Board Game Review: Prince of the City

Last week I wrote about White Wolf's World of Darkness line of roleplaying games, so I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about one of their simpler properties, a board game called Prince of the City. Released in 2006 as a less involved supplement to the RPG Vampire: The Requiem, this board game is relatively easy to grasp for first-timers but has a lot of room for strategy in the case of long-time players.

PotC can accommodate up to five players and is designed to last as long as everyone still wants to play. The aim of the game is to help your vampire accrue prestige, represented by cardboard tokens, within the supernatural community. At the end of a predetermined number of rounds, whoever has gathered the most influence is dubbed the new Vampire Prince and thus the winner of the game. It's not an easy road to princedom, though. Your opponents will be fighting fang and claw to dominate the city.

Each of the five players chooses a vampire from a particular "clan" that has a series of advantages, disadvantages and special powers designed to either gather prestige or prevent other players from gathering their own. Some methods are more blunt than others. While being a clever blood-sucker who manipulates social events in his or her favor is certainly effective, one can't crash a party with a stake in one's heart. Because it's every vamp for itself, a big part of Prince of the City is making sure not to make too many enemies too early in the game.

The PotC board is made up of large "territory" tiles that represent various parts of the city. The Entertainment section includes territories like a night club and a fashion district, while there are Residential, Transportation, Religious and other territories around the board. A player can issue "influence" tokens to a territory and thereby claim a certain amount of prestige from it. When a player controls all the territories in a particular section, it is considered a "domain" that gives bonus prestige.

To throw an added bit of excitement into the game, there are a number of Event cards mixed in with the stack of other cards that represent special equipment, helpful NPC's and extra territory-based advantages. Event cards impose a problem on the city that affects all players and can be solved (usually with a lot of help from other players) in exchange for prestige.

Prince of the City is very well-organized, allowing it to retain the complexity of high-level board games without being overwhelming. Each round consists of a series of phases. The Resource Phase allows your vampire to hunt for blood to fuel his or her powers, pick up useful cards or trade with other players. The Movement Phase is when players move their vampires to territories where they'll plan their next machination. Next is the Challenge Phase when players can attack one another or take on one of the Event cards. This is followed by the Influence Phase when players take control of new territories or steal away territories from their opponents. Finally, the Resolution Phase is when everyone tallies the prestige they've gathered over the course of the round. It may seem complex to newbies, but the rhythm and easy to follow clan charts make it a breeze.

Prince of the City is a fun, if involved, board game with a lot of character and plenty of room for customization. A game can last 30 minutes, several hours, or even several days. The math does get a little complicated late in the game and there certainly aren't enough tokens to cover a 20-round session, let alone the 70+ listed on the board, but only the most dedicated players would even consider going that long. The amount of variety ensures a high replay value and the considerable social variable makes "no-fail" strategies effectively impossible. Even if you're not familiar with White Wolf's World of Darkness, give this game a try.