Carl A.
United States
Tennessee
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You've finally been able to amass enough gold for an insanely expensive building, but you're looking at the character cards and the thief is missing! Which means either Uncle Bob or Mom has him, and will try to take your hard-earned treasure. Or the thief could be lying face-down in the middle of the table, out of reach of those potential..uh..thieves. But you can't take that risk! What character will they think you'll pick? Should you pick the Magician, because no one would ever think you'd pick the Magician. Or would they think you thought they'd think that, and steal from the Magician anyway? The game's afoot!
Citadels is a deceivingly simple card game of city building, gold, and power. Play revolves around 8 characters with unique powers, which players shuffle and choose from every round. You hoard gold in order to build districts, using the characters to boost your income or hinder your opponents. The real meat comes when a players attempt to hurt each other. Assassins or thieves must state a character(not a person) to attack, but no one knows for sure who is playing what character. You can make educated guesses off of what characters you saw when you were picking yours, or other small details, but there's almost always the chance of attacking a unused character or the wrong person.
Aside from character intrigue the game is simple: On your turn you can take two gold or two cards and keep one(city districts you can build). You can build one district if you wish, and use your character special. That's it, and play continues until someone builds 8 districts and you tally up points, which is largely the cost of all your districts.
The art is great but has a grisly feel, depending on the card.(Ex.The prison has a very different feel than the ball room) But it's nothing a sharpie can't fix, my brother turned a plummeting prisoner into a bird with the power of Sharpie.
The game is very compact. In fact, I've been carrying it to school hoping I can fit in a game during one of my hour breaks.
Picking characters is a little slow, especially when first learning and no one knows what the characters do.
The edition that I have comes with the Dark City expansion, which adds new characters you can replace old ones with as well as more special "purple" district, both of which boost replayability.
One of it's main points is that anyone can play it, but the game rewards those who think deep about the possibilities of who has what character. What's fun is when the deep thinkers are so wrapped up in competing against each other that they don't notice when the "lesser threat" wins the game by being completely unhindered.
The character cards can get rather frayed after a lot of games, I recommend getting some plastic card sleeves. It makes them harder to fit in the box but eliminates the possibility of "He's got the thief since the thief has a ripped corner!" Which takes 60% of the fun out of the game. If I can't spend my board game time stealing my friends' money, what's the point of playing? 
The 2 player rules are surprisingly epic, while not as fun as a game actually designed for 2 people.
Summary
Publishers: Fantasy Flight Games
Players: 2-7, but it's built more for 5+
Ages: 10+
Game Length: 40-60 min.
Pros:
-Very well designed
-Simple
-Bonus cards boost replayability
-Great art
-Small
Cons:
-If you don't like intrigue, a fair bit of back-stabbing and deep thinking, this is definitely not your cup of oatmeal
-Some card art is disturbing, for those of you with kids. Sharpie Time!
I copy and paste my reviews off of my blog, boardgamebusters.blogspot.com.
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Richard Hecker
Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
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Not a bad review, well done. I disagree with the art as 'disturbing'. What would you have expected from a medieval themed game?
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David Matson
United States
Bountiful
Utah
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Nice review of a great game! Although most card art is fine, I agree on one or two of the cards having disturbing imagery, especially the prison card with naked limbs of dead people hanging over some type of platform, carrion pecking away at a dead body, body plummeting toward earth from a catwalk, etc. Wouldn't want my young kids examining that card too closely.
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Richard Hecker
Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
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I agree with the ick on those, but this is a game for older kids at best.
At least you didn't mentioned the naked faerie on the Palace. That tiresome complaint still crops up now and then.
The crooked nose on the merchant on the other hand is a bit off colour.
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Lars Wagner Hansen
Denmark
Sorø
Any time, any place!
Fingers off, that's my car!
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BGBuster wrote: Summary
Publishers: Fantasy Flight Games
Players: 2-7, but it's built more for 5+
Ages: 10+
Game Length: 40-60 min.
Game length is only accurate when playing with 4-5 players. If playing with 6-7 players playing time is more likely 70-90 minutes which is to long IMO.
The 2-3 player game is really the best IMO. Each player gest 2 characters, so even on turns wher you get assassineted, yoy still get the actions from your other character.
Playing time for a 2-3 player game is usually in the 30-40 minute range.
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Carl A.
United States
Tennessee
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This was originally written for my blog, the sole audience being my extended family who are entirely newlyweds. Hence the kid emphasis.
I've since played Zombies!!! and the Call of Cthulhu LCG, opening up a whole new meaning of disturbing. Most educating.
Quote: The 2-3 player game is really the best IMO. Each player gest 2 characters, so even on turns wher you get assassineted, yoy still get the actions from your other character.
The rules aren't very specific for the 2 players, though.
Ex. If you have the Magician and the Warlord, and the Warlord gets thieved, can you just blow all your money on the Magician's turn?
True dat about player time, I just pulled those figures off the box. Their fault. 
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Richard Hecker
Australia
Melbourne
Victoria
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BGBuster wrote: I've since played Zombies!!! and the Call of Cthulhu LCG, opening up a whole new meaning of disturbing. Most educating. The rules aren't very specific for the 2 players, though. Ex. If you have the Magician and the Warlord, and the Warlord gets thieved, can you just blow all your money on the Magician's turn?
Can I suggest you try Last Night on Earth. The best of the zombie games I think, and one that scales nicely from 2 - 6 players. Easy game (including from my wargamer, game-ain't-a-game-'till-it-takes-three-months-to-play perspective) that plays in an hour or so, evocative, and just enough atmosphere to engage even nongamers.
To the Citadels rules, since you play in character order, you know the Warlord will lose the money so it forces you to build on the Magicians turn. It adds a layer of strategy that the one-character 4+ player game misses. The 5+ player game can draaaaag since it take so long to get anything done.
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