On the strategy of Kingsburg: Part The First

Ah, Kingsburg - so alluring in your vivid raiment, so accessible in your mechanics, so much more expensive than is justified by the contents of the box. I shall not explain the mechanics of Kingsburg here - I assume those reading a strategy post will mostly be familiar with them - but in brief, Kingsburg is a worker-placement style game where the workers are dice. For the first three seasons of each year, a player rolls three dice and places them (together or separately) on squares from 1-18 which provide certain resources. These resources include building materials to make buildings, soldiers who will protect one’s township for that year, and certain other specialist resources. On each of these three seasons the player may build (usually) a single building. On the fourth season (that is, winter), enemies besiege the settlement. Repeat for five years; whoever has the most victory points (henceforth VPs) at the end is the winner. The game is popular, offering good looks, accessible rules, and a reasonably short playing time.

I am by no means an expert, having played probably no more than around 100 games of Kingsburg. This discussion is split into two parts. The first is an overview of buildings and combat, primarily for the benefit of beginners. Secondly, I test out a number of strategies that have been proposed by experience players - though not a statistically meaningful test, I try each strategy several times, and report back on my findings and thoughts.

This post, in its entirety, refers only to the base game of Kingsburg. The expansion greatly increases the number of potential choices, and is beyond the scope of this basic guide. Similarly, it assumes that players are using the standard rules for acquiring soldiers in Winter (i.e. rolling a die and giving that number of soldiers to all players); most other systems provide fewer soldiers.

On selecting advisers with dice

This article will not indulge in a long and tedious discussion of each and every one of the eighteen advisers available. However, the following points should be considered:

• One can often acquire more resources by splitting one's roll into a two-and-one strategy,
  
  rather than buying the highest adviser available.
• However, the lower the value of the adviser, the greater the risk of being blocked by competitors.
• Consequently it is best to buy single-die advisers first (depending on your opponents' rolls - i.e. the chances of them blocking your two-die option). By the same token, the three-single-die, while it can sometimes provide three resources from a poor roll, is very risky.
• Soldiers (the 5 and 10 spots) are rarely a good idea in the early years - if possible, you would be better served by seeking resources to build defensive buildings.
• The 17 spot is usually better than the 18 spot, unless you specifically need the exact resources provided by the 18 for your next planned building.
• The alchemist (6 spot) is usually considered a poor spot, as you should usually only be buying resources you want, and hence never want to remove one to produce two. However, if you have been blocked from the resources you need, it may be valid to buy a cheap resource you don't want and then convert it - this particularly applies in the later game, when a cheap wood can be converted to gold and stone.

On buildings and construction

The main effort of Kingsburg revolves around obtaining resources to construct buildings - these buildings provide VPs, and each has a specific benefit for the remainder of the game. They are arranged in five rows, which may only be filled left-to-right. For the benefit of beginners, each row, and its strategic implications, are described below.

Row One (Cathedral row)

 This row contains buildings whose main value is in the VPs they provide - their game effects comparatively subtle and rarely-used (with the possible exception of the Chapel). Consequently this row is usually constructed only in the end-game (with the exception of the Statue; the situation sometimes arises in the early game whereby a player has an excess of money but lacks other useful resources, in which case the Statue is a viable option to avoid wasting a construction opportunity).

Row Two (Merchant's Guild)

The first two buildings in this row are extremely valuable, and almost all successful strategies include constructing one or both of these early in the game. The later buildings are rarely used, however. While the Farms have an enormously strong power (granting effectively an additional die), they are expensive (being the most resource-intensive grade 3 building), give comparatively few VPs, and reduce combat strength by 1, effectively reversing the benefit of another building. Consequently few successful strategies utilise the upper levels of this row; the mistake I often made as a beginner was to aggressively pursue the Farm.

Rows Three-Four (Wizard's Guild and Fortress)

These rows primarily focus on combat strength. The grade 1 and 2 buildings of both these rows are commonly used, and constructed early. However, almost no strategy involves building both these rows fully - most pick one or the other, and most prefer the Fortress rather than the Wizard’s Guild (for reasons described below, in Combat Strength).

Row Five (Embassy)

The Embassy row is generally an either-or choice. It can be very powerful if built to the Embassy level, but is otherwise not worth your time. The Palisade is weak, the Crane usually only results in saving around 3 resources overall (see the Case Study below), and the Town Hall is not as useful as it looks (again, see the Case Study in Comparing Currencies below). However, the Embassy is extremely strong, though it needs to be built as early as possible to see its full benefit. Consequently one might consider either committing to building the Embassy or ignoring this row entirely.

Roundup

Though more a detailed strategic discussion follows below, it behooves to give a broad outline of suggested construction for beginners. Buy one or two of the row 2 buildings early, and then go no further on that row; build one or two of the row 3 and/or 4 buildings early; buy row five if committing to it; and buy row 1 towards the end of the game.

Comparing Currencies

One of the first strategic exercises one should do is to compare the value of one’s options, in order to know the relative value of one’s available options.

Each construction resource (wood, gold and stone) is roughly equivalent - wood and gold are arguably slightly easier to obtain than stone as they are prevalent in the low-value dice positions, but relatively easy access to the three-stone Mason tile largely cancels this out. Wood is probably more useful in the early game, and stone in the later game, but there is no particular difference in value between these three.

