Paladins Of The West Kingdom Solo Review

Armour on, swords drawn

If you’re a fan of medium to heavy weight games and you want to get a full experience, might I suggest that you don your armour and take on the mighty dragon that is the AI in Paladins of the West Kingdom. It is 900 AD, and the city needs to be developed and protected from enemies. Whilst the game itself has a wonderful feel at 2 to 4 players, sometimes, you can’t get the numbers together. Or you want to learn the game in a stress-free environment so you can teach it at a later date. I talked about the Architects of the West Kingdom solo game before, so now let’s go forward in time to the second game in the series!

Solo Differences

Paladins plays exactly the same for the human player – taking your turn by playing a certain number of workers out to the different action spots and competing them as necessary. Between your turns though, you’ll have an AI to deal with. Happily, this AI isn’t too tricky to manage. First you need to set it up by flipping over one of the player boards to the AI side, then stack the Attribute Markers at zero, with blue Influence at the bottom, black Faith in the middle and red Strength on top. Put the Resource Marker on the far-left spot of the track, then set aside the 5 “King’s Favour” scheme cards. Shuffle the remainder of the scheme cards and place the deck face down on the right spot for the cards. Place out the Monks, Outposts and Absolves on the AI board as usual.

Next, decide on your difficulty. Shuffle the six King’s Order cards and deal out a number depending on the difficulty. One for an easy game, three for a standard game and five for a hard experience. Whichever of the King’s Order cards you reveal, place a Workshop on the relevant action space. Shuffle the cards again and place them out on the main board as usual, only this time, place a Workshop on top of each card. On top of each King’s Favour cards, put one of the King’s Favour Scheme cards on top of it. Now you’re ready to play.

On rounds 1 to 3, you will add the AI Workshop sat on the King’s Order cards to the action space matching the revealed King’s Order. This makes the action easier for the AI to complete. On rounds 3-7, add the King’s Favour Scheme card to the Scheme Discard pile (the spot to the left of the Scheme deck.) In the Tavern step, only reveal two cards and choose one for yourself. The AI player doesn’t get the workers from Tavern cards, but instead they get three plus the current round number. The colour doesn’t matter, all workers are the same to the AI. They will get a Suspicion per purple Criminal gained, including on the unchosen Tavern card.

There are a few specifics you need to be aware of, like the AI not gaining Provisions, Silver or Tax, instead moving up the resource track, which can impact the target of recruiting Townsfolk, King’s Favour cards and converting or attacking Outsiders. Since the AI doesn’t gain resources, it also doesn’t need them to undertake certain actions that have a resource costs.

Now for the gameplay – You will always take the first turn in a round, then you’ll flip over a scheme card, triggering an action. Place the number of workers required on the relevant action space and do the action as you would for yourself. However, if you are unable to take the action for the AI, either due to a lack of workers or the space is already blocked, you instead take the first available action across the top of the AI board. Once the AI turn has finished, you take a turn and keep going until you pass. The AI keeps going until it either runs out of workers or it ends up taking the Rest action.

The rulebook has a breakdown on each of the actions which I won't go into because I’ve already waffled on a fair bit, but for the most part the actions work the same way for the AI as they do for you. At the end of the round, the AI player returns any leftover workers to the supply and leaves the Scheme cards as they are between rounds. Also discard the second-right-most Townsfolk card and second-left-most Outsider card as well as the ones you usually get rid of at the end of the round.

After 7 rounds have completed, you will score the same way for your AI opponent as you do for yourself. Most points wins!

Final Thoughts

I absolutely adore the West Kingdom series. I think the games are fantastic and the solo modes are incredibly well thought out. I think they’re great to learn the games without a huge amount of admin that distracts from the gameplay for the player. Paladins is the heaviest of the three, in my opinion, and it does have the most upkeep that you must deal with whilst playing. But really, I don’t mind that at all. I like having an opponent that I score against and having one that I have to work on to keep track of how they’re doing, which gives me something to compete against.

I really like playing Paladins because it gives me a real brain workout, trying to stretch my turns as much as possible and getting the benefits to score. We’ve had a lot of thoughts on Paladins in the Zatu regular review, which I largely agree with and I think the solo mode gets rid of one of the biggest hiccups of the multiplayer game which is: ANALYSIS PARALYSIS! I mean, specifically the AP of your opponent. It’s a good solo mode, but it can’t solve your issues. Sorry about that. Because the Scheme cards are pretty easy to understand, just stating the action the AI is taking, you know how things are going to go. If you can do the action, you do this thing. If not, you do this one. The iconography is clear on the board and if you need to check something, it’s a pretty straightforward look up in the rule book.

If you like Paladins of the West Kingdom, but don’t like how long it takes for your significant other to take their turn, maybe consider playing the solo mode. Maybe encourage them to do the same. You learn twice as fast what every action does when you’re taking your own turn and your opponents at the same time. Worst case scenario, you’ll have played a lovely game.

That concludes our thoughts on Paladins of the West Kingdom. Do you agree? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames. To buy Paladins of the West Kingdom today click here!