Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Architects of the West Kingdom
By no means is Architects of the West Kingdom Shem’s heaviest game, though I would argue that throwing peasants into sh*t-filled dungeons for the crime of “too many co-workers” is somewhat weighty. And by “co-workers’ I mean those pr*cks that were looting the quarry. However, it must be stated that Architects is totally the most penally positive board game ever made. What is absolutely a sun-dried Euro on paper is actually one the best simulators of aggressive police profiling tactics. And it is WAY more fun than it should be. Unlike many other worker placement games, there is no worker recall moment. You have to use a specific location to gather some workers back … and maybe even imprison those hooligans that have been loitering by the forest.
If you’ve never played Architects, the ‘gathering meeple’ mechanic totally makes this game unique and hilarious. The game’s gimmick of “THAT’S ENOUGH OF THAT SH*T” reminds me of why I play board games in the first place – to have fun with friends. The fear of being arrested by other players, and the joy of arresting others, causes this simple worker placement game to go from peaceful to a riotous kidnapping contest in only a few rounds.
Gameplay
Architects of the West Kingdom is a worker-placement resource-management game with locations that have no worker limit. A location’s effect improves the more workers a player has there. They will get more coins, more resources, more cards, etc. This causes a snowball effect if players keep playing workers to the same location. Other locations allow you to hire apprentices with asymmetrical powers (The more workers you have there, the more options you have),and one location allows you to trade resources for benefits – the more workers there, the more trades you can perform.
This is balanced by a mechanic unique to Architects and is the game’s main gimmick. There is one location that allows you to gather all workers of one player in one location. If you have multiple workers at this location, you may gather multiple groups of workers from multiple locations. This action both weakens an enemy’s benefits at the location AND it gives the gathering player the option of turning in all of these workers for coins (the victimized player can take another action to bring them back home).
The namesake of Architects comes from one unique location that works differently. It is the location where you both build buildings (Which use the resources you’ve gathered to score VP) and help construct the Church (Scoring you points and raising you on the favor track which will also score points if you end the game positive). Once a worker is placed here, they will never return to your pool. The end game is triggered when this location becomes completely filled with workers.
The majority of points will be from the buildings you construct throughout the game. It is the reason you pile workers in areas for certain resources. The balance of building up workers in one spot for heaps of certain resources, while dealing with your opponents arresting the growing piles is what makes Architects such a fun interactive puzzle.
The Hook
Spread Out and Hire Help
You will notice two distinct enemies during your first turn of Architects. One is all the dumbf*cks at the table that you invited over for game night; the other is a little voice in the back of your head shouting “HAMMER THE SH*T OUT OF ONE LOCATION.” But piling up all your workers on one location in the beginning is, in fact, dumb as f*ck. The building cards you draft during set-up may require a lot of one single resource, but all your enemies are on the lookout for “juicy people piles.” One man’s meeples are another man’s free money I found on the street.
The hook of Architects strikes as you try and solve the age old mystery of “how not to be targeted by d*cks.” If you pile more than 3 meeples onto a spot, your workers will 100% become the first kidnapped. Players try to control their greed and spread their workers out so as not to draw attention. And since the apprentice cards are the engine building portion of the game, you will probably spend this phase of the game claiming at least 1 or 2. This phase of the game is peaceful, but tense. Players can’t block your worker spots – with the exception of the black market area since it’s only one worker per naughty action. Apparently, in Shem’s world, medieval back alley dealings had a wicked queue you had to muscle through.
But a rich aristocrat like yourself can only leash your greed for so long. This peace among players ends abruptly, when a rascally player adds one too many workers to the quarry. That little worker, and all his buddies helping carve out stones, has just upset the status quo . . .
The Turn
All Hell Breaks Loose
The Turn is often a vengeful chain reaction, which should be the name of a Keanu Reeves sequel that I’d totally go see. The phase begins the first time the Town Centre location is activated (Which is the action that lets you gather opponents’ workers). One player eventually thinks “THAT B*TCH BEEN GETTING TOO MANY STICKS” and will drop a worker to gather up the offending player. This moment triggers a bogus hivemind thought on worker placement limits – if 4 workers were gathered doing this, then 4 becomes an assumed magical kidnapping threshold.
For the arrested player, it was like ripping off a band-aid – they have survived the fear and pain of losing workers. A thick fog of “F*CK IT! I’m afraid of no one!” coats their resolve and a hilarious feeding frenzy begins. Any location with the same amount that was just arrested is now at risk of being ransacked by the grumpy high-class who’ve had their servants plucked away. Intensifying this backlash is the reward – coins. You no longer need to go to the coin smith since, well, hell! Those workers are just just gonna be arrested anyway!
This is coupled with the donations, or outright hooliganism, you’ve been partaking in. You’ve either begun sliding up the church’s favor, or you’ve been skipping sermons to hangout with thieves. Whichever way your player piece on the virtue track has slid, you might as well take advantage of it. Going higher means you will score a healthy amount of VP at the end. Sliding lower means you pay less taxes, and, well, that is just a f*ck*ng awesome reward. You can still afford to slide down and upset Jesus sense the end game is aways away. Just don’t forget to add some bricks to the Church before it’s over.
The Bite
Get Your Sh*t Together
Architect’s bite is that invasive epiphany that smacks you near the end of all point salads. You go wide-eyed thinking “Oh sh*t the game is ending soon!” This realization chomps down when a player takes the build action late game and begins the final row. That location where your meeples stay permanently is made up of 4 rows – once the first meeple begins the final row, it’s like a bomb just started ticking.
You now need to milk the fruits of your labor by squeezing the ever living sh*t out of them, praying to the God you abandoned for every last VP you can swindle. You better spend your resources to construct more buildings, donate resources to the church, or figure out how the f*ck to turn these sticks, bricks and pebbles into points. Oh, and you might have debt. In fact, if you do what most Architect players do then you DEFINITILEY have debt to pay off. And don’t forget to get your servants out of prison! And for the LOVE OF GOD stop taking your lunch break to wander over to the BLACK MARKET! What will your grandma think?! Well, actually, it’s the fourteen-hundreds so she’s probably dead. But what will your mistress think?!
Since all the fun and immoral decisions in Architects often send you into the negative end of the church’s love, the end blows up into a hoard of aristocrats trying to bury their past. Who cares if you killed those hooligans in the alley last year if you installed a door on the church, right? The debt you owe may have been an itty-bitty slap on the wrist for the murder you were covering up, but drop a little cha-ching cha-ching off at the prison and the church will love you again. Not God though. He saw that sh*t you did. Your mind will frantically weigh each possible option’s VP gain and pursue the biggest reward.
That is how most people spend their final turns in Architects. Of course, there are those that pursue a different end. And as long as that player wins, then they are right to do it . . . right? This other end I speak of is simply doing a single action over and over again – Gather enemy workers. Since workers you collect score the other player’s negative points, some players will sit on their laurels and kidnap every enemy worker with NO intention of dropping them in prison. They take their entire turn to give out negative points.
Now, all jokes aside, even if you have a player like this in your game, it is still a hilarious finale. Board games will always be about goofing off and making memories, and the narrative of one aristocrat running around, arresting the entire town for simply being employed can lead to some laugh-so-hard you cry moments.
