Tumult Royale: Who Is The Greediest Royal?

Build statues in your honor, claim royal titles, race for goods, but don’t get too greedy or your subjects will have something to say about it!

Each player is a royal who wants to fill the kingdom with statues of themselves (who doesn’t?). But there are limited resources and you won’t just be sharing with other players but with the peasants of the land as well.

Gameplay

Each player takes the twenty five statues of their player color and a castle board. The castle board shows the sequence of each round and lists the commodities needed to build on each of the five types of terrain. The kingdom is randomly built. The kingdom will consist of four to eight tiles, depending on player count, and half of the tiles begin the game face down.

Kingdom tiles show squares of terrain: pasture, mountain, forest, palace, and village. Each player starts the game by placing one of their statues on any empty pasture square. Players then each take a certain number of supporter tiles, and each player is dealt a nobility rank tile (rank helps determine turn orders during certain phases and helps break ties). All the commodity tiles are then placed in the center of the table face down and the game begins.

During the first phase of each round, the player with the king nobility rank tile takes the people’s sentiment board and spins the dial on it. The dial can land on any number from two to five. This number is how many units of each commodity the peasants want to remain on the table after players have collected. Three tiles are then randomly removed from those face down on the table. A sand timer is started and players, using only one hand, may start looking at the commodity tiles on the table, picking them up one at a time. If you find one you want to keep, you may place it on your castle board. There are three types of commodities, and a tile may show one to three copies of a commodity.

After the time runs out, all the tiles on the table are flipped over and the commodities remaining of each type are counted. For each commodity type, if there are not the number required by the peasants, than the player who took the most of that commodity type is called the greediest, loses three supporter tiles, and may only keep one tile they took of that commodity.

Next, players may spend their commodities to build statues. You may only build on a terrain square that is adjacent to a square you already have a statue on (unless it is a forest or pasture square, in which case you may spend double in order to build on one that is not adjacent to one of your statues). When building on a mountain, pasture, or woods square you only place one statue, when building on a village you place two, and when building on a palace you place three. If you overpay to build a statue, you gain supporters in exchange. You also earn supporters if you cannot build a statue this round. After each player has placed a statue (or passed) players will have a chance to place more statues if they have the commodities for it.

Players then count their supporter tiles. The player with the most supporters takes the king tile rank and discards five supporters. The king places one of his statues (or two in later rounds) on the round tracker. At various points on the round tracker, the facedown kingdom tiles are revealed. The player with the least statues on the board at the end of each round receives the people’s mercy for the next round, which means when counting your commodities to see if you are the greediest player, you will subtract one from your total.

All the commodities are then placed back on the table facedown and shuffled, and a new round begins. The player with the most statues on the board at the end of the game is the winner.

Review

Tumult Royale has a fun sense of humor with its theme and they use it well with their mechanics. It’s always enjoyable to see if the peasants are satisfied each round and, when they’re not, determining who’s the most greedy.

The nobility rank tiles are also double-sided — so, for example, you can be the king or choose to be the queen instead. This is always a nice addition to a game, and one I appreciate. In general, the components are solid and the artwork is bright and colorful.

When the sand tile flips and players begin to race through the commodity tiles, looking for what they want, sometimes having to make snap decisions to alter their plans if they’re not coming across the right tiles, it’s exhilarating and often devolves into laughter.

Tumult Royale is easy to teach, offers some fun strategic choices as you choose both which tiles to search for and which terrain squares to build on, and mixes it all in with some fun real time moments. There’s nothing in Tumult Royale that will win players over if this isn’t a genre that typically works for them, but if you enjoy racing against other players and trying to perform actions as quickly as possible while a clock ticks down, Tumult Royale is an excellent entry into the genre.

Pros: Nice blend of choices with real time moments, fun art style, double sided nobility rank tiles,

Cons: Won’t win over people who do not typically enjoy speed games

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.