Viscounts of the West Kingdom

Viscounts of the West Kingdom occupies an odd position in the series: familiar euro machinery, arranged so that it never settles into routine. Its modified rondel has proper character. It creates decisions with consequence rather than simply providing a route through an already-solved turn.

A turn moves through that rondel, and each location presents a different set of cards whenever it is visited. That variability is where the luck lives, but it is also where the game earns its texture: it does not reward memorising a sequence so much as adapting to the tools currently on offer.

The interesting decision is how far ahead you can plan without becoming attached to the plan. By the time your turn returns, the board may have shifted enough to make your intended move distinctly second-best; player interaction comes through that instability in the shared space. Even the committed heavy-euro calculator will occasionally find that the neat continuation has evaporated.

That friction is not a flaw to be apologised for. Viscounts is, without doubt, the best game in the West Kingdom series. The expansion makes more sense as a separate experiment, while Tomesaga is stronger without expansions; the base game here is already complete, and quietly excellent.