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In Barony, players are ambitious barons trying to extend their dominion over the land! Who will succeed and become the new king? At the beginning of the game, players create the board at random with nine tiles per player; each tile comprises three hexagons, with each hexagon being one of five landscape types: forest, plains, field, mountain, lake. Players then each place three cities on the game board, with a knight in each city. They then take turns in clockwise order, with each player taking exactly one action from the six possible actions: Recruitment: Add two knights to a city, or three knights if the city is adjacent to a lake. Movement: Move one or two of your knights one space each. A knight can't enter a lake (blub), a mountain with an opposing pawn, or any space with an opponent's city or stronghold or two knights of the same opposing color. If you move a second knight into a space with an opposing pawn or village, remove those tokens and take one resource from the village owner. Construction: Remove one or more of your knights from the game board and replace each with a village or stronghold, gaining one resource token matching the landscape under the structure. New City: Replace one of your villages with a city and earn 10 victory points (VPs). Expedition: Remove two knights from your reserve, placing one back in the box out of play and the other on any empty space on the edge of the game board. Noble Title: Discard at least 15 resource points, then upgrade your title: baron to viscount, then count, marquis, and finally duke. Once any player has gained the title of duke, finish the round, then tally the VPs, with players scoring for resources still in their possession, their rank in the game, and the number of cities they built. Whoever has the most VPs wins.
| Year | 2015 |
|---|---|
| Designers | Marc André |
| Artists | Ismaël Pommaz |
| Publishers | asmodee, Hobby Japan, Matagot, Rebel Sp. z o.o., Broadway Toys LTD, Conclave Editora, Surfin' Meeple China |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Time | 45 min |
| Status | Previously owned |
| BGG Rating | 7.0 |
| Categories | Abstract Strategy, Territory Building, Medieval |
| Mechanics | Area Majority / Influence, Modular Board, Area Movement |
| BGG Rank | 1719 |
| Complexity | 2.28 / 5 |
| Language | No necessary in-game text |
| Date | Location | Duration | Qty | Players | Scores | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2015-10-11 | – | 1 | – | – | – |
My BGG Comment
Played at Essen (2015). This game was high up on my list of "need to play" games because it is a pure strategy game with landgrab elements and has been compare to my favorite Terra Mystica. There's a similarity in the landgrab/expansion and yet there is none because the mechanics are reminiscent only superficially. Barony is far quicker and easier to play with a very streamlined mechanism. I loved the game. We didn't buy it but only because I want to savor it by itself later when we have worked through the huge stack we brought back from the fair. Plays with up to 4 players with a variable map. The game usually starts by building up the map (this was skipped at the fair), I assume a fair amount of strategy goes into creating the land to play. Then every player gets to place three of his possible five cities. After that the actual game proceeds. There are 7 actions one can take. Because of the many limits placed on these actions it usual comes down to a handful of strategic decisions. Our game went quickly and 45 minutes for a deep strategy game with four players is not as unbelievable as it sounds at first. It has the potential to become one of my favorite games (if only because it should be easier to find people to play it with than Terra Mystica) Update 2019: We never played it again after I got the game. It turns out it is too abstract and a pure area control game is too little to keep me interested for long.