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Five years after the events of Cavern Tavern, where a fragile peace was brokered between The Five Realms, the High Queen Tabita Orestes has ordered a new city to be built. The city of Caveborn will be the capital of the Five Realms, a place where all the races will learn to live together in harmony, with the main purpose being to bring them closer and prevent another war.
The Queen needs to keep the alliance between the races and ensure that Caveborn is peaceful and prosperous. To that end, a Settlers Council has been formed with Berk the Town Clerk as its chairman — but Berk is getting old and needs a successor. Are you that person?
Rise to Nobility is a worker (dice) placement game set in the same fantasy world as Cavern Tavern. You each own a small piece of land in the newly built city, and your job is to rise from anonymity, make your way to the title of lord, and take over the head seat at the Stone Council.
You can achieve this by upgrading your land and increasing its value, satisfying the demands of the settlers' council, attracting and housing as many settlers as you can, accommodating their needs, finding them jobs, and helping them develop from apprentices to guild masters, thus insuring you have people in high places all around the city of Caveborn.
- The Kickstarter deluxe edition has upgraded components.
- The game comes with two different sides for the main board, player board, and buildings (day/night).
- The Chancery expansion adds new elements like the Chancery board and commission cards for ongoing bonuses and end-game points.
- The night mode's thematic change with visual appeal is noted.
- The game offers variants like the events deck, short variants, and night mode for replayability.
- The base version uses colored cubes instead of upgraded goods tokens.
- The night rules were not included in the printed rulebook.
- The game does not ramp up exponentially for points at the end, and efficiency is key to avoid falling behind.
- Selling a building results in a loss of victory points.
- In night mode, building a workshop in another player's guild causes the original owner to lose victory points and nobility.
- Earning victory points by housing settlers, building workshops, working up the nobility track, and doing business with the stone council.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Players take turns placing dice to select actions from various spaces on the board.
- contract fulfillment — Commission cards (from an expansion) act as end-game victory point bonuses that require specific conditions to be met.
- dice placement — Players place worker dice onto action spaces on the board to perform associated actions. Some spaces have restrictions on the numbers that can be placed, and players are limited by their current reputation in terms of the total value of dice they can place.
- engine building — Players can build workshops and community buildings to gain ongoing bonuses or effects that improve income or actions.
- Resource management — Players manage coins and six different types of goods, using them to complete settler cards, build buildings, and buy goods.
- set collection — Players collect settler cards which require specific goods to be spent to complete, providing victory points, meatballs, and nobility track advancement.
- Track advancement — Players can advance on a nobility track, triggering effects and providing end-game victory points.
- Variable player powers — Each player starts with a random character card which provides benefits.
- worker placement — Players use worker dice to take actions on the board. Meeples also represent apprentices and guild masters.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- hello and welcome to maple University's how to play rise to nobility
- in rise to nobility players will be attempting to earn victory points by housing settlers building workshops working their way up the nobility track and doing business with the stone Council
- this is purely thematic it has no impact on gameplay but it looks cool
- rise to nobility is part engine building and part a game of efficiency
- because it is such a game of efficiencies you're not going to be able to find an easy way back into the game