Game Critique: Citadels

Citadels is a game that relies on complications arising from imperfect information. The game consists of two types of cards: character cards and district cards. The object of the game is to earn the most points by “building” districts, that is, laying district cards from your hand on the table and paying the cost. The game ends when a player builds his or her eighth district.

The core mechanic of the game is the selection of characters. The character cards numbered from 1 to 8, and each player in turn secretly selects one character before passing the remaining characters to the player on the left. Depending on the number of players, some characters cards are taken out of play facedown on the table. Each character card affords the player who possesses it a special power on his or her turn. The Assassin, for example, allows a player to “kill” another character (if another player has that character’s card, she loses her turn). The Warlord allows a player to destroy (remove) another player’s district card.

During each round, the characters are announced in numerical order, and when a player’s character is called, he takes his turn. The Assassin, number 1, always goes first; the Thief, number 2, always goes second, etc. This means that the player holding the Assassin always has a chance to kill another character before that character acts.

Because players keep their character cards hidden until they are called, Citadels is a game of imperfect information, and accordingly it involves a great deal of uncertainty, second-guessing and bluffing. Because some of the characters bring a player extra money (depending on the type of districts built), it is sometimes easy to guess which character a player will choose. A savvy player, of course, will not choose the obvious because that will make her a target of the Assassin. But sometimes the least obvious is exactly the obvious.

Information Types in Citadels

Using Celia Pearce’s model, Citadel contains the following information:

Information Known to All Players: the nine characters cards, the makeup of the district card deck, the rules, the amount of money each player has, the district cards each player plays, the characters players have played that round (after they have been called)

Information Known to Only One Player: the district cards in one’s hand, the character card one has chosen

Information Known Only to the Game: the character cards taken out of play during character selection, the order of the district card draw pile

Randomly Generated Information: none (the character cards taken out of play or the order of the district card draw pile are random, but these occur as part of the game setup and are not really information generating as with a die roll)

Citadels’ Economy of Information

Information in Citadels is valuable because it can be used to increase one’s standing in the game (monetarily or in number of districts built), protect one’s self from attack, or to exploit vulnerability in another player. Knowing that the player before you selected the Thief and will likely target the Bishop, for example, is a very valuable piece of information because it could prevent you from losing your money, which would jeopardize your standing in the game. You wouldn’t select the Bishop. That tidbit of information is worth much more than, say, the information gained by looking at what district card that player last built (but which also has value).

As in Poker, the hidden information has a higher value than the public information, and the effort in deducing what is hidden yields a higher return.

A Negative Feedback System?

Citadels does not have a positive or negative feedback system built into the game, however emergent negative feedback keeps the game balanced. When a player pulls ahead and/or is about to end the game with his or her eighth district, that player becomes a target for the other players, who can attempt to sabotage the leader’s efforts using the Assassin, Thief or Warlord. Is this a true feedback system? Maybe not, but the game gives players a means for restoring balance that serves the same purpose.