The White Castle

 

The Game

The Himeji Castle is a famous tourist spot in Japan. The game The White Castle refers to it, and is a heavy Eurogame. One thing which surprised me is the size of the game. When I first saw photos of the game, I had thought it was about the size of Ticket To Ride. It turns out to be much smaller. I guess it's because of how many components it has. It gives the impression of being a bigger game.  

The game components are pretty and well produced. The heron is the player order marker. The round token is the player order advantage marker. Every round the player order is determine by the advantage marker. The fan is the score marker. The three meeples are your warrior, gardener and courtier. 

These cards are used during setup, giving players different starting resources and advantages. 

The central chunk is the Himeji Castle. You send your courtiers here. The higher they go, the more points they score. You find cards here listing actions you can perform when you place dice next to them. The section on the left is the garden. There are three bridges with dice. You will be claiming dice from the bridges to perform actions. You also place gardeners in the garden to claim benefits and score points. At the top right you see training grounds. That's where you place warriors. You gain benefits and at game end your warriors score points based on how many courtiers you have in the castle. 

These bridges are the most eye-catching part of the game. Dice are sorted and when you take one, you must take the lowest or the highest. When you place a die at a spot to perform an action, that spot has a die printed. If your die value is higher, you earn money based on the difference. However if your die value is lower, you have to pay. So normally the higher dice are more desirable. However, if you take a low die, you gain a lantern bonus. Sometimes that is worthwhile. It may even be the better choice, depending on your situation. 

These are some of the locations in Himeji Castle where you can place dice and perform actions. The cards tell you what you can do. The little square tiles on the left of the cards tell you which dice colour does what. If the action you want to perform is linked to a red die, you have to take a red die. 

Generally there are two things you do in this game. You are either collecting resources, or you are spending resources to place a meeple. 

This is your player board. The three tracks on the left are for recording three resources in the game - rice, iron and pearl. You can store at most 7 in each type. You have three types of meeples, and five per type, making a total of 15. The two face-down cards at the bottom right are your lantern bonus. You start the game with just one card, but you may add cards here as the game progresses. The lantern bonus will increase over time. 

These are the training grounds where your warriors are deployed. You spend iron to send them here. The rewards for placing warriors are randomly determined at the start of the game. 

This is the castle gate. To enter the castle, your courtier must first come here. When standing at the gate, they are not considered to be in the castle yet. They must take at least one more step to get inside. However even if they are standing here, they do still score 1 point at game end. See the fan icon at the top right corner of the gate. 

This large beautiful fish is the round marker. 

You can have up to two dice per location. When the second die is placed, you compare its value with that of the first die. Whether you earn money or have to pay depends on the difference. 

If you place a die on your player board, you will gain resources and also perform an action specified by that card on your player board. The amount of resources you gain increases as you deploy more meeples to the main board. More icons are revealed as meeples are taken off your player board. 

The game is played over three rounds. You only have three turns per round. That's not a lot. However there are ways to create chain actions and to claim extra actions. After three rounds, the highest scorer wins the game. 

The Play

The White Castle is a pretty typical heavy Eurogame. You collect resources. You deploy meeples. The interaction is indirect. You don't directly attack. You compete over limited resources - the dice and the dice placement spots. There are various ways to score points, but deploying your meeples is the most important one. 

When I played, I decided to focus on just my courtiers and my warriors. Warriors score points based on how many courtiers go into the castle, so they work well together. I didn't want to be too greedy. Focusing my energy on two out of three types should be efficient. However this strategy didn't quite work. Han managed to place all 15 of his meeples. Needless to say, he won comfortably. I should have been more ambitious. 

One fun bit of the game is how you can create chain actions. Some actions let you place a meeple. When placing a meeple, you get some reward. Sometimes that reward allows you to place a meeple. This is how you can chain actions. You'll still need the necessary resources to be able to place meeples, so you need to prepare enough before you can pull something like this off. At the end of every round, leftover dice on bridges let you gain benefits. This is another way you get to do more or gain more resources beyond your 9 actions. 

Towards late game, the castle gets busier with courtiers.

I made one mistake. I forgot that courtiers at the gate didn't count as being in the castle. So they didn't help warriors score points. I needed to make them take one more step to enter the castle proper. By the time I realised my mistake, it was too late. I couldn't get them all in (I was green) before the game ended. 

Leftover resources at game end may score points for you. The fan icon means points. If you have 7 of a particular resource, that gets you 2 points. 

The Thoughts

The White Castle is at heart an efficiency game. With your limited actions, you try to collect resources as efficiently as possible, and you try to place your meeples as efficiently as possible. In my opinion the game is formulaic, reflecting the current state of heavy Eurogames. Ten years ago, I would not have imagined myself using the term "heavy Eurogames" as something negative. Today I still consider heavy Eurogames my favourite genre. My issue is I find most recent heavy Eurogames lacking in creativity. Not in terms of setting or story, but in game mechanisms. The White Castle has a Japanese setting, and that's actually quite common. The Western audience likes this stuff. It's a good marketing decision. 

If you like heavy Eurogames, The White Castle is precisely one, and you may like it. It's strategic. There is no direct aggression. What I find enjoyable about it is how you can create chain actions. If you plan well, you can orchestrate satisfying super turns. If you are an experienced gamer, don't listen to me. You can judge for yourself whether this game is your type or not.