The Castles of Mad King Ludwig Renovations expansion

by Ted Alspach November 01, 2022

The Castles of Mad King Ludwig Renovations expansion is live on Kickstarter now!

by: Ted Alspach

This expansion provides dozens of brand new renovation tiles which can be placed on existing rooms of the same size. Each of the Renovations has TWO types of rooms on it, which doubles completion rewards, connection bonuses, and endgame scoring for those room types. It also includes a new GameTrayz™ organizer for storing the tiles, and that same organizer is used during the game for refilling tiles into the play area. The expansion is simple and easily integrated into the base game, whether you have the original Castles of Mad King Ludwig 1st edition, or the brand new Collector’s Edition!

In addition to the Renovations expansion, we’re making the new 2nd edition of Castles of Mad King Ludwig available through the Kickstarter. This 2-box set has the artwork from the Collector’s edition, GameTrayz™ organizers, and includes all existing expansions, plus the new Renovations expansion! If you have the Colossal Collector’s Edition, there’s a set of Renovations that’s colossal as well, so you can renovate your giant castle.

Renovations started development about 6 months after the Collector’s Edition was submitted to the manufacturer in the summer of 2021 as a companion to the 2nd edition, which was slated to ship in 2023. All sorts of shipping and supply chain delays were slowing down the process for the Collector’s Edition, and while we were waiting for various pieces from the manufacturer to be created for our approval, we started the long process of development on the expansion, aiming for a fall 2022 Kickstarter. Little did we know that the Kickstarter would end up being just a few months after backers of the Collector’s Edition started receiving their games, but the Expansion will not be shipping until at least a year after that.

Let’s talk a little bit about how Renovations works. At the start of the game, when you put out the first set of rooms on the market, you’ll also place a number of renovations equal to the rooms in front of the market area. Initially, these renovations will be the same sizes as the initial set of rooms. You may purchase a Renovation tile for 5000 (which goes to the Master Builder) instead of a room, as long as you have a room of that size to place it on. At the start of each turn, the Renovations are restocked based on the room cards that are drawn, so there are always the same number of renovations as rooms available; with the exception of Tower Rooms.

Each Renovation tile is composed of 2 different room types, but is limited to the types available for that size. For instance, the 100 rooms in Castles are either Food, Utility, or Living rooms, so the 100 size renovations are some combination of those two. For instance, the Dumbwaiter renovation is a combination Utility and Food room. When you complete a room with a renovation on it, you get TWO completion rewards. In the case of the Dumbwaiter, you would get to choose from two Bonus cards (Utility room completion reward) and get to take an extra turn (Food room completion reward). What’s even better is if you completed that room before you placed the Dumbwaiter on it, then you’ll get both of those rewards on the same turn that you place the Renovation!

Renovations tiles are slightly smaller than room tiles, so that the walls and entrances for the original rooms are still visible. Renovations tiles don’t have their own entrances, so they’ll work with any room that is the same size. The room you place onto retains it’s special qualities, such as Downstairs rooms (you can see the darker wall) still being downstairs, even if you Renovate them to a combination of upstairs rooms), and Outdoor rooms still having the fence along the top of the room where nothing can be placed.

Setup and tear down of Renovations is amazingly quick too: the provided GameTrayz™ tray both stores the Renovations and also provides a place to hold Renovations before they are brought into the game. Putting it away is simply putting used Renovations back into the tray (we suggest shuffling them when you put them away so you don’t have to remember to do it the next time you set up the game).

Playing with Renovations adds a new layer of options to each turn, and can make the game more strategic. Because buying a Renovation doesn’t deplete the Room cards, you start with fewer Room cards than in a standard game. Sometimes this can cause the game to go a little longer, especially since the end game will only trigger if at least 2 room stacks have been depleted. You’ll end up building more intricate, larger castles as a result.

While Renovations won’t be out until next year, you can back it on Kickstarter today! Check it out today: https://bezier.games/CASR