Knights & Keeps

The idea

In the classic game a city is the end of the line. In Knights & Keeps that's where things start: cities produce commodities, and with those you improve your cities in three areas. Develop an area far enough and you earn a metropolis and lasting special abilities.

At the same time a shared threat grows. A barbarian ship sails towards the island, and when it arrives, everyone together has to muster enough active knights. Contribute too little and you risk losing a city. That turns the race into a question of responsibility as well: if you only build for yourself, you can put everyone in danger.

New rules

• Three dice: alongside the two number dice an event die is rolled. It shows either the barbarian ship or a coloured gate for trade, politics or science.
• Commodities: cities next to forest, pasture and mountains produce paper, cloth or coin instead of the second resource. Cities on hills and fields still bring 2 resources.
• City improvements: cloth improves trade, coin politics, paper science. Level n costs n commodities of the matching type, and each area has 5 levels.
• Special abilities from level 3: commodities at 2:1 with the bank (trade), promoting knights to mighty knights (politics), a resource of your choice when a roll gets you nothing (science).
• Metropolis: the first to reach level 4 in an area upgrades a city to a metropolis. It brings 2 extra victory points and is never pillaged.
• Progress cards: when the event die shows a gate, everyone whose improvement in that colour matches the red die draws a card of that colour. You hold at most 4. There are no development cards in this expansion.
• Knights: cost 1 wool and 1 ore and stand next to your roads. Activating costs 1 grain, promoting 1 wool and 1 ore. There are three levels: basic, strong, mighty.
• City walls: cost 2 brick, at most 3 per player. Each one raises your hand limit on a 7 by 2.
• Robber: sleeps until the barbarians have attacked for the first time.

How the barbarians are counted

The barbarian track has 7 spaces. When the ship reaches the island, its strength is the number of all cities on the board, metropolises included. Against it stands the strength of every player's active knights, each knight counting as much as its level. A tie means the knights hold. If the barbarians win, among the players with a city that can be pillaged, the one with the lowest active knight strength loses a city, and in a tie everyone affected does. The city goes back to being a settlement. If the knights hold, the biggest single contributor becomes Defender of the Island and gets 1 victory point. If several share the biggest contribution, each of them instead picks a deck and draws a progress card. After every attack all knights become inactive again.

Ways to play

Knights & Keeps has no scenarios of its own, but runs on every island map of the classic game, from the standard board to Giant Land, and on your own maps from the Map Workshop. Together with Ships & Islands you play the 7 seafaring scenarios with knights and barbarians, and the target rises by 2 points.

With the Chocolate Market, the market hands out progress cards from a deck of your choice instead of development cards.

Tips

• An early city matters even more here than in the classic game, because only cities produce commodities. That's why many players start with a city next to forest, pasture or mountains.
• Always keep an eye on the barbarian track. When the ship is two spaces away, your knights should be active.
• Reactivate your knights after every attack. Inactive knights don't count towards the defence.
• Pick one improvement area to focus on. The metropolis is worth 2 points and protects a city from pillage for good.
• City walls pay off if you tend to hoard cards. With three walls you can hold up to 13 cards on a 7.
• Once the robber has woken up, knights can also chase it off your hexes.

Combining

Knights & Keeps combines with Ships & Islands and the Chocolate Market. The Event cards variant isn't available with Knights & Keeps, because the event die has its own role here. The classic game without expansions is explained in the rules.