Castle

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Castles
Castles.jpg
Info
Cost $3
Type(s) Victory - Castle
Kingdom card? Yes
Set EmpiresEmpires icon.png
Illustrator(s) Julien Delval
Card text
Sort the Castle pile by cost, putting the more expensive Castles on the bottom. For a 2-player game, use only one of each Castle. Only the top card of the pile can be gained or bought.

Castle is a type of Kingdom card from Empires. It is a Split pile with 8 differently-named unique Castles; when Castles are selected as a Kingdom card for a game, they are ordered in ascending order of cost in a single Supply pile, of which only the top card can be gained at any given time, though you may look through the pile to see which Castles are next. The Castles are all Alt-VP cards, though some also fit into other card categories as well.

Castles cost from $3 to $10 in ascending order.

Every Castle is a Victory–Castle card, though 3 have an additional type as well. They are all worth some amount of VP, and most have different abilities as well.

Contents

List of Castles

In games with more than 2 players, an extra copy of 4 of the Castles (Humble, Small, Opulent, King’s) are added to the pile, still in ascending order of cost.

FAQ

See individual Castle pages.

Strategy

Versions

English versions

Print Digital Text Release Date
Castles Castles from Shuffle iT Sort the Castle pile by cost, putting the more expensive Castles on the bottom. For a 2-player game, use only one of each Castle. Only the top card of the pile can be gained or bought. Empires June 2016

Other language versions

Language Name Print Digital Text
Dutch Kastelen
Finnish Linnat
German Schlösser German Version
Japanese 城 (pron. shiro) 城カードをコストが低いものが上になるよう重ねて山を作る。2人戦では各1枚のみ用いる。一番上のカードのみ購入・獲得可能。
Polish Zamki Polish language Castles
Russian Замки (pron. zamki)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Looking at the other previews this week, you may have gathered that Empires’ theme is “different paths to victory”. You’ve got Landmarks that reward different strategies, and more uses for VP tokens than ever. But you may have wondered, where are the actual Victory cards? Today I’m previewing eight, though they’re all in the same pile. Like a split pile, the Castles are sorted by cost, with the cheaper ones on top. In a 2-player game, you use one of each unique Castle card. In a game with more players, there are duplicates of four of them (Humble, Small, Opulent, King’s). I’ll say a quick word about each one.

Secret History

There was an old idea in the file, a pile of Victory cards with different sizes. One day we needed a promo (which became SummonSummon.jpg) and Matt Engel decided to try this out. He made 8 cards for it, including Small Castle and King's Castle, and converting Opulent Castle from an old outtake from Hinterlands (there a straight action). He also had a vanilla treasure-victory card ($2 and 1VP). I thought it was important to have a cheap one that rewarded you for loading up on them, and made Humble Castle for the first one. Small Castle trashes itself or another Castle, so Crumbling Castle is something nice to trash, and Haunted Castle isn't so bad there either. Sprawling Castle and Grand Castle interact with some of the other cards and are also nice for people not going for Castles.


Mostly the cards didn't change after the second version; they just worked out. There were a couple cards in the Haunted Castle slot. I tried a Castle that shuffled cards from discard into deck, after an old outtake; I tried a one-time Cursing one (like Ill-Gotten GainsIll-Gotten Gains.jpg). Haunted Castle couldn't work at weird times (such as when gaining it with SaboteurSaboteur.jpg) and so ended up saying "on your turn," to be as friendly as possible (still works with Small Castle) while shutting out weirdness.


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