Musings on…Citadels (# 22)

Moderated By Tom Vasel
November 29, 2005

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- Tom Vasel

Jason Little:

I’ve got very mixed feelings about the game. I’m usually a big fan of Bruno Faidutti games, which can offer some incredibly interesting game decisions based on playing off the other people rather than playing off the game mechanic.

For the most part, I really like the concept and implementation of Citadels. Quasi-hidden role selection (though the earlier selectors have more information) is quite a bit of fun, and adds to the mind-game aspect (If I pick 3rd, and have the Architect available, do I dare take him if I think the Assassin was selected earlier, etc).

However, I think the game suffers from two things that keep it from being a true favorite or recurring guest at the table:

1) Player/System Issue: Downtime. For some reason, the game has small pockets of downtime, and lurches along at an uneven pace. Even with very short, discrete turn options, I’ve had some 5-6 player games of Citadels last nearly 2 hours—which is inexcusable in my mind for the types of decisions and sort of gameplay experience I feel Citadels strives for. Perhaps I’m merely impatient, but for a backstabbing game with lots of shifts and changes in position (reminiscent of Cosmic Encounter) It *feels* like the pace should be frantic and frenetic.

2) System Issue: Gang Up On The Leader/Game Extension. While I like games having some means to target the leader, there’s something about Citadels which makes me feel that it’s almost too easy to gang up on the leader, further lengthening the game. The Warlord’s destructive power clearly delays the endgame. The assassin and thief indirectly lengthen the game by reducing player options. Sometimes, the game drags to a point where it feels like a game of Zombies—“my God, won’t somebody just *win* already?!?!?” ... As soon as someone establishes a good lead, they’re a target for anyone with a “zapping” power—Assassin, Thief, Warlord or one of several variant powers.

That said, with the right group (who enjoys the ride as a friendly game of backstabbing rather than a deep strategic endeavor) I thoroughly enjoy Citadels. In my mind, the game should play in about 30-45 minutes for the type of experience it provides. Once it starts to stretch out much longer than an hour, I quickly lose interest—and the risk of ending up in one of those marathon games alone keeps Citadels from hitting the table more often, which is a real shame.

Current Rating: 6.5/10—Surprisingly solid game for 6 or 7 players, despite its faults. Don’t enjoy it as much with only 3-4, as there’s even less interaction between players. Gameplay should ideally be quick, dastardly and exciting to the very end. Or at least, should be—but with the wrong group, it tends to drag on. I dislike a few character abilities (assassin, warlord) which lengthen the game considerably without adding anything to compensate.

Greg Schloesser:

While I do enjoy Citadels, the bloom is a bit off the rose. We played it too much when it first came out, which sort of dampened my enthusiasm for it. Further, I have grown a bit weary of just how often a player can be knocked out of contention by being the repeated victim of the Assassin and/or the Thief. That can be quite frustrating.

Somehow, though, I don’t have the same negative feelings about playing the game with 6 or 7 players. Indeed, I seem to prefer it that way. I just find the game a bit richer with more characters involved.

Morgan Dontanville:

I feel like Citadels and I are like an old couple that has run out of things to say. There was certainly a lot of love there, and I will always appreciate the time we had together. But now, Citadels is caught up with scrap booking, and I’m always out hittin’ the balls around the course. Every once in a while we will make plans for dinner together.

Right now Citadels is lent out to a friend of mine. I certainly will want it back, but there is no rush on it either.

It is a good game. I found that played with the witch and 7 buildings it became a great game. Just one that got beat into the ground. This one was immediately adopted by my RPG friends, so they wanted to play it constantly. I abided.

Now Citadels goes soundly into that good night. File next to Nirvana - Nevermind, Star Wars, Monty Python and Hamlet; it sometimes is tough to revisit these things again. Too much of a good thing is still too much.

Shannon Appelcline:

I find Citadels a very enjoyable game that doesn’t hit the table much because it tends to be too light and long (in combination) for the group of people that I play older games with most often. It also doesn’t quite fit as a filler.

I think it’s colorful and evocative. The role-selection was and is innovative. There are a lot of hard choices, and the semi-bluffing/blind-selection is a lot of fun both when you’re choosing and when you’re deducing.

I give it an “8” out of “10”, but I’ve never played Citadels enough for us to become an old couple, so this might still reflect new relationship energy.

Frank Branham:

I’ve always been quite fond of Citadels, but I just cannot stomach playing it with 6 or 7 players because it does seem to often run over hat magic hour in length. The best suggestion I can make is to play to 7 buildings. It makes it trickier to get the 5 color bonus, but it easily cuts 20 minutes off of the game length.

