A Tale of Two Citadels – Asmodee Updates A Classic
Jess: Anyone who begins a blog post by quoting Lord Vetinari from Discworld will have my full attention and appreciation.
Bruno Faidutti, designer of Citadels, recently posted a blog entry about the new version of Citadels coming fourth quarter of this year.
To paraphrase from Faidutti’s post, the main reason Citadels was not updated until this point is quoted succinctly from Ankh-Morpork’s leading dictator, Lord Vetinari: “Si non confectus, non reficiat” (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it). Citadels is a fantastic game as is and sold well for the past 16 years. The fact that the publishing rights were shared by three different publishers didn’t help either.
Faidutti was contacted by a gamer, named Robin Corrèze, who had designed a fan expansion to Citadels which caught Faidutti’s attention. It utilized 9 new characters and after a series of playtests, Faidutti spoke with the main publisher Fantasy Flight about the possibilities of updating the game.
Bruno expressed his disappointment with the original Dark City expansion for Citadels. He cited it as “more complex than the original set, not always as fun to play, and some of them (the cards) brought a little too much gold into the game.” The new version of Citadels deals with these issues by changing up some of the rules for these cards as well as some of the location cards. It also includes the cards designed by Robin Corrèze: Magistrate, Blackmailer, Spy, Seer, Patrician, Cardinal, Trader, Scholar, and Marshal.
The new game also received a beautiful artistic overhaul. The original art files had been lost over the years, so Simon Eckert (Age of War & The Last Banquet) was brought on to draw the cover art, while Andrew Bosley (Blood Bowl: Team Manager, Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd ed.) – Heirs of Blood, Mission: Red Planet (2nd ed.)) redesigned all of the characters. The new look is brighter, friendlier, and just plain beautiful!
However, classics are classic for a reason, and for anyone who is interested in playing the original version, Asmodee is releasing an updated “Classic” edition (promising to keep the box small, which will soothe the concerns of some gamers, for sure).
Both versions of the game will be available at Gen Con to check out. you can learn more at the Asmodee Citadels website.
Jess: I am really looking forward to checking out this new version of the game. This weekend at Gen Con, Asmodee will be demoing the game at their booth and designer Bruno Faidutti will be leading some of those demos! I’ll be sure to get some more info for you all as I can.
Image Credits: Asmodee