In today’s society many political presences have had to stand on each other to get to the top. This is very similar in the visually stunning board game Viceroy; the aim is to become the most influential character in the game by gaining the greatest victory points. Whoever has the most victory points at the end of the game becomes the ruler of Laar (the fantasy kingdom), and the winner!
The game works by players creating a pyramid by building up cards on the table, each card brings players different things like money, knowledge, other people, etc. depending on where they are placed this increases player’s power. The game starts with each player having six jewels, one played character, and 3 “law” cards. After you decide which character is played first, you then gather the rewards for playing that card on base level.
The first stage is the bidding phase which allows players to purchase character cards to later develop their strategy in the second phrase. Each player secretly bids a gem colour from their collection which corresponds to a character card. If a player is the only one who bids a certain colour, then the player pays the gem they bidded to the bank and takes one of the character cards associated with that colour. If two people bid on the same gem colour those players can discuss who takes what or disagree and do an additional round of bidding, but lose their gems.
After the bidding round comes the development stage where the really strategy begins! Each player can choose to place one of their cards into their pyramid. Each player then can build up to three cards per building phase, to try and get the bonus card. Depending on which level you place cards impacts what you get from the cards, but it also costs more the higher you go up.
After 12 rounds, the game is over and you count up the victory points. The winner is the one with the most victory points at the end of the game.
Conclusion: The game does have its strengths and weaknesses however by playing with two people, you tend to get the character that you want most of the time which makes the game a lot less entertaining. The biggest problem is if you are colour blind as players would find it incredibly difficult to play the game because it is mainly focused around colour.
Yet on a more positive note this is a very fun and fluid game. Once players understand the rules this is a very upbeat fast game to play. For players ages 12 and upwards and takes approx. 45 to 60 mins to play a game.
Can you become the ruler of Laar? Available here
Also available are extras – playmat, more gems, score pads and card sleeves.
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