Viscounts of the West Kingdom: Gates of Gold/Keeper of Keys - Discussion
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Transcript
some viewers may find the following video disturbing viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome to uh board games unlocked and we are doing a no run through review and it's a double whammy for vi counts of the west kingdom the two expansions that were just released keeper of keys and gates of gold yep um so let me start this off by saying and we do a no run through review not because uh uh these are bad expansions just because there's no reason to redo a run-through that i've already done right um i used to do that on the favorite i used to redo a whole run through it every time an expansion came out yeah no nobody has time for that but i can say let me preface this whole review by saying i think both of these expansions are good yep do not play them together nope like i could please unless you are just doing what we did and was just testing out what the expansion brought to the game uh i implore you do not combine them right not because it not because it doesn't muddy the game nope uh both of these expansions are very clean in what they add and it doesn't it doesn't really unlike what paladins that expansion did that kind of changed the game it did this enhanced these both these extensions i think enhanced the game uh it was still vi counts through and through right um but the reason why is because at a certain point and this is actually a a pretty cool thing though
at a certain point one the game ran probably an hour and a half longer yep and in both players i don't think this would have been the same no matter who how many number of players um we could do whatever we wanted at any time at any time um if you were going a certain strategy like your strategy ended up being like you had every resource imaginable yep you uh like you're just like oh i'm just gonna go down there i have 18 bags i'm gonna get all this money i'm gonna get all these resources now i'm gonna go down there and drop all my people i mean so so these were supposed to be semi-hard building to get and i not only drop them off because one of the things that was negative they even specified was you lose your bonus from the old building i was like i i don't care because it costs x but i have so much resources i'll build this for the 15 points and the next turn drop it again to basically get my eight points back yeah um i didn't even see you do that i honestly i i quit over four terms i quit paying attention to what what you were doing because yeah you didn't matter you had so many resources you had i had two cards right i had i had the one about manuscripts which were and the big my strategy and then i had the one about getting um the outsiders yeah the visitors uh and you had literally everything else right and um put them into perspective your best game of of this uh and you've
played this way more than i have i would assume was 130 138 138 you got how much 2 30 2 30. i got 297 right that is ridiculous and it's all it was all just because i have a complete set of five manuscripts which is times 16 points so five times 16. i mean you're talking crazy points i mean i played a lot of two players this is my wife's favorite game right now so we play on a very regular basis just the base game i have never once even gone close to emptying an entire manuscript pile you did two we did two full piles almost the third one and the only reason that more weren't empty was because it wasn't colors i needed right at a certain point i was just grabbing them because i i 100 thought that you were gonna blow me out of the water i knew you had resources i knew you were had that and you had buildings and i'm like well i'm just gonna keep getting manuscripts and those people and just hope that i can hope that i can just get the points so that being said right uh just don't you don't do don't do it don't do it not worth it if it was if it didn't lengthen the game um then i'd say fine yeah but yeah the fact that you were just just going through the motions of just because also our strategies weren't built around the debt or the deeds nope so you and i were both struggling to
draw them and end the game at some point yeah and at there was multiple times where i was just like dude you just want to call it i almost said the same thing like halfway through like when we're kind of like wow you're just grabbing that and i'm just putting out five people and i don't even have to spend a gold ever and it's like i almost was like do you just want to call a knife and score at this point like i'm sick of this i don't think it matters yeah it really doesn't that score is just not even and again they're good expansions yes so one of the things that by accounts the base game does well but a lot of people can struggle with it is you are not rich almost ever this i do remember that yeah this they added a lot more power cards like and so people would fight like so i got one just on the random chance that was a three bag guy a two move three bad guy my starting hero was a three bag right so the peddler i will actively like abandon whatever i'm doing to go rush to try and get this to buy it because for three bags it's such a great bonus in the regular base game right here we ignored it for like 10 turns yeah because it didn't matter there came a point whenever you were putting people on that i was like can i just go right like i don't need to see what you're gonna do because i'm gonna be doing the same thing um like literally i had one two three four five six seven eight nine ten i was actually trying to fill out finish out deeds i know i know
