The Palace of Mad King Ludwig First Impressions

Another tile layer from Bezier and time you’re building the Palace of Mad King Ludwig.

Swans are the cygnet-ture of this new moated structure.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria has called all great architects to design his greatest achievement: a world-renowned palace. Only the best will do! Gorgeous appointments, white stone, surrounded by water, with swans everywhere. Oh, and the Ludwig touch? All the architects must design the palace together. The designer who shows the strongest influence will receive the order to build it.

The Palace of Mad King Ludwig Review

My first impressions of The Palace of Mad King Ludwig including a brief overview of gameplay followed by my final summary.

Summary

I never played The Castles of Mad King Ludwig but I have played Suburbia which the game is based on. But they are different enough. Like Suburbia and Subdivision, Castles and Palaces are similar themed games in the same world but the gameplay is different.

This is a bit of set collection, a bit of pattern building with tile laying, it’s a fairly unique mix which is good.

I like tile laying… I mentioned I haven’t played Castles because, to be fair, it’s a re-theme with minor changes to Suburbia, a game I love. The Castle building doesn’t appeal to me.

But Palaces is its own thing. You’re building out this big Palace and watching the moat engulf it. You’re trying to match up rooms to get swans, build a variety of rooms to score points and use their abilities to further your game.

The artwork is really quite nice. It’s pleasant… Nothing special but I doubt anyone could dislike it. The rooms are OK, they have some detail but the symbols are small. the tokens you put on the board are fiddly, especially when you need to flip them.

With all those tiles it is a table hog. The worst part is, you never really know which way the board will spread. Maybe it will head down the table, maybe it’ll be weighted to one side. That’s a problem!

Another problem I’m told is the end game which has put off a lot of people so bear that in mind!

Jesta ThaRogue