The premise of the game is that the land has been ravaged by tornadoes. The King has charged his sons to rebuild the castles and promised his throne to the one who can rebuild the tallest and largest castles.

Once a year, the King tours the castles, to judge the progress of each son. After the third tour, he will choose a successor.

The board has a scoring track circling an 8 x 8 grid on which the castles are to be built. The castles are built from plastic tower blocks. Players earn points at the end of each of the 3 years for each castle where they have a knight. (These knight pieces are wooden, as is the King piece). The score is the surface area of the castle multiplied by the level the knight is stood on. Whoever has most points after three years, wins.

Each player has six knight pieces in their colour. The three phase cards show the different phases for 2,3 or 4 players. Basically, the more players that play the less tower blocks they have to use.

The game recommends playing a basic game before playing the Master game. I'd recommend going straight to the full game as the changes are minor, but do add more strategies without adding more complexity.

In the full game, each player gets a set of ten identical Action cards. (The basic game has these shuffled into one deck). These action cards distort the building and moving rules and are quite well thought out.

The game begins with 8 tower blocks already in place on the board, and each player also has a knight in play, along with the King. These all begin on different tower blocks. Each player gets a quantity of tower blocks, which they can use for castle building. Each turn, a player has 5 Action points(AP) to spend in any order on 4 Actions (5 actions in the basic game, as you have to buy the Action cards). These actions are as follows:
Add a knight - this costs 2 AP. A new knight can only be placed adjacent to a knight you already have in play and can also only be placed on the same of lower level than that knight. (Adjacency is only orthogonal, not diagonal).
Move a Knight - Costs 1AP per space moved. Again, a knight can only move orthoganal and can also go up one level per move, but can go down as many levels as possible for 1AP. Movement is always to unoccupied spaces or tower blocks.
This would take forever to get around the game board except for an additional rule - Each tower block has four doors, and for 1AP a knight can move through one door and exit another door anywhere in that castle, except on a higher level than from where he starts.
Place a Tower block - This costs 1AP per block. At the start of each year, players must arrange their blocks into stacks. Only one stack can be played each turn. Any blocks not played can be added to other stacks, except that no stack can have more than three blocks in it. In a 2 player game, players begin with four blocks of three, so unused blocks have to be discarded.
These blocks can be added to any castles a player chooses by either adding it alongside an existing block, making the surface area bigger, or adding onto another block, making the castle taller. A block cannot be added to a castle to make it taller than its surface area. Castles cannot be joined up, so castles can only touch diagonally. (Now all you have to do is get a knight on top of that block to score higher)
Play an Action Card - This doesn't cost any AP, but only one Action card can be played a turn. These Action cards affect the normal building and moving rules and once used it cannot be used again.
The last Option is to use 1AP and move one space on the scoring track. Not very exciting, and would be a waste of an Action point, except that only one marker can be in one space on the scoring track, and if a space is occupied you move to the next free space, which could move you 2,3 or 4 spaces if used at the right time.

As you can see, each turn you want to do more than you can. You need to build outwards and upwards, but you also need to get your knights on top of those towers to score the most. Only one knight scores in each castle, usually, but more knights can only be added adjacent to existing knights, so these then have to be moved away and up some other castle. And the other players also want their knights up high as well. As I played our first 4 player game, I could see allsorts of strategies unfolding which weren't at first apparent. As a result, I came last. But then I played a 2 player game, used those missed opportunities and won. This is a game I really want to play some more.

Scoring, as I said earlier, is from the surface area of a castle multiplied by the level your knight is on. So if the castle covers 6 spaces and your knight is on level 3, you would score 18. Get it to level 6 and you'd score 36 in the same castle. As you can only go up 1 level a move, getting up there can be a problem, unless you plan properly.

Additional scoring involves the King. (remember him?) Each year he gives a scoring bonus. In Year 1, any knights on Level 1 of the castle he occupies get 5 points. In Year 2, any knights on Level 2 of the castle he occupies get 10 points. In Year 3, Knights in his castle on level 3 get a 15 point bonus. A player can only get one Kings Bonus a year, no matter how many knights of his colour are on the right level.

After scoring, the player with the lowest score can move the king to any other space in any castle and on any level. Even this simple move can be used agressively or defensively. Move the King to help increase your score in a castle you own, or move the King up high in an opponents castle to deny him that space.

This review has got quite lengthy already. This game offers so much in way of gameplay with such simple rules - which for me, is the hallmark of a typical good german game.

I mentioned the Action cards earlier to modify the build and move rules. For example, one card lets you move 1 space diagonally, which may also be up a level as well. Perfect for jumping from one castle to another as these can only touch diagonally.
Another example: Move a knight into an adjacent door and exit from any door in this castle on any level to an empty space. This can save loads of APs in getting to the top of a tall castle. Plan it right, and you can get to the very top of a tall castle for free! Brilliant.

Oh yes, those Master Cards. There are eight of these, which are shuffled and one placed by the board. These cards award points for achieving certain objectives, such as getting all six knights in a row diagonally for a massive 50 points. You may not go for it yourself, but you need to be aware of it, so you can foil other players plans of achieving it. In my last game, my son failed to spot I'd got all six in a row. If he had stopped me, he would have won.

SUMMARY:
I said right at the beginning that this game has won Game of the Year and deservedly so. It offers so much strategy on something the size of a chess board. Add it to your collection now. You won't regret it.

Footnote: Two sides of my box have the name printed upside down.Curious :)

Review by Brian