you were trying to that's why i was pushing the other ones i was looking i was looking over and i was like okay i definitely have him on on on yeah you heard me dance and i was like i think i can math it out um and and finish out the finished things and at least tie it and actually it worked out because of the the welcome guy i got at the end of the game i got to flip it over so it tied it that doesn't [ __ ] matter but yeah i had ten deeds one two three four five six yeah seven of those yeah uh okay so with that out of the way which one do you want to talk about first um so let's talk about the gates of gold okay so so the gates of gold expansion yep um is this the rule book i'm just gonna just make sure that we talk about what the right ones um and for the record uh also with that being with with the don't add them together uh i'm gonna go ahead and say i think get both of these expansions yeah they're both right i think they're both really good just pick which one that you that you're gonna play with uh so one the um the gates of gold came with uh a manuscript uh which is nice which is very nice it keeps it all organized and it also opens up new free actions yes that uh at any time so as long as you have a manuscript under you unlock the ability uh you start off with the one that lets you buy these kings order cards and this kind of goes hand in hand so
you have kings order cards these are all the same but they serve two purposes one whenever it falls off your track you can then it goes back to the king's order pile and you can get a visitor for free outsiders yeah you get an outsider for free and the outsiders are really good they're more power people that you can get like this one is a three bag this one's a floor delete and a bag uh but they're all for end game scoring yep that i really like that is probably my favorite thing out of both of these expansions because it reminds me of the paladins where you got to if you converted right and you got end game victory points uh it enhances strategy like all the ones i got were manuscript based like pretty much literally it and to be fair these are all enhanced because of just the gross combos we had right but i had two of them that were extra points per grain yellow manuscripts and then i had one that was three points per completed right set and i had five sets so that was that was another 15 points that i got um but still like these are really really cool and some of them aren't even for points one i got was just for hey it's a rogue flip a debt or a deed right at the end which ended up working right um but with the king's order if you have it in your hand and you use an ability that lets you
trash a card it goes back to the pile and you can reject outsiders and that gives you another thing similar to when you kill the invaders and paladins yep uh so it's kind of like oh hey i can i move up two on corruption but then i can place two people what do you out of those i don't know if you got a whole bunch did you just get the one i got three of them you had three um they weren't very high scoring ones so one was the i got a point for every wedge i had control of which when i when i was thinking it's like oh that's way more powerful but realistically that's five points at most yeah um the other one was probably that's the more realistic one that came out because i guarantee you this one the translator probably should have been six points right yes because i have one because i got this one for the end points of double ones and then i got an outsider that was for every three get points and i was like okay with these two they're playing off of each other yeah and so that's one of the reasons why i just started stocking that's like why you were blowing me out of the water i knew you had those resource ones and i'm like he's gonna [ __ ] murder me um and so you have that i do like them i did not build an engine in any way to go and gather them i never had like i had a lot of coins at the beginning of the game and i stopped because i kind of got to the point where it's like i don't necessarily need to move very often i have so many cards so one of the things that the expansion definitely did is added more um villagers to the decks and i added a lot
more twos and threes yeah and so my decks are becoming filled enough that like i have movement all the time and then you know you get another plus movement because i have all my buildings done halfway through the game um yeah i uh i was struggling with movement for a while right um because i was still my my engine took a little bit to get off it still wasn't as pristine as i wanted because i didn't plan on going manuscripts right with my with my starting hero chloe tilda she every time i play her i get to king's orders my plan was to do what i ended up doing at the end of the game was player get two kings orders get them in my hand play them and then use resources to cycle it to the end right and then just get a lot of visitors coming in i only ended up with four six yeah um which is 12 coins right which again you know so you have those things i liked honestly um the building and that that might be was that gates uh keep was the game uh what the um oh the yeah the symmetrical um what were they that was uh keepers okay so there was something else for about building that uh was it these buildings then for the no that was also keepers it was the um building bonus cards the diversified oh no you're right yeah yeah yeah diversifying specialized yeah so i like that so basically what happens there are a deck