I don’t really think the game structurally suffers from this, but going to 6 would be too short.

Side Note: My copy of Ohne Furcht und Adel is signed: “To Frank, without whom this would not be. B. Faidutti” I always thought that was kind of sweet. He still didn’t listen to me about the 7 buildings, though.

Mike Siggins:

I can’t really say much positive about this one. While the idea of role selection is an interesting one, which we have seen in several incarnations (good and bad, before and after), the Assassin just causes way too much bad feeling. Other powers also inflict pain - a very negative experience all round. So much so that neither of my groups will play it any more, and I understand the decision completely. Would we play another game where, on a whim, you could be made to miss a turn? Time after time? Or lose much of what you have worked hard to gain? I doubt it. Plus, it takes forever and costs way too much for a few cards. Poor game. Poor design. Poor art. Poor designer. I give it a generous 4, only because I am in a good mood today.

Larry Levy:

Citadels is probably a design I’d never be a big fan of, since the heart of the game is blind selection and double-think, two aspects of gaming that I simply find boring. But my principal problem with the game is that every time I’ve played it, the downtime has been horrendous. Since games that could facilitate a large number of players were rare when Citadels came out, we always played with six or seven and the enormous wait between turns with that number rapidly got me to the point where I just didn’t care anymore. Not to mention contemplation of happier pursuits, like self-mutilation. Since some have claimed that the game works very well with a small number of players, I might give it another shot with only three or four (or even two), but I’d also be perfectly happy never to finger those butterscotch counters again. My rating: 4 out of 10, a game I dislike and will try to avoid playing.

Wei-Hwa Huang:

I’ve only played Citadels three times, and it’s never grabbed me. There was one thing I found interesting about it, which was the role-choice technique. Unfortunately, the rest of the game has so much lack of control and gang-up-on-the-leader effects that the role-choice mechanism seems wasted; I suspect that you could probably deal out the roles randomly and not get that much of a difference in game strategy.

One game that uses the same role-choice that I would look forward to playing more is Verrater. But I guess that’s for a different discussion.

Tom Vasel:

First of all, I think a lot of the fading of Citadels is because of Bang!, which has a similar feel, but has more flair.

Regardless...Citadels was one of the first “German” games that I’ve played, and I fell in love with it on the spot. I remember that while playing, I told Joe (also playing) that I would rate it a “7”. A little later in the game, I revised my opinion up to an “8”, then a “9”, and then finally a “10”. I was that enthusiastic over my initial playing. For almost two years after that, Citadels was in my “Top 10” games, and I wanted to play it at any opportunity.

Now, however, it’s faded, but only slightly (which has something to do with Bang!). The theme isn’t as accessible to some folk as say, a Western theme.

I never had the problems with the downtime - because it’s very fascinating for me at least to watch everybody take their turn. In fact, I don’t want to play the game again with less than 6, because I love the interaction. And I frankly never understood the Assassin. It’s not like the Assassin KNOWS who they are killing, so it’s never really been much of a mean-spirited game. In fact, since the Assassin kills almost blindly, it’s sort of a “cat and mouse” type feel - one I enjoy tremendously.

Shannon Appelcline:

I entirely agree with Tom’s thoughts about the assassin. A few other players have talked about people getting knocked out of half of the game by the assassin. I suppose that could happen by pure, bad luck, but the odds are increasingly against it. I have to wonder if those players kept making bad or obvious character choices, and thus ultimately have themselves to blame.

I really agree with the fact that the assassin being used against a character rather than a player keeps the game much more sociable and enjoyable and was a superb design choice.

Mike Siggins:

Ahhh, the Settlers Argument from Shannon! That bad luck, always the player’s fault for being born in the first place.

Shannon Appelcline:

And I’d offer a similar argument in Settlers, because in each case you do have some opportunity to offset bad luck. In Settlers you have some possibility to trade off more profitable settlements for ones that will give you a wider spread, and thus make it less likely that you’ll always get something. In Citadels you have some possibility to take less desirable characters instead of ones that will profit you more but have better chance of getting assassinated.

Of course if you’re taking bad characters, and you weren’t a target in and of yourself, and you still got gacked ... well, that was bad luck.

Mike Siggins:

Which was my point.

Alfred Wallace:

Interesting note from Tom about how he likes the blind assassinations (there’s a novel in there somewhere, I just know it). I see those as a bug, not a feature. When I hurt someone’s position in a game, I want to know whom I’m hurting and I want to have a good reason for doing so. Assassinations, particularly in the early game, are pretty random and motive-less. I also want other people, when they hurt someone in a game, to have a good reason for targeting that particular person. I agree that these sorts of assassinations aren’t “mean-spirited,” since they’re random, but I also don’t think they’re good for the game.

