Citadels
Players
2 - 8
Weight
Medium
Duration
30-60 min
Game language
English
Shelf category
Mid-weight
In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects their seventh building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins. Players start the game with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on. On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors. The 2016 edition of Citadels includes twenty-seven characters — eight from the original Citadels, ten from the Dark City expansion, and nine new ones — along with thirty unique building districts, and the rulebook includes six preset lists of characters and districts beyond the starter list, each crafted to encourage a different style and intensity of gameplay.
BGG Categories:
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Citadels
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The turn order is determined by the number of the chosen character. If multiple players chose the same character, the player who picked it first (in turn order from the previous round) will perform that character's action first. Remember, only the first player to reveal a chosen character gets to perform its action for that round!
Yes! You can build as many districts as you have the gold to pay for, up to your hand size limit. There are no restrictions on the number of districts you can build per turn, beyond your resources and hand limit.
If the deck of district cards is exhausted during the game, simply reshuffle the discard pile to create a new deck. The game continues as normal.
The game ends at the end of the round in which one player builds their eighth district. At that point, scoring occurs.