of cards one is build one of every type get the card the other one is build all three of the same type you get the card which again it's very similar to the manuscripts of the clerical ones which is get three of the same ribbon get the card yeah i like that because it it helps you set a goal outside of just oh it's points it's points yeah and it's it and because there's more of these right you're going to have a little bit different like it's like oh if i do one of each oh because yours was what was it each time you got a as long as i had purple i had actually yeah what was your hand limit six i think at some point you got to six yeah at one point i think i had that's gross yeah um but i also had i had the one that was uh diversified right um which was every time i got a hero or an outsider i got two coins right i was like oh okay great uh yeah that's that's just a nice little little add-on right to where you just kind of have a more more of a idea of oh okay what do i want to do with these buildings yeah um oh so with the manuscripts you have this one this is a little organizer keeps it all tidy you also start with one so it kind of gives you uh you and the other players have a leg up in a path what they didn't do in either of these expansions and they actually is frustrating is they have no way of cycling manuscripts and i wish they did uh like i think with there's so many
uh villagers that burning them that's fine i feel like if you want to cycle a manuscript you should be able to pay a coin or pay something to put at the bottom at least once at least with like this ability but it didn't give that to you so right sometimes if you're trying to build sets or it's like oh i'm not getting any yellow uh then it's just kind of annoying but yeah so you can then uh use any resource as a coin pay two coins to draw a card right and then pay any three coins to shuffle these around right and i used all of these at one point uh i needed to move an extra spot i had a gold i definitely wasn't going to contribute spent it got a coin right use an extra spot needed to draw that drew me into a king's order great and then i was able to play it and then pay three resources and put it at the end yeah you definitely use those abilities more than i did i definitely i tried yeah um i yeah i mean so it was just a different style of game i think it is interesting i think you went more gates of gold and i went much more on the keeper yeah and that was actually it's funny enough because i didn't we didn't set this up before but i was going to ask you like hey do you just want to do this expansion i'll do the other one just so we can see how they both worked out and it's just that's just how it naturally went and actually went that way um so yeah so that's the manuscript board that's really good the i love the outsiders i think that that's awesome um and then the building the building bonus yeah so that that's pretty much gates of
gold uh very solid very solid king's orders are very easy to get because if you don't like any of the villagers you can pay three coins just to buy one yep um go see a discard like every other purchase card so it's just it's going to travel this eventually yeah and we didn't see um there's actually some uh they're all there are doubles in here um so there's another there's another envoy okay you had there's another rogue right there's a mercenary so have the most in the middle uh so there's there's enough in here i like the fact that there are doubles right um of certain ones so it's not like oh lucky you right that's pretty cool uh we did get one that was a top deck that happened to be one for the three filmings i happen to have that you had out so you got four points from it it's just yeah it's like oh okay yeah uh but there is one there's another one for the the right blacksmith and then the towers right uh but but yeah like the gates of gold um i'd probably give an eight eight out of ten yeah i it my favorite parts of paladins is well maybe not my favorite part paladin's is super solid uh but because it is all-encompassing i will say it's very intriguing that some of these expansions at least gates of gold specifically is like oh here's something from paladins and threw it in this game where it's like paladins feel
like a more complete game right and these expansions kind of like feel like it brings in more of that stuff yeah because at the end of vi counts it was the same type of scoring right but the expansion for if i remember right for the expansion for um paladins it kind of add like the hero element stuff to it it did also add it to this kind of collection right so it kind of took some from by accounts wait a minute phillips is just recycling ideas and putting him in different games i think he figured out like he just needs to combine all three games into one one yeah that would be cool like uh uh just it's called west kingdom yeah like and you have architects you have uh you do deck building you do all the work replacement and then you have the uh different colored worker placements right um that would be wild uh he makes it a legacy game now he's at it this is whenever he's just doing fat lines of coke he's coming up with his next kickstarter um so gates of gold is named out of 10 for you yeah probably all right so next up we got keeper keys let's have you talk about that because you did it way more i think i touched it you got way more heroes than i did right and you had all three chests so biggest things that added so one thing that i both like and kind of disliked in the base game was you got one hero now you have ways to get tons and tons of heroes yep um and this
