't try to do everything it won't work out very well because you'll end up at like three or four on each of the three attribute tracks which isn't super strong and you're gonna kind of run out of room so you have to kind of focus or else you'll be you know punished uh it won't work out as well so that's one thing that i really enjoy trying to figure out and start working my little engine but it can i think be limiting where if you know the cards are coming out you're trying to do a bunch of attack actions the cards are coming out it's just not really working out for you it might be hard to switch gears halfway through and there's also those king's order cards and i've been trying to do fortifications build up my wall and none of the king's order cards have walls and so i'm like oh that's not as good because i'm not going to get points over there because it's too late to get all my garrisons out i would need to get five it's not likely to happen so that can be a little bit limiting in some ways but it's really great again that's a minor nitpick with paladins so last we have vi counts of the west kingdom the newest one in the series and the last one in the series this one is great because it is a similar weight i feel like to paladins it's on a it's a bit heavier than in architects if slightly so um but it feels more streamlined to me than paladins there's only four action types you can do in this one you can basically trade build you can put people in the castle or you can transcribe manuscripts and everything as you're playing out these cards into your tableau are going to give you icons that help you do one of those four actions and so there's kind of a streamlinedness there the way that the turn order works once you get going it's really kind of smooth and simple you move your vi account that'll dictate where you land which will tell you uh what area you're going to put people in the castle or which manuscript you can transcribe because your vicar will be standing right next to that one so you'll know exactly kind of what you can do and where it's really well laid out generally the board in terms of knowing uh what's where i also really love that this is a deck building game that goes in slow motion as i talk about it because most deck building games you'll have the hand of cards you'll play your hand of cards and you'll draw a new hand of five or six cards or whatever it is for your next turn and so on and here in vi counts you're only ever playing one card at a time onto a tableau of up to three cards and so you're gonna have these cards that are in front of you for multiple turns uh and so it's really kind of about trying to keep a tableau of icons in front of you that really serve your purpose so maybe if i have a bunch of hammers i can try to do a bunch of building for these kind of three turns because i'm gonna have these these uh workers these townsfolk in front of me for a while so it's kind of cool to not just get your cards and they go away and you have to wait to get them later i get a card and i have it for basically three turns and then sometimes the ability to rearrange your player board so this card that i really want to keep on my board because as a persistent effect i can bring back to the front of the line so it keeps it on uh in my tableau for longer stuff like that is really really cool and the other thing i really enjoy about this game is it's combo tastic and has all these kind of power up feels because as you build buildings you unlock permanent icons so now i always have a hammer symbol no matter what i have in my cards i always have a hammer symbol i can go to the castle and put a bunch of people in the castle and if you get enough in a certain area they start moving around and moving up the castle giving you bonuses which that might uh trigger something else there's all these kind of fun combos in the game that i really enjoy one thing i can say for the downside is i have found when i was first learning the game and then as i've explained the game to people it's a bit heavy on the rules overhead as is paladins and stuff but this one it's just because you're working you are doing kind of a slow-motion deck building you're putting one card out the turn structure has like six i think phases in it none of which are very major but it kind of becomes a rules heavy overhead where i have to really kind of go through a bunch of different things just to explain basically one whole turn structure um the nice thing is that once you have the turn structure down then it starts to flow pretty well but i feel like i haven't gotten good at teaching the game yet and i'm like how do i simplify how do i break this down better because it just becomes this wall of information that ultimately is all really well integrated and slick but it kind of comes out a little clunky and that might be a me thing um but then there's really cool things of like the the townsfolk that you buy if it costs two dollars uh when you play it into your tableau that two dollars becomes the the thing that tells you how far your vi count has to move there's things like that that are really slick in this one that just create um nice efficiency with how everything works i'm like that's just nice because it's the less things on the card you need and it's cool to hey hey what it cost is how far it moves and so it integrates really well it's very well done so as it stands right now the snapshot in time architects is my least favorite if only by yay much all right uh and it's for those reasons i kind of specified earlier i have trouble focusing um i can't i you know i just i can't really ever figure out what i'm trying to do and that is more of a me problem it's not necessarily the game's fault it's me so i understand that but it does kind of hamper my enjoyment of the game because i come out of the game like man i did really poorly i'm not great at any of these games for the matter for that matter but for whatever reason architects um it kind of gets in my way just a little bit and i do mean only a little bit uh my next favorite is paladins of the west kingdom i didn't know which of these was going to win out i really really like both of them um paladins of the west kingdom is like i said fantastic putting out your workers trying to stretch your turn as far as you can trying to work up those attribute tracks to get your big big hall of points there's a lot of really cool um stuff the thing that held this back from being my number one is that it's just the hardest of them to me to me it's the hardest one it's the heaviest one um actions are expensive it takes like three workers to do unless you build those develop so i'm like man i better build those develops but guess what develop takes four silver and money's pretty tight in the game so it's like oh you know and i like that about it but it is it can be tough paladins can be really tough so vi counts is my number one out of these three simply because it is slightly more streamlined feeling i like that when i add a card like i said the value of that townsperson tells me how far i have to move my vi count so i can kind of get a plan i have my cards in hand so i can start to plan ahead a little bit so i have some direction i have the ability to trade for goods and things like that so that i can boost up my other types of actions the streamlined nature of it and some of the kind of really cool things that are going on getting criminals and whatnot are just things i really enjoy that you've kind of seen play out throughout the entire series um and it just kind of does it in the smoothest way while still being a bigger kind of heavier game kind of closer to paladins so that wins it for me as vi counts of the west kingdom if only slightly the difference between number one and number three is not great they are all fantastic games i really enjoyed this whole series i mean i think it's really cool to have a game series that is familiar the resources are similar the characters and stuff you see we'll be in multiple games on the cards stuff like that i think is so fun shem built his own mcu with games um and yet each one is really perfectly independent i can play paladins and not have any awareness of these other games and it would not affect my my time and that's really important that all of these stand alone as their own thing but then you kind of get these bonus treats when they are you start to see the through line you know the graphic design on all these is really great in similar colors and everything so it starts to feel like this bigger world let me know in the comments what you think of the west kingdom games do you like them have you tried them do you want to try them do you hate them let me know in the comments below which of these is your favorite if you have a favorite i want to know uh what you think i'm a fan of all three five counts is just really good that's the combos folks the combo's got me again i just like it when you can do stuff and if this goes over to here and i get this bonus it just makes me feel really good and that's gonna be it for me everybody again let me know what you think of the west kingdom trilogy in the comments below and i will see you in the next video thanks so much for enjoying my ramblings on the west kingdom trilogy again put your thoughts on the west kingdom trilogy in the comments below and while you're at it do check out we played these two of these games during our marathon of games we didn't own by accounts at the time or else we would have played the entire trilogy during our marathon we played all of our games in one week so check out the video right there if you want to know what we thought about all of those games we reviewed every game we own and then more in our rapid reviews for december so check out those don't forget to 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Channel: The Brothers Murph

Views: 15,127

Rating: 4.9482441 out of 5

Keywords: board games, board gaming, table top gaming, table top, dice, board game geek, the dice tower, board game discussions, the brothers murph, brothers murph, brothers, discussion, board game reviews, review

Id: DktiQlAGEis

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021