Over the course of the game, the player will generally acquire a little more than 30 resources, and a winning score will generally be around 50. From this it follows that each building resource is equivalent to around 1.5 VPs, a valuation supported by the observation that the Statue costs 2 resources and gives 3 VPs (and has very little game value beyond its VPs).

Soldiers are a little more difficult to evaluate, particularly as their value depends on how they are obtained. As regards those bought from the board, they are usually positioned to be equivalent to a construction resource (i.e. the one-soldier tile is among other one-resource tiles, and the two-soldier tile among those granting two resources). However, they only really reach such equivalency towards the end of the game. A low-grade building giving +1 combat strength costs as little as 2 resources and gives the equivalent value of a soldier for five winters; on the other hand, a soldier can make the difference between winning and losing, and can give the extra +1 VP for having the highest battle strength that year. Consequently they will be assumed to be equivalent to one VP.

The +2 tokens have their main value in giving flexibility. Sometimes, they are enough to allow access to a tile providing one more resource than would otherwise be obtainable; at other times, they will not be of any use at all. Hence I will value them as lower than a construction resource, or around 1VP.

The dice themselves are a trickier thing to evaluate. If you are exceedingly clever, you might be able to get as much as one resource per die, or even 4 resources with three dice. In practice, you will generally average slightly more than 2 resources and less than 3 resources with your 3 dice, unimproved by +2 tokens or the effects of a Market. The white die is slightly less valuable as it must be played in conjunction with a normal die. However, a dice is clearly more valuable than a +2 token. Let’s say that each die has a value of around 1.3, with the white die having a value closer to 1.

Case study: the value of the Crane

The Crane is one item which raises particular questions as to whether it is worthwhile, as its game effect is to save future resources. It is a grade 2 building; since the grade 1 building that must be built first is largely useless, the costs of the two can be combined. Thus it costs 3 resources (and 2 building opportunities). Players will generally complete around 4 of the grade 3 and 4 buildings; thus the crane saves 4 resources over the course of the game. Including the VP payment for building the crane, this gives a total profit of 3.5VP; not bad, but possibly not worth giving up two early build opportunities that could have more direct benefits (particularly with regard to combat strength). The exception is where one is following an Embassy strategy, in which case building the crane both facilitates acquiring necessary resources for the Embassy and is a prerequisite for its construction. Otherwise, consider the Crane only if you have already constructed the grade 1-2 buildings of rows 2-4 that you want.

Case study: the value of the Town Hall

The Town Hall allows the player to convert resources and +2 tokens to VPs. Following the logic above, exchanging one construction resource for one VP is poor value-for-money; it should only be considered in the end-game, when one is sure they will not be be able to use their construction resources for building. However, exchanging a +2 token may be a valid option, particularly if one has activated a tile providing a +2 token which (probably in combination with the Inn) results in the player having a clear excess of +2 tokens. (Note that, as a result of these considerations, the Town Hall will usually only be used two or three times during the game, so its power is of marginal value).

On Combat Strength

One of the most difficult mechanics for beginners is combat strength and the purchasing of soldiers. At the beginning of the winter season, the player has the opportunity to purchase soldiers at a rate of two resources per soldier (assuming they do not have a building affecting this exchange rate). As described above, this represents poor value for money. In fact, even if one has not obtained any other combat strength from buildings or soldiers acquired with dice, it may often be less costly to lose the battle than pay this much for soldiers (particularly in the early game). As a general rule, do not pay two resources to buy one soldier.

The most obvious way to obtain a better rate of exchange is to acquire them over the seasons using dice. The advantage to this as that, even unimproved by buildings, the exchange rate here is effectively one resource per soldier. The disadvantage is that the player is more likely to acquire more soldiers than they need with this method; since there is a 1VP bonus for winning with the highest combat strength, this setback is less of an issue.

Furthermore, there are two buildings that improve access to soldiers. One improves the exchange rate during winter to one resource per soldier; this produces approximate parity to purchasing using dice, with the added advantage that these are bought at the end of the round (when the player has a better idea of what they will need to survive, and also when buying cannot be blocked by other players taking the tile). Consequently, if one has this building but not the Stables, this makes buying in Winter preferable to buying with dice.

The other building is the Stables. These double the benefit of using the 5-spotto buy soldiers, effectively producing an exchange rate of two soldiers per resource. While there are disadvantages this (i.e. not being at the end of the round, and running the risk of being blocked by other players), overall this is greatly preferable to the one-to-one exchange rate of the Barracks. For this reason, row 4 is usually better than row 3 (and there is not usually a good reason to buy both beyond grade 2).
Of course, the real question beginners want to know is: how much combat strength do I require? The answer is that, in general, the combat strength of the invaders is generally around 2 more than the year number, rising to around 3+year number at the third year. Consequently, if your total combat strength (before the King's support) is 1 or 2 more than the year number, you are most probably safe.

A long story short: concise tips for beginners 

• In the early game, any of the first two buildings of rows 2 to 4 are good buys
• Don’t build row 2 past grade 2
• Pick only one of rows 3 or 4 to build beyond grade 2
• Leave building row 1 until late in the game
• Don’t pay two resources to buy a soldier in winter (unless you know they will tip the balance, and the cost of losing is too high)
• The Stables are the best way to maximising the value of soldiers
• To be safe, try to have a combat strength of one more than the year number (two more in years 3+) before receiving support from the King.      

Coming next time: a variety of building strategies tested and compared