is literally a hero deck there's a hero deck and there are cards to now get more heroes um again we didn't cycle through a lot i got a few more than you did but i think i only ended up with like three maybe four of them total um the new ones do seem a little bit weaker than the original ones um which makes sense because again if you made everything else richer you need to make some things a little bit poorer on it but you can get more of them the next thing i actually really did like it's a little more situational it's a little bit more you have to plan for it on what your car build does but it's these chests um and so there's three options for them they sit underneath your cards um oh for the record real quick sorry to interrupt but the keeper of keys uh actually gives you these um the boards the the cardboard board nice yep so that that specifically came from that expansion um so and that that's really nice the these boards are better because one of the things that the other one is these just sit on top and so they can move just now cut out for it so i like that i i i would almost just get this just for this and play the base game with it it's like getting turmoil for terraform mars to get dual layer boards right um but so what these chests do which is kind of a really cool idea is let's say i don't really need the card above it but it's a hammer well if a hammer spot is in this spot it's also considered to be three bags
okay so now i have a choice of do i use this hammer at this point or do i go use something to get tons of you know something from back because like you got a coin spot that's just three coins right there for one character um and now that characters assets dual um play but you have that as three different options so as you keep going down like this one is the lightning so as soon as i had two bags i got inkwell yeah so every time any character had two bags that passed over pink well yeah uh hammer again for a fleur-de-lis and a crucifix so yeah so i mean so they're really good they're a little bit more situational but a little bit more planning so you're not stuck with them but you're not stuck with them because you can always change them out yeah um so you might choose one as your deck changes over time you'll remove it to clean up another one yep and one more right yeah and one of the new cards that starts in your deck when you play with that expansion allows you to either flip a dealer debt or get a chest yeah and it was actually really interesting because you had the three i just had the one which once again fed into my manuscript because it was every time i played a um skull or a criminal i got an inkwell right and then well that skull counts as a you know as anything so i was like oh okay so now just by that alone i have one two and then oh that one's open so that's three and i have the one thing so that's four so any fours i go to i can just get with one card play and one chest right i never diversified with that right
because i was like i'm just going to keep doing my manuscript and see how it works right so that that's the biggest i mean so those are the two things that really added um i think it added also the location decks so oh yeah one of the things that one thing that is interesting about um base game by counts is you always stop start at the top of the row well now you have cards that have point fives so they literally are like if it's 3.5 it's you start down here you start in the mid in the inner world and that is kind of cool yeah i really like that yeah um because i mean it's it's just more variability when you're doing setup uh the hero cards that i had so i had um my starting one gave me two kings orders and it's like i didn't even really when we were setting it up i was like you know what i'm just gonna go balls to the wall dive into these expansions right uh the other one i had was judith and this was also working out uh was either destroy a card which worked out in my favor by the king's order because i had no way of actually going out and doing it right or flip a deed or a debt and then the the other one was uh i ended up getting or i had to get rid of her because some of them are one-time use yep sometimes one time used yeah so this one delphine was once she comes off she gets removed and i get a right i get a free three or four comments manuscript right uh so
i think the heroes are really cool what keepers what keeper of keys did is it it opened up so it's you remember how you were saying you're starved for resources or you're like you kind of pick a lane and that's what you do keeper keys is like nah right not anymore so to me both of them just opened up the floodgates for resources at some point the other things it did was it made these public buildings which you could build to replace one of your buildings of that type and it gave you a power so it gave you an instantaneous like get a chest flip a deed take a hero but then and these never change it gives you a permanent skull so you always have a skull for yourself uh if you get a new hero or a hero dies flip the deeds if there's a coalition at all um you ignore that ignore a skull and draw a card yeah oh you have all three of those because i had i was at the point where like what you were doing manuscripts i had with him yeah i was actually going to get at the beginning of the game i don't remember what these ones were called the one on the far left i was planning on getting one of them right it just wasn't in the cards i guess right and so i wish there were more of those i wish there was more variety like maybe like three of each or something just to be like oh yeah okay but then again they're fine they're fine like chances are they might not all get built um at least
