Journey back to 18th Century Japan to the Harima province. Daimyo Sakai Tadazumi governs the region from Himeji Castle and in order to garner any influence, you must insert members of your clan into various positions at The White Castle in order to impress the Sakai Clan and earn a position in the court of the White Heron.
First Impressions
Truthfully, the artwork and styling of this game did not draw me in, it doesn't stand out on the shelf and gives very little away as to what the game is like. The rulebook felt slightly daunting too, although the components were not what I was expecting and impressed me their quality and colour. (I don't think I'll be disassembling the bridges any time soon though! They were rather fiddly to put together and sit nicely in the box fully made up with plenty of space for the rest of the components)
Game Play Overview
The White Castle is played over 3 rounds, with each player getting 3 turns per round. Each turn you will select 1 die from either end of any of the 3 bridges and choose an action space to place it on. Each action space (apart from the well) can only contain 1 die and 1 stacked die (except in a 1 or 2 player game where stacking dice is prohibited). When choosing which space to place your chosen die on, you'll need to pay attention to the value of either the space or the die that is on the space as the difference between this and the die you are placing will determine the cost or reward for using the action space, as well as the colour as this dictates which action(s) can be taken. Once placed, pay the cost or gain the reward and then carry out the action shown. Actions vary from gaining resources, coins or daimyu seals, acquiring VP or influence, or sending clan members off to work in the White Castle as Warriors, Courtiers or Gardeners. Some actions have a cost to them, indicated by a red number before a symbol. Others show a black number after the symbol to indicate the quantity of a resource that you will gain. As the game progresses, you will send clan members off to different roles around the castle, Warriors are placed on the training yards for an Iron cost and grant you an action specified on the yard you go to and grant you victory points at game end based on the number of courtiers you have in the castle. Gardeners can't share garden spaces with other members of their own clan, but grant you victory points at game end as well as an immediate bonus and a bonus action in the end of round phase if the bridge above the garden still has a die on it. Lastly, there's the Courtiers. These allow you to carry out up to 2 actions: Request an audience (by paying 2 coins, allowing you to place a courtier onto the gates of the castle) and Social Climbing (allowing you to spend pearls to move a courtier from the gates or within the castle up 1 or 2 spaces towards the Daimyo's room) Once all players have played 3 turns, move onto the end of round phase where the new turn order will be established based on your influence position, gardeners are activated and the dice are rolled ready for the next round. Move the round marker down a space on the round track and begin a new round. At the end of the third round, the game ends and only the order of turns is carried out at the end of the round. Final scores are calculated and the player with the most clan points wins.
Pros and Cons
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game, it's quite heavily strategic and once you've played it a couple of times, you can find mini engines to activate, where one turn can end up activating many different actions. I love how the set up changes the board at the start of each game so it's always a little bit different and I was surprised at how differently my games played as a two player game in comparison to a 3 or 4 player game, based on the strategies my opponents took. It's definitely a game that makes more sense the more you play it, and this can make your first game of it feel rather confusing, especially if you're playing with someone who has played it before and knows what they're doing. However, once you've got your head around the turns and the scoring, it makes alot of sense andyou can really focus on honing that strategy and making the game your own. It has some lovely unique mechanisms in such as the lantern track that you can add cards to throughout the game, as well as the dice activations which really add value to this game and give it quite a different fele to many other worker placement and dice rolling games.
Final Verdict
Overall, I think this is one of my favourite strategy games out there. The depth of decisions and chaining of actions gives The White Castle a nice variation to other games with similar mechanics and the different placements and cards available at the start of each game makes it's replayability improve significantly without taking away from the essence of the mechanics or theme.
In conclusion, we would rate this game a 9.1/10
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