Castles of Mad King Ludwig : Secrets
Expansion of: Castles of Mad King LudwigCastles of Mad King Ludwig: Secrets is an expansion for Castles of Mad King Ludwig that will help you build even more amazing, crazy castles than ever before!
45m - 90m
1 - 4 Players
Ages 13+
Cheesechick
After a few plays we've mixed this expansion out and are unlikely to mix it back in. It's not terrible, but with only one very good module, it's a pretty mixed bag: -Moats: These are great. An interesting touch that adds a bit of risk/reward to the game - they're extremely powerful but if you're going to go for them, you really need to commit. May use these still in the future. -Swans: I like that these add another thing to take into consideration when purchasing and ordering the tiles. It makes the tiles a bit harder to value, which is a good thing. This is the part that's most fiddly though, and since the game can already last awhile with AP players we're keeping these out for now. -Secret Passages: NOT a fan. These seem wildly unbalanced - they simply make Living Rooms too good. Even if you forbade their use on Living Rooms (which would be a crap way to solve the problem), you still wouldn't wind up with anything more strategically interesting. They simply inflate the scores for no real reason. In Suburbia, their equivalent at least has a cost associated with them. Just plain bad.
barth153
It's not a must have but adds some fun restrictions, scoring bonuses and new rooms. Easily fits in the base box which I always appreciate.
carlsbad
As Castles is a family favorite, we found the expansion somewhat disappointing. The main problem is that the moats just slow the game down too much. It's slow enough as is with the ordering of what to sell and then selection, but then restricting the size and positioning of everything just turns players into sloths. The swan thing is pretty tacked on and useless too. I suppose having new rooms is just "more of a good thing", but yeah, moats seem to make our games worse, not better.