not definitely not by the same person unless that's definitely not by the same person and one of the things that can happen is um so this only takes two hammers to build after you built one that costs you three hammers it goes back to your board that's that's true but i can quickly get this out and basically i'm sacrificing two points for seven points true and then eventually i could theoretically build that again but i don't have to yeah um so mark the guy might use a building it's a five-point swing um where like this one's actually a little bit better it's a nine point swing um yeah but i do consider these are i mean seven to rebuild it versus six and these are pretty powerful because they're your you know your upper actions yeah they're your extra icon right so again i can see it you either could go for this very early saying hey i'm only a sacrifice for this um and it gives you your skull which is always a wild it's always a while so yeah those those are kind of those to me still kind of feel like when more yeah like the versus the diversified or or those felt a little bit more thought provoking in terms of your buildings that those were kind of like all right like like again if they had three of each type then it would matter a little bit more on kind of like oh well which one do i want to get do do i want to upgrade so so i had two bass um game heroes and then two of the key heroes so one of them
literally was draw two cards then discard two cards yeah you don't have to discard the two cards you just have the choice yeah the other one was shuffle your deck or shuffle your um discard pile draw a card and get a coin how many cards did you have in your deck by the end of the game i had 13. nice i cycled out i six 19. you're 19. okay oh funny enough actually i cycled six so i would have had 19 yeah by the end of the i cycle two though okay so still we we had relatively thin i just kind of like i burned more of these cards because i was trying to get my orders through what both of these expansions did keeper of keys what both these expansions did though especially together was fat in your deck and whereas i i kind of have always attributed this as a light deck builder yeah um deck builders i really like unless your deck becomes a [ __ ] commander deck right and you're like well i've never seen any of the cards right and that did kind of start to hurt when at the beginning before i started thinning out but it's like and you were talking about how i mean you have 19 cards like you have one chance to get a good you know good play and then you're like well i'm not saying this anytime soon right i mean my advantage was my hand limit was crazy high i think that's why they did that though i think because if you do play them together you're adding in more heroes you're adding in more cards and you're adding in the outsiders that are
all funneling into your decks so they gave you oh two coins to draw a card a multiple increase hand size so i don't know if because you had like five six five five to seven hand size i never went above three right i i kept it at three and occasionally i used two coins to draw a card right um so with that i'm very curious did you feel like your deck was still a burden um on a more regular basis i did okay um i still felt like it was a lot of effort to try to thin out a deck i know there were more cards to thin out and like spots that i would almost never have gone in base game like destroyed cards for three became more valuable but yeah it still feels like a waste of a turn to thin out a deck and that might be because of just coming back from normal base i was not really planning on like wow this is really fattening up but like i didn't buy villagers all that often no yeah yeah that's i mean that's pretty much what you do is you buy a couple premium villagers and we never had to burn them because we had all the rooms we had all the resources or icons that we needed so yeah definitely having both of those as options kind of made these obsolete because they're better they are better yeah and so you just push to get those into your deck faster
and then at that point so because so basically i added six of those cards to my starting deck yeah yeah one two three four five six and that wasn't even my strategy nine yeah that's true nine ten i added ten of both like both of those combined to my starting again and that was and that was my strategy right and so then i actually ended up getting rid of a lot of right four of my regulars were out the window so so and they also like the trader is upgraded with the keeper of keys because it's like oh every time you do a bag option you can discard a card and gain money right so they really wanted you to start discarding cards so you can go through your deck which i do appreciate i like the fact that they thought of that because if you had if you still had the same options of getting rid of cards you'd probably never discard you'd never get out run out of your deck right uh but yeah yeah i think i think the chess are really cool it it it does balance well right in terms of okay i'm drawing a lot but that means i can you're not as burned by what you're getting in your hand especially if you have chest because you're like god another [ __ ] floor to leave oh wait a minute i have that i have this chest right oh okay well i'm just gonna go ahead and uh and you know put that down and now it's three bags and now i can go over here
and get inkwells right so um it it's more um if you definitely play with both you won't feel starved in a way shape or form basically if you set it up with both and then just say what you want to do and just do it don't even play the game just be like hey i want to put people down okay you can i mean uh so if i had played i went in with both i would probably cut these by half yeah just to make it where is actually a viable but what would be annoying about that though is if that was someone's strategy then they'd burn through it super quick and the game would be over and it's like i don't even get to do anything right yeah i really wish they could have done it one of two ways they could have said let me just double check it's if it's in here yeah before before um no no it um no okay just double checking but it does not say in any of these either of these rule books hey we recommend you don't combine these because uh some games like steam watchers did that or they're like a lot of the games are like hey we don't recommend you do it with this expansion or this module these did not say that right so it's like hey don't do it with both if you are going to do it then have a alternate end game condition right because so many times i was sitting there even whenever you were drawing debts or ds i was like when does the game end again yeah like is there a third option like you run out
