Quick thought on King & Robber Baron

[adamsonofwilliam]

Just picked this up this week and am still working out the kinks, however...

I understand the rules that came with the kit, but this was never explained.
Here's the senario [interchange castle with road for either case]:

Green completes the first castle (four tiles)
Red and Black share the second completed castle (six tiles)

The question:
Who then receives the King?  Red and Black have the 'largest' castle, but there's only one King.

Here's what I've been doing:
If Red or Black score a castle larger than the original four-tiled castle, they gain the King.  All other players must beat the new high of six to steal the King away from either Red or Black.

Does that sound kosher?  Opinions please.

[Deatheux]

the tile goes to the PLAYER WHO COMPLETES THE FEATURE, whatever he scores or not... like the ""goods"" in Trade & Builders.

[Joff]

Deatheux is correct. The King (or Robber) goes to the player who completes the feature (city or road) and not the owner/s of the feature.

If I was playing yellow, and I finish Red and Black's 6 tiled city, then I get the King (not the Red player or the Black player, although they still score the points for the completed city). A player who wants to gain the King from me must now complete at least a 7 tiled city or greater (a 6 tiled city is no good, the city must be larger to take the King from me).

It is a good idea to get a couple of extra markers (I use a Purple meeple (King) and a Brown meeple (Robber)) and keep a total on the scoring track. You can then see at a glance how big your road or city needs to be in order to gain the King or Robber.

[adamsonofwilliam]

thanks.

I guess I read the rules wrong.  That makes sense now...

[Johngee]

Purple Meeple ... that's a great idea Joff.  In fact any pawn type figure from some other board game would probably work just as well.  Some one on this site suggested using twenty-sided dice, readily available at most Friendly Local Gaming/hobby Stores.  Use one color for the King's current largest town, and a different color for the Robber Baron's current longest road.  I kind of like this idea, but a long time ago my group decided to throw out the race track score keeping device in favor of the traditional paper and pencil method.  It is very easy to write "King=#" and "Baron=#" across the top of the page and each time a larger town or longer road is built and the King and Robber Baron tiles change hands the number of tiles used is then written in the appropriate place and repeatedly updated during the game session.