I’ve found Citadels to be an interesting 2-player game, but most of the multiplayer games I’ve found myself in have been...not so great. I’m willing to believe it was the crowd in a couple of those cases, but it’s not really a game that worked for me. I traded my copy for a Blue Moon expansion with pleasure.
(It was getting the pleasure in return that really made the deal work.)

I’ll stick with Verrater; I’ve never tried Bang!.

Greg Scholesser:

I’ve played Citadels probably 30 or more times. I’d say in at least 1/3 of those, someone has been unlucky enough to have been the repetitive victim of the thief and the assassin ... FAR more than one would think. I’ve suffered this fate many times. Were my choices obvious? I don’t think so, as I consciously tried to select characters whom I thought would be safe from those villains. Still, I was hit.

It is amusing the first few times. Then, it becomes frustrating.

Is it a design flaw? I don’t think so, but it is still maddening when it occurs so often during a game that a particular player has no chance of winning ... or even competing.

Andy Daglish:

Being the thief or assassin, or a victim, is more likely than not. Humans and players are creatures of habit, and obvious choices of character are fewer than the total. The face-down stuff is a product of player consensus, are working them out may not be so difficult, especially if say the Soldier has turned up a lot recently.

Of course being a villain is an easy solution to being sad, crap or unlucky, unless of course you choose a face-down card.

I think player’s choices may be very much more obvious than one might think. Say a 50-50 chance of being hit on many turns, more than that if there’s a good reason extant. Indeed conscious selection may be a problem since that may actually reduce the likelihoods. If Greg wants the merchant, the criminals can cover the possibility most turns, especially on those turns when he’s likely to be offered it.

Overall this is a great mechanism. I have seen the same block of money move to and fro around the table for a few consecutive turns. At least getting killed prevents your emoluments being cut off! And then there’s the Soldier. But despite him, the Thief and the Assassin, most players build seven or eight buildings eventually.

Shannon Appelcline:

Of course the best proof against the Assassin is taking the Assassin. It’s all a question of if you want to be *totally* safe or you want to have a better turn (assuming you get the option to take the Assassin, of course).

Jason Little:

Alfred makes a *great* point about the motivation behind hurting other players during a game—I agree with his comments about being more comfortable when a targeted action (such as the Assassin or Thief in Citadels) is deliberate and intentional, rather than haphazard and possibly inadvertent. I think that may actually be one of the reasons something with the game felt a bit odd, but I was never able to put my finger on it.

Rick Young:

I like the game (I would, wouldn’t I?) Citadels always seems to trigger strong reactions from players? It is a game you either like or hate. Obviously therefore, the trick is to find the right crowd to play it with if you’re inclined to play at all. Deciding who the right people are may not be all that easy, apriori, but you’ll sure know who the wrong people are quickly enough. But I don’t know that many who shrug and say to you, “well, I guess I don’t mind if there’s nothing else on...”

The game does appeal to folks who enjoy mind-games now and then, but I doubt anyone would want a steady diet of it. Interestingly, I’ve found that those that study their card choices the longest often end up being the same ones who complain about getting boned the most. Trying to figure when you can get away with something (and there’s a lot of different things to try and get away with pretty well all the time), and succeeding, provides me with some of the same rush that I got from having managed to safely deposit a bundle of cash in Junta! (oops, yup I liked that one too)

The player who doesn’t get all bent out of shape for getting stung occasionally and who likes the art of misdirection and kibitzing will have fun at this in measured doses. Those that find they are getting boned way too often for their liking probably have developed a “tell,” and just need to find a different game. This is definitely not a game for everybody.

Sometimes, just for fun, say when I have about three or four gold in front of me (and I’m in a reasonable pick position), I’ll take a quick look at what’s in there then blindly choose my card at random from what’s available. The amateur mind-readers can have fun with that, as I don’t look at the card until the roles start getting called. I know it’s a grandstand play and doesn’t fool everyone, but it can have a salutary effect on a group that needs to lighten up as long as it’s not overdone. If I still get boned, I can try to claim they were just lucky (that’s for you Shannon).

Personally, I’ve found the game works remarkably well with just about any of the player numbers in its range, but becomes a different game with each set (somewhat like Puerto Rico in that respect, except that Citadels’ range is wider). Everyone (who likes the game) will have their personal favorite number of players (even the Citadel haters have theirs - zero?), but I think it is laudably robust over the full range, setting it apart from many other multi-player games. Even with the full seven, I don’t find downtime to be an issue but that’s probably because the player culling has already taken place and things are moving smartly along.

