Citadels Duel
- Designers: Guillaume Montiage and Manuel Rozoy
- Publisher: Asmodee / Zman
- Players: 2
- Age: 10+
- Time: 30 minutes
- Amazon affiliate link: https://link.amazon/B0b6pIUw0
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
Welcome to Citadels Duel, a tense head-to-head contest of cunning and ambition. Two rival city planners compete to shape the future of the Citadel, striving to design the district plan that generates the greatest wealth and earns lasting renown. Construct powerful buildings across diverse districts—from bustling Commercial hubs to formidable Military strongholds—while enlisting influential figures such as the cunning Queen, the deadly Assassin, and the ruthless Warlord to your aid. Every ally you recruit is an advantage your opponent may also claim, so anticipate their moves and act decisively. When the final building rises, the planner with the most gold claims victory.
Each player chooses a color (black or white) and takes the district stand of their color. Choose 2 random starting districts, place them on the table, flipping them so that each player has control of the one closer to them. Each player now draws 3 unique district tiles and chooses two to keep.
Then, create the district row by making 4 stacks of 4 basic district tiles. The Council board is placed on the table, with 4 discs of each color. Flip the ninth and final disc and place it in the central space. The player who has 5 discs starts with 2 gold Gold coins, the other player gets 5 Gold coins.
The game will be played in rounds until the city’s 4×4 grid is completely built. In each round, there are 3 phases:
1] Draft Phase – Shuffle the 9 Character cards and deal 4 to each Player (the final card is discarded unseen). Players choose 2 to keep and 2 to pass to their opponent. From this final hand of 4 cards, players will choose 3 to keep.
2] Resolve Phase – Resolve the cards in ascending order; the player who has the card reveals it and activates its abilities:
- Assassin – name a character; if your opponent has it, it is discarded
- Thief – name a character, if your opponent has it, steal 3 Gold from your opponent or unprotected districts
- King – gain 1 council seat, and one more for each Noble district you control. Then, move the King’s Guard to any district, you may place a Gold coin onto that district. The district with the King’s Guard on it, as well as all orthogonally adjacent districts, is now protected from the Thief, Diplomat and Warlord.
- Abbot – if you have less gold than your opponent, gain a Gold. Build a district now with a one Gold discount for each Religious District you control.
- Merchant – gain 3 Gold, then place 1 Gold on up to 2 Commercial districts you control.
- Architect – build up to 2 districts, getting a 1 gold discount on the first.
- Diplomat – either lose control of council seats equal to the cost of a district to gain control of an unprotected district OR gain 2 council seats
- Warlord – either gain control of an unprotected district by paying the value of the district, getting a discount of 1 Gold for each Military district you control OR move the King’s Guard to any district.
- Queen – gain 1 council seat for each color of district you control (max 5 seats)
3] Expansion Phase – The player with the most council seats gains 3 Gold and builds a district. The other player then gains 2 Gold OR builds a district. The district built can come from either the district row or the player’s unique districts. The cost is shown on the left side. The new district can be placed anywhere adjacent to a previous building as long as it doesn’t exceed a 4×4 grid. When you build, place a Gold on the tile for each orthogonally adjacent building that matches its color.
Play another round if the 4×4 grid is not complete. If it is complete, the game moves to final scoring:
- Points equal to the total cost of districts they control
- 1 VP for each Gold on top of districts they control
- 1 VP for every 2 council seats they control
The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the most gold left over.
My thoughts on the game
Citadels Duel is a nice back-and-forth game where players compete in a number of different areas. The tiles on the board is the main area as ultimately these tiles (and the coins on them) provide the bulk of the victory points. However, during the game, players are also competing for control of the Council seats as well as managing relative amounts of gold – it’s good to have Gold as you need it to build tiles, but some of the character actions play off of having more/fewer gold than the opponent.
In the base game of Citadels, many of the negative or take that actions felt rough, due to the targeted nature of them – but all of that feels quite natural in a 2p only game. Now that only one person can really be the target, it never feels capricious or unfair to be hit by the Assassin or Thief or to have someone take control of “your” territory. For me, that’s a big improvement.
The drafting of cards is actually very well done, and it presents the players with an interesting decision… Each player ends up with two cards that they keep secret and two they get from their opponent. After the final discard, at least one of passed cards has to remain in the hand for the round, and this leads to a bunch of double-think situations – both for the targeted cards as well as trying to divine the order of play in the coming round.
Each character card has a good use in the right situation; but there is definitely an art to making them work best for you. My personal least favorite is the Assassin as you really don’t get anything out of it, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll hit a target – but, man, there are times when it has saved the game for me by negating a Queen or Warlord late in the game.
The fight for the tiles is the heart of the game. I like the way that playing next to tiles of the same color allows you to make a tile more valuable. This also presents some interesting choices in where/when players choose to build their tiles. The protection offered by the King’s Guard also gives the players to play a bit defensively and protect their current holdings.
Citadels Duel is part of the current tidal wave of games that have been converted to 2-player-only Duel versions. It is a nice tight 2p game, and I do think it takes some of the targeting issues that I had with the original and converts them into a really nice head-to-head battle. For those in the market for 2p games, or those who have enjoyed previous Duels (Splendor, Azul, etc) – this should be strongly considered.
Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers
- I love it!
- I like it. Dale Y
- Neutral.
- Not for me…
Amazon affiliate link: https://link.amazon/B0b6pIUw0
