Author Topic: Kingdomino  (Read 921 times)

Dragon

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Kingdomino
« on: January 16, 2022, 12:53:18 »
Yesterday, I played Kingdomino with Beth, Isaac, and Sean (with Grace as a replacement for Sean part way through the game).

Kingdomino is a great little tile-placement game, with tiles being domino-shaped and having different land types on each end to build your kingdom. Some of the tiles have 1, 2, or 3 crowns, which are used to multiply with the number of adjacent matching land type squares, while others are just the land types without a crown. Having land with no crowns will get no points, but since the crowns are important for scoring, they often get grabbed by the first player who can do so.

Turn order in Kingdomino is different than most other games, in that a players selection of the tile that they get to place in their next turn will affect their turn order. Each tile has a number on the back, and each round there are 4 tiles randomly selected and then setup in numeric order. Often times the tiles with the higher numbers have better things, more crowns for example, but when you select those, it will often cost you options in your next turn. If you choose the "best" tile this turn, your next turn you'll have no choice but to take the tile left over after everyone else has selected.

Game play is usually pretty quick, and the box says it's a 15-minute game, but I'd venture to say that most of our games are closer to half-an-hour. Our game last night was probably closer to 30-minutes, but we did also have a player replacement during the game.

I started the game, followed by Sean, Isaac, then Beth. I was just going for yellow fields and green forests to start with, and Sean chose the same since there was a duplicate tile available. Eventually, Sean ended up getting the black mines, and later picked up more to get what appeared to be an early lead but with some difficult layout for future tile placements. Isaac, Beth, and I had all kept some harmony in our kingdom by keeping the castle in the middle, but we hadn't specified that we were playing with the bonus scoring at the beginning, not that it would have changed the end game scoring anyway, even though it was close. Isaac won the game with 39 points, I had 38, Beth had 37, and Sean/Grace ended with 32 points.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)

czstycor/c

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Re: Kingdomino
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2022, 14:54:20 »
If you'd like a more complicated version Queen Domino is just that, adds additional ways to win and mediate the tiles pulled introducing element to put on the tiles along with additional tiles.
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Dragon

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Re: Kingdomino
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2022, 19:55:20 »
Thanks for the recommendation. I haven't played that one.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)

Dragon

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Re: Kingdomino
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2022, 23:39:51 »
Today I played Kingdomino with my youngest daughter, Grace. We decided to go with the standard 5x5 grid for the 2-player game. Even though we weren't playing with the bonuses for Harmony and Middle Kingdom, I still kept my castle in the center. I feel like that usually gives the best chance for scoring because when I break away from that layout I end up being more likely to form gaps in my land. In any case, it didn't work out in my favor this time. Grace hadn't bothered to keep her castle in the center and was unable to place her last tile because of the gaps in her kingdom, but she still beat my score by 6 points. Our final score was Grace: 36, Nathaniel: 30.
"Hello IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ... OK, well, the button on the side. Is it glowing?... Yeah, you need to turn it on. Err, the button turns it on. Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes." - Roy (The IT Crowd)