For our latest Kickstarter campaign we are pleased to offer the Kickstarter big box edition of Kingdom Builder***. Unless you have been living in an extremely remote kingdom of your own, chances are good that you have heard of the 2012 Spiel des Jahres winner. The "SdJ", as it is called, is the German game of the year award (think best picture Oscar of board games :-)). If you are tired of "settling" and are ready to step up your game and build a kingdom, then we have the game for you!
*** The Kickstarter edition of Kingdom Builder Big Box will include new player settlement pieces for Kingdom Builder! You will receive 200 wooden settlements. The settlements come in five different colors (40 settlements per color) and each color has its own unique shape. The retail version of Kingdom Builder Big Box will have the same settlement pieces from the Kingdom Builder Base Game and Nomads expansion. These new settlement pieces will be sold separately at a future date for an expected MSRP of $25.
When a game wins several major awards the question naturally gets asked...why? One thing that makes Kingdom Builder special is that it has an amazing variance in game experience. There are so many different map layouts and victory condition combinations, so unless you specifically choose to, you will not play the same game scenario twice. For example, look at the game board. The game board is created from four sections drawn from a pool of eight. For those of you who like a math exercise, look to the bottom of this description for how many different maps that means.
In the base game there are three end game gold earning conditions (three cards drawn from a pool of ten).
A crazy number of map arrangements, many different victory scenarios. Why isn't this overwhelming? How is it that this game is recommended for players age 8 and up? This is where the brilliance of the design comes full circle and transitions Kingdom Builder from being a good game to a great game. On your turn you have a single card that identifies the terrain type on which you build three settlements. That's it. Seem simple? Read on dear backer!
Players create their own kingdoms by skillfully placing their settlements on the game board map, aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game.
Nine different terrains or features are on the board, including special locations (identified by a bordered picture), which yield unique benefits to the player who builds next to them. There are also castles (how could you build a kingdom without a castle?) and they generate gold for players who have settlements adjacent to them at the end of the game.
During a player's turn, a player plays his terrain card and builds three settlements on three hexes (one per hex) of that terrain. If possible, a new settlement must be built next to one of that player’s existing settlements. When building next to a location, the player may seize an extra action tile from that location and that tile may be used during a future turn. These action tiles allow the player to take an extraordinary action such as moving one of the player's settlements.
Gold (remember that is what we are going for here :-)) will be earned by meeting the conditions of the three Kingdom Builder cards; these three cards specify the gold-earning conditions of the game. Examples include the Fisherman - which gives you one gold for each settlement built next to a water hex, and Citizens - which gives you one gold for every two settlements you have in your largest area.
The Nomads Expansion includes four new game boards - and consequently four new powers (from locations) associated with their respective game boards, three additional Kingdom Builder scoring cards, and 40 red settlements that allow for up to five to play.
The Crossroads expansion introduces another four new game boards, but this with two different location types per board (so eight new powers) to offer new options to shape the kingdom. The task cards challenge players to build their settlements in a certain way in order to gain even more gold at the end of the game. Warriors, wagons and ship pieces add more strategic choices to the placement of your settlements.
Early Bird $70 first 350 backers
Standard $85
$120 SDJ winners
$140 Kingdom Builder Big Box + Fresco Big Box
$135 Kingdom Builder Big Box + Amerigo
$270 Kingdom Builder Big Box + Fresco Big Box + Alhambra Big Box + Amerigo
$300 Kingdom Builder Big Box x3
$540 Kingdom Builder Big Box x6
If we successfully reach our funding goal of $20,000, all backers will receive the Island Expansion. This will be the only funding reward. The Island Expansion will be packaged separately from the Big Box game and will be available for sale separately at a future date. This funding reward creates even more potential scenarios and the new settlement pieces add a wonderful aesthetic appeal to an already beautiful game. The approach we are taking with the Kingdom Builder Big Box campaign is similar to what we did with Fresco Big Box. Your amazing support of that campaign reinforced that we chose the right approach and we listened!
Board math - not to be confused with bored math!
We will share this at a later date. Feel free to try your hand at this! This is a calculation for the base game only. How do we determine how many different maps we can have. We choose four sections from a pool of eight. Where a segment is placed matters. Each map segment can be oriented one of two ways. The different iterations of the gold earning conditions is choosing three from a pool of ten. Good luck!!!
Early Delivery
If you back the game here on Kickstarter, you'll get a copy of the Kickstarter edition of Kingdom Builder Big Box, which includes the unique settlement pieces for each player, and the funding reward in advance of your region's release date!
*While every effort will be made to ship when promised, estimated delivery dates are estimates and are subject to change, unknown external factors may cause delays.
*See details in the shipping section at the bottom of the page.
All components of this game are language independent except for the cards, and English, French, German and Dutch language cards will be included in each games as they were with the original base game.
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SHIPPING
!!!Please note!!! Backers should add the respective shipping charges to their pledges. If shipping is not included this may cause a delay in shipping. Thank you for your help with this. :-)
United States, Germany, NL, and BE
Shipping is Free.
Canada, Czech Republic, European Union, Great Britain,Hungary, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, and Ukraine
$15 for shipping and handling charges.
Brazil
Due to the high customs charges and delivery challenges we can no longer offer our Kickstarters to the Brazilian audience. We apologize for this inconvenience.
ALL OTHER COUNTRIES
Please add $60 for shipping and handling charges.
All shipping charges are per shipment.
Disclaimer
We have a new release policy for Kickstarter releases. Games will be released once they are available in their particular region. The games will first be available in the EU. North America will be 6-8 weeks after that and for backers everywhere else it will be 8-10 weeks from the EU launch.
All additional costs that may occur because of custom duty or local charges are the backers responsibility.
Risks and challenges
Kingdom Builder (as mentioned in the story) received the 2012 SdJ, and it along with Fresco and Escape are among our most popular titles and they are all getting the Big Box treatment in 2014.
Our toughest challenge with our previous projects has involved the coordination of production when a game is made with components from different manufacturers. This creates some logistics and shipping challenges that we want to improve upon. Going forward our plan is to minimize this situation so that we can better manage our production timeline and delivery.
From our previous projects what remains to be shipped is the new expansion characters for Dark, Darker, Darkest and that looks to be a May/June release. Fresco Big Box and Tortuga are both on track for a May release.
We have a new release policy for Kickstarter releases. Games will be released in the EU when they are available. North America will be 6-8 weeks after that and for backers everywhere else it will be 8-10 weeks from the EU launch.
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Funding period
- (25 days)