Among Euro’s it is hardly a feather-weight, so I find a full seven player game duration of about an hour (mostly) to an hour and a half (occasionally) to be just about right. How many seven player games, of any substance, finish in that time? Those that throw Wadjet at me will identify themselves as playtesters right off…

Whack-the-leader? We’re accusing a multi-player game of suffering from that? Lord of the Rings (RK’s) and Shadows Over Camelot are only a couple that I know of that don’t suffer from it to some extent, and I could probably be talked into being wrong about them.
Is the game perfect? Hardly. But it can be an entertaining social diversion that can have wide appeal, especially to the distaff side (the nasty streak that my wife displays during play has raised my eyebrows on many an occasion). The game is relatively inexpensive, easily portable, has great thematic artwork and attention to detail in the bits. Of the FFG Silverline Series, I think this is one is a keeper. I gave it a 7.

Pierce Ostrander:

Citadels is a good game. It’s cheap… It can currently be had for under $13 on the internet retail sites. Buy it and play it. If you like it, you are way ahead. If not… you’re out a couple of happy meals.

I remember Bruno (the designer) saying somewhere that his royalty checks for this one outstrip the combined income of all his other games combined… the market has spoken.

Personally, I like the game. It’s more of a psych-war than anything else. You’re outguessing each other. Picking the role no one thinks you will. Dodging the “gun” of the Assassin and the Thief while trying to pick something that will advance your position.
It’s cool. I’ve only played once with more than 5 people and enjoyed it thoroughly, but they were good friends and we had a good time; no one was watching the clock.

My first rating was an “8” that I dropped to a “7” over time. Later, after substituting the Witch and the Tax Collector for the Thief and Assassin, I bumped it back up to an “8”. It was really good with the substitutions and felt very different: a “kinder, gentler” Citadels. Guess what? There are a bunch of other characters that you can substitute too. Replay ability: good. Another positive.

I introduced this game to my non-gaming relatives (two brother-in-laws in their 40s and two of their children, each around the age of 10). They all loved it. My niece, Jessica, says it is her favorite game. She can hardly wait for me to visit at Thanksgiving so she
can “play Citadels with Uncle Pierce”.

Thanks Bruno, you did good!

Mike Siggins:

For comparison, and just to underline how the UK has been left behind in the cheap games stakes, this game is £15 (c$25) at our main online retailer. Small discounts might be available elsewhere, but it is a different prospect at that price.

Saying that the market has spoken doesn’t really further the discussion. I don’t believe there is necessarily any correlation between sales and game quality, which is what we are discussing here. The market spoke on Monopoly, Triv, Magic and Pokemon as well.

Morgan Dontanville:

Rick, my feeling is that choosing cards blindly in a simultaneous action game makes the game completely worthless. Every once in a while I’ll be playing these games and someone will do that. It completely ruins the experience for me. At that point, there is no point in me making any real decisions.

I refuse to play games this way. My last game of Hoity Toity was ruined for me this way, and I haven’t wanted to play it since. I fear that Slapshot was equally ruined for me. There are a few things that I get firm about in games, but after one warning I will quit a game when someone pulls this maneuver. If I wanted to play something completely random, I’ll flip a coin.

Tom Vasel:

Morgan, not to go off on a tangent - but that sounds like a player problem to me, not the problem of the game itself. If I play a player who is randomly making decisions in Chess, Puerto Rico, El Grande, etc., the gameplay can be ruined there. People can ruin ANY game, and I think that it’s almost a red herring to bring this up.

In fact, I think that there’s a lot less randomness in Citadels that people attribute to the game. A good player can read the other players and cleverly deduce which character they will pick. For me, the game is about outsmarting and outguessing the others. Sure, a random player can ruin the experience, but these people ruin any game for me.

Paul Sauberer:

In my vast experience (all of three plays) it seems as if the random method is often just as reasonable as any other in deciding which role to take, especially in the early game. It is predictable that one of a few select roles is going to get assassinated, while the ones that aren’t have a better payoff than the remaining “safe” roles. So, it makes sense to randomly pick one of the “better” roles and hope you don’t get assassinated, since you really can’t predict which of those roles is going to get it. Part of this view may be colored by the fact that I have only played it with 7 players in the game. In addition, in each game, one of the players (in one game it was me) got assassinated really often early in the game and so was out of it before it really got going. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I will play the game when we have 7 players and someone is insisting on playing it instead of something else or breaking up into two tables, but I have little enthusiasm for it.

