Viceroy, Game Review

Every kingdom is only as strong as the people. Having the right people in positions of power make the kingdom even stronger. To build your powerbase you need to recruit the right people to fit into the right positions. Their placement in the scheme of things creates a stronger base to grow your power into a formidable kingdom. It is about how much power you control that will make you the king of kings.

Viceroy puts you in a position of building your kingdom's power. A strategy game with multiple ways of earning power points (victory points).

Four of us sat down to learn and play Viceroy (we had no previous experience with the game). We had a few problems at the start of the game because of the number of strategy options, but the mechanics were easily picked up. By the end of the first game we were moving through the turns without any problems

You start with a few characters and laws you can play, but the first phase of the round is bidding on recruiting more characters. This phase has a silent bid strategy, but you don't have to be silent about it. You can pass a bid, and you can also lose your bid and gain nothing.

When placing characters into play they can start on the first level or higher. But to place them in a higher level they must be supported by two characters already in play in the level below them. Depending on the level they come into play, they have different benefits that may come into play now, during the rest of the game, or during the scoring at the end. Placing a character into your pyramid becomes more expensive the higher they are placed, but the benefits become better.

Placing a law cards work very much like the character cards, but you don't have to pay for them. They are placed in your pyramid in the same manner as characters. Laws also have different benefits that can come into play in the same manner as the character cards. One difference in the playing of a law card is the timing during the game. Some of them have advantages to being played early while others later in the game.

An early pyramid

Scoring is done from different action, placement of cards, and collection of tokens during the game. What I found while playing was the strategy of the game isn't in how quickly, or tall, or wide your pyramid is, but how you recruit and the particular placement of the cards within the pyramid. Depending on how your strategy is developing you may do better placing a late level card lower than higher in the structure.

The strategy of play is based on focusing on the building of your kingdom, your pyramid. Although there is some need to follow what others are doing, your focus is on what you need and desire to complete your strategy in building and collecting your power points.

Replay-ability is high with Viceroy. With the number of characters, the order they become available, and how they are played all leads to altering your strategy. The bidding also can affect how you play. During our first game I missed out on a bid cycle which required me to look at how to make up for the lost ground.

All four of us enjoyed playing Viceroy. There was a uniqueness about the game giving it a fresh feel, and a fresh look. I am sure when we are sitting with a smaller group at our game night table, this will be in the consideration for playing.

Viceroy is from Mayday Games (English version) licensed from Hobby World and was designed by Yuri Zhuravlev for 1–4 players of ages 13+. It is designed to take 45-60 minutes.

Thanks to Mayday Games for the review copy.

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