of people or something uh nope it's the same and it was pretty brutal it was pretty rough it was pretty rough definitely it was wearing on me yeah but we definitely got to get a feel for what both of the expansions are uh on the scale of one time we would give keeper keys probably still an eight still an eight yeah uh i'm a little less i think it's a seven um it's still really good maybe it could be because i didn't touch it as much uh or it wasn't as apparent right as how use uh how useful they were i didn't i do like the fact that you get unique heroes right i think that's really cool uh and how many did you just have the one person in your deck that gave you a lock or did you have more than one no just one that's the one okay and that's the other thing is there are more heroes like even this one right here ivan he has one where it's like he's a one-time use you get a you get a king's order card um oh this is actually a promo no or maybe it's for both or something but then you also get a chest but there are ways that allow you to get more chests right that could be viable and they're worth nine points if you have right a set of three at the end uh but honestly both of these like i would play with one or the other at any given time yeah alternate be like oh you know do i want a more do i want a more loose game than you do keeper of keys right i think
yeah if you want better um better cards and more versatility with your icons definitely get keeper keys and i think if you still want pure vi counts uh just with a different endgame condition right than gates of gold right so it's apparent my favorite of the two is gates of gold you gave both of them an eight which one would you like would you pick up um so probably keep her keys because of the cardboard it's a bad reason but keep your keys for the cardboard obviously definitely yeah it's definitely a reason to grab that is the it's the improved board honestly um yeah i mean it adds good enough content for me if i'm going at an expansion it's good enough um but the board probably gives me the tipping point for it yeah that is fair uh okay yeah i mean that's that's pretty much it those both of these expansions eight for gates of gold for me and that's seven for keeper keys but both eights from zach for both of them uh definitely pick one or both of them up if uh i mean i would say just get both then you just have a lot of ways to play vi counts right um on the scale of one to ten whether it's vi counts for you uh by counts is a nine is a nine at
least yeah if not ten yeah i know way back when it came out it was a it's a 10 out of 10. um with both of them it does drop to a 9 but obviously i won't play with both of them again so i think it would stay out of 10 which i think it says 10 for me too it's it's in my collection you like this one better than paladins oh you do like holidays better yeah okay so balance beats out by counts by counts beats out uh architects okay um and architects is probably a nine for me in those groupings pal this is a solid 10. yeah hardcore 10. yeah with with both paladins expansion which you can check out our our review of that one yep um there's just the one that was very surprised i think another one is coming out yep yep and then so this one came out with both back to back right and with both expansions and the expansion for paladins i really like the paladins expansion i think it still kept it pretty tight with giving you more options but it wasn't like as oh i [ __ ] i got [ __ ] over by these in cards so i can't do anything um yeah i think my count is still going to be a 10 and i do put this one over paladins but it's like six of one you know like at any given point i play either right and that's why i found when i've
talked to most people who like the west kingdom series by counts or paladins edge each other out just depending on the person yeah there's no rhyme or reason some people just like one more the other almost everybody puts architects below them i don't like architects i think it's just i think the gimmick is really cool with all of its workers but it for me it's always like you're just edging the whole time because no one's gonna let you have an explosive turn right so it's like well like so you might as well just limit people on how many workers they can get that's that's my own experience that's why it's like whatever my people just keep getting arrested you're not you're not gonna let me have eight workers in that spot so right and i can't do anything to ramp right to then get it and then you arrest them all so it's like whatever in both of these vi counts with the expansions and paladins it's like there's not really a whole lot you can do the [ __ ] with me no except take the end card i want or the manuscript which there were a couple times that you went in and i'm like yeah that's a perfect one for me and he went there and got it damn it oh well that's that uh and that's just kind of that's fine right me so yeah all right you got anything else on both these nope okay well that is our thoughts on gates of gold and keeper of keys let us know what you think of both these expansions in the comments below other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you hey everyone thank you for watching i really hope that you enjoyed the video if you would like to see more of my
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