Expansion Review #2: Castles of Mad King Ludwig: Secrets

# of Players: 1-4
Playtime: 2-3 Hours

Core Mechanic: Tile Placement/Auction

Theme: Castle Building

Type: Euro
Weight: Medium-Heavy

Year: 2015

Rating: 8.5*

The first time I played Castles of Mad King Ludwig, I knew it was going to be an amazing game. Both in terms of the auction and tile placement mechanics and the gorgeous components, it easily won me over. Then it was announced that a new expansion was coming that added three modules to the game. With the game as good as it was, did it need these extras?

Although the rules state that the different things that came with the expansion could be added to the game in any combination, I don't see why you wouldn't play with all of them together. First up are the Barbicans & Moats. The Barbican piece replaces the starting foyer from the base game. This piece also makes up one of the four moat pieces that can be used to envelop your castle and gain players more bonus points. Once all four moat pieces are placed, the player gains a reward in the form of an extra room of any kind. There are a couple of limitations with this as it restricts the sprawl of your castle, indoor rooms must be located the moat, and there are additional restrictions on outside rooms inside the moat. I think that this element provides an interesting decision where players must decide whether they want the bonus points from the moat or would rather just build their castle in any way they want.

Secret Passages are new tiles that can be used to connect the new tile that is being placed to an existing tile. They provide double the connection bonus, so since each player only gets three of the Secret Passages, timing when to use them is everything. These can also be used to protect against Activity Room penalties! Finally, Swans are a new economy that is added to the game. Whenever rooms with swan token icons are put up for auction, the corresponding colored swan tokens are added to that room. Then whenever a player buys a room with swan tokens on it, he or she collects those tokens. Swans can then be used in one of two ways - to exchange for money or to be used as victory points at the end of the game.

In general, all of these modules are simple enough to add to the game without increasing the complexity too much. Because I own the expansion, it is likely that I would play with this every time. However, I don't think I would qualify the expansion as essential to the game experience in terms of making it better or adding any game changing elements. The moats add an interesting visual element and some constraints, which help to provide a bit of a challenge, but also means the castles lose the charm of how they used to sprawl. The swans add some flexibility and extra ways to score, but also nothing I feel that is too game-changing. So in the end it is a fun expansion with some cool ideas, but the base game is good enough on its own and I wouldn't hunt down this expansion unless you are a really big fan of the game. Compared to how Farmers of the Moor changes Agricola, this one makes less of an impact. This is probably evident in how much shorter this review is as well!