Louis XIV
Author: Rüdiger Dorn
Publisher: Ravensburger
Year: 2005
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Basking in the light of the Sun King, that’s what we’re after in this game! To earn the favour of Louis XIV we have to crawl, bribe and entice our way through his court. With our influence we obtain cards and chips that can be used to fulfil secret missions and score victory points.
The board consists of character cards that depict twelve portraits of close relations of the king. In the open spaces between the character cards, the supplies of mission chips are placed, as well as the general reserve of all players’ influence tokens. In addition, there are mission cards, influence cards, intrigue cards, money cards and shield tokens.
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Each round consists of 4 phases. In phase 1, the supply phase, the first money card is turned over to determine the position of Louis XIV. Also, all players receive the amount of money indicated on the card. Additionally, everybody receives five influence cards that show a portrait of one of the relations of the king.
In phase 2, the real stuff takes place: we try to influence the different characters. Starting with the first player, each player plays one of his influence cards. He may place up to three influence tokens from his personal reserve on the depicted character card.
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If he wishes, he may move these tokens diagonally to an adjacent character card, provided that he leaves at least one influence token behind on the character card he started from. Instead of placing influence tokens, players are also allowed to take three influence tokens from the general reserve into their personal reserve. This phase lasts until all players run out of influence cards; they are not allowed to keep them for a later round. |
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| In phase 3, we get to find out how effective our attempts to influence the various characters have been. On every character card there’s a table that shows what rewards can be obtained from that character, and what the conditions are to obtain this reward. Mostly it’s about mission chips, shield tokens or cards, and sometimes about money or influence in the next round. Starting with character card 1, all cards are scored. If there’s a ‘1.’ on the card, only the person with the most influence tokens receives the reward. If there’s a tie, all parties go home empty handed. If, on the other hand, there’s a certain number of coins depicted, the person with the highest number of influence tokens gets the reward for free, but all other players with influence tokens on this card can buy the reward with a bribe. |
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