A Column of Fire

Description

A Column of Fire is the third Ken Follett title within Kosmos Games’ literary trilogy. The predecessors – The Pillars of the Earth, and World Without End – also take place in Follett’s fictional Kingsbridge series. The setting is Elizabethan England, in the 16th century. Political wars are ever-brewing across Europe. Catholics and Protestants jostle for power in Paris, Seville, Antwerp and Kingsbridge, itself. Here you’ll align yourself with one of the faiths, and look to establish trading houses in the four cities. But the art to winning this game can come in switching faiths when it suits you! A Column of Fire is a race, of sorts, with a game-end trigger of 50 points. You earn them in many ways, including a clever form of dice rolling and selection. Each city has a face-up character associated with it that provides continual rewards. On your turn you roll the coloured dice, which represent the cities. You then select a die to claim one of the characters. The numbers on the dice represent how many turns you’ll keep that character in your tableau. You keep the die face on that card, as a visual reminder. This does two things. One: At the start of each round, you trigger all the rewards in your tableau, and each die face descends by one. Two: this also ‘locks’ this die out of the game for you, until it descends below ‘1’. It’s a clever push-and-pull mechanism. A ‘6’ means you’ll get that reward six times… But it also means you can’t use that die for the next six turns! This is also crucial, because after picking a new character, you get to move around a bonus action rondel. The location you move to is a colour that corresponds with a die colour you haven’t used yet. You also get to place a trading house in that character’s city, on the number matching your die. This allows you to trade resources here for points. Characters provide presence in their city for either the Catholics or the Protestants. If a city reaches boiling point, the majority wins and those aligned with said faith gain rewards. Meanwhile, those on the wrong side of the faith get driven out of town! There’s plenty of decisions here, which is what we’ve come to expect from designer Michael Rieneck. Player Count: 2-4 Players Time: 60-90 minutes Age: 12+