Morgan Dontanville:

Tom, I’m not saying the game is flawed when you choose roles randomly. What I’m saying is that in a game of intuition and decisions made based on limited information a random draw ruins whatever game is there.

If you look at games like Princes of Florence or the newest paper tiger, Tower of Babel, you are expected to make decisions without having any idea what other players are striving for. In Princes, the varieties of goals are such that you can’t know what other players have in their hand. This makes it impossible to intuit what each player’s goal is. For me, it gets in the way of the game and leaves me with no real sense of perspective. I can’t judge what the value of an item is to another player, so those that chose last either get something that they want for cheap or they just get screwed out of the deal. With other players out of the mix in Princes the choices left open become obvious. I always just get what I need second most and let people bid other crap up.

In Tower of Babel, you are supposed to proposition people to help you get tokens. Often, outside of the couple cards you could memorize from people’s hands when they are refused, you make blind open contracts hoping that someone might have that card. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. This feels completely random to me. Which, among other things that this game “offers”, makes this game completely worthless in my mind.

Citadels if played randomly is worthless. On the other hand, if people make choices based on what other players have in front of them, then that is different all together. Then suddenly there is a real game here. What are people going to exploit, what do people need. Will people hoard, will people diversify. What is this person’s personality like, and how does that effect their decision? Now Citadels becomes fun.

If it is played randomly, you might as well play war.

Pierce Ostrander:

I have to agree with Morgan. Citadels played randomly wouldn’t be fun. Although I must admit I have occasionally used that “tactic”: making a public show of shuffling the role cards face down and then choosing one without looking. However, it was in the context of a battle of wits and second-guessing: primarily for comic relief.

The game can be highly skill-based; it’s just a different set of skills than those that are required for a trading game or a deep strategy game. Being a Fiadutti, it’s got some chaos: unpredictability influenced by the other players’ actions. But on the other hand, if everyone is really playing the game, then is it really totally unpredictable what others will do?

To illustrate: I remember a family gathering where we played 3 five- player games in succession over the course of a day. There was this one point where one of my brothers-in-law and I got into a Sicilian- style vendetta loop - all in fun of course - and started working to target each other with the Assassin and Thief by guessing the role that the other would pick. We both did it successfully and repeatedly, with uncanny reliability. At one point, as I was choosing my role (after he chose his) I said something like “the Merchant’s going down” and watched his face sink. Talk about a moment of pure gaming pleasure.

Hey - it’s a fairly light, social game. This isn’t Chess or even T&E or Age of Steam. Granted, it does run a little long for what it is when you are playing with more than 4 or 5 players and folks are taking it a little too seriously, but with the right group and the right number (or reduced victory conditions) it’s jolly good fun.

And yes, sales figures are not necessarily the best way to predict the quality of a game, but they certainly are a reasonable indicator, especially when we are talking about an obscure niche game in an obscure niche hobby. This isn’t Monopoly or Clue we are talking about.

Rick Young:

In a game where deduction and out-guessing your opponents is what it’s all about, of course playing randomly is silly. Sometimes in a game where people get so wrapped up in that kind of thing, a bit of silliness just seems to be required from time to time. And, as I think a couple of folks correctly stated, such a “move” often turns out not to be as random as it may appear. When you’re stuck in the last draw spot for example, sometimes you might as well play blind (if the Assassin was still in the deck for the player on your right, he’s got a fifty-fifty chance at you no matter what you do), just to add a small complication to the person who may be targeting you.

Pierce’s summary is pretty similar to mine, and we seem to put it a similar basket with games that are more social - good but not great. The group dynamic for fun in this game is particularly important. The game is not meant to be played “straight ahead.” That fact bothers quite a few people who really hate it that the “optimum” move or seemingly effective combination of roles/buildings never seems to work the way they look like they should. The game encourages and rewards unpredictability, misdirection and deviousness. The obvious play is nearly always wrong. Players whose gaming career has been one of honing and developing the skill of maximizing opportunities in games of strategy have to get into a totally different mindset and some can’t, or don’t enjoy being forced to try. As I said earlier that the game isn’t for everyone, but for those that like the mind-game aspect there aren’t many like it.

I’ll second Pierce’s comments on the expansion cards as well. Some of the new cards change the game significantly and with some thought and experimentation, the game can take on a fresh new feeling. I think the game is interesting and entertaining for occasional play.

~FIN

Musings On…
Edited by Tom and Laura Vasel
November 29th, 2005
www.tomvasel.com

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