Charterstone Review-in-Progress

Thanks to our good friends at Stonemaier Games, we had the fantastic opportunity to play Charterstone, a legacy board game experience spread over 12 campaigns. You and your friends have been dropped into the world of Charterstone, and are required to build a kingdom of charters in the name of the Forever King. As you play, construct buildings, collect resources and grow your charter, your fellow players will be doing it as well. Everyone competes game-in-and-game-out to not only win that specific game, but win the entire campaign. Let’s jump in!

This review was originally going to consist of a full 6 player campaign. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we have been reduced to simply playing a two player adventure. As of right now, we have only played through 8 adventures of 12. Everything below is something you’d do in game one or game two, to avoid spoilers.

In Charterstone, players are creating their own little charters within a larger kingdom, using the building locations available across the entire kingdom. During each game, players will use their two workers to place on various buildings around the kingdom, earning different resources that they can use for a variety of purposes, although earlier on that is limited to building. Every slot on the board is open as long as the cost requirements are met, which means if one player wants to use a space that another player is on, they can do so, bumping the opposite players worker back to their supply. If a player ever has no more workers in their supply, they must return all workers from the board to their supply, ending their turn. No new workers can be played at that time.

As players gain resources and coins, they will have options available to them in the middle of the board.  One allows players to open chests and earn new buildings, rewards, and potentially new game play elements. Alternatively, players can finish a mission, build a building, swap resources for gold, or use gold and resources to obtain new cards.

A players actions are limited in two ways – by the number of workers available to them, and by the number of influence tokens left in their supply. Influence tokens are used to place on the reputation track (which earns victory points at the end of each game), to complete missions, construct buildings, and much more. With only 12 to work with, it’s important to place them wisely. In many cases, the influence tokens cannot be regained once spent.

Below is the official Watch It Played video from Rodney Smith, in collaboration with the games publisher. This is a fairly difficult game to explain by text, so hopefully this video will be a good resource to how the game is played!

What makes Charterstone unique is that you begin the game with an empty board, and fill it in as you play. Even if playing with less than the maximum of 6 players, all spots on the board will eventually be filled using alternative rules for unused charters. When the campaign is over, players will have a unique Charterstone board that can be then used as a regular board game, which makes this experience incredibly unique. But back to the game…

As players construct buildings, they will often get the chance to open chests, using icons on the cards to determine which buildings have crates that can be opened. When opening crates, players consult the index box and select specific cards from the Charter Chest to add into the game, generally given to the player who opens the chest. These are then added to their supply, outside of Persona Cards, which are put aside for the next game.

Persona Cards, and other cards called Assistants, are unique cards that give your charter other benefits, which range from giving victory points for performing specific actions, or even regaining spent influence tokens. They vary, but having them in your supply is usually good.

As players make their way through each scenario within the campaign, they will earn points towards their final score (if they are victorious in the current game), as well as increasing the size of their storage chests (if they were the loser that game). Increased storage size means players can carry more items, funds, and resources from one game to the next. Players then gain Glory based on the number of victory points accumulated during that game. For every 10 points, players receive one Glory. Glory can be used by filling in stars on the back of the charter chest. When a complete row is filled in, players receive that additional benefits (could be an extra resources, extra gold, etc) at the beginning of each game, during the setup phase.

There are a ton of moving parts within Charterstone, but here is what you need to know, in point form for easy reading:

1. There are so many components that will unlocked as you play, including new cards, new items, and so much more. While your first two games might seem confusing, and at times slow, things ramp up quickly.
2. There are rule wordings that won’t make sense early on – for example, early on you are told you can carry forward up to 4 cards from one game to the next, but are limited to one card per type. With 4 slots, and only 2 different card types in the game, we were initially confused. This, and any other rules that seem odd, will work out in the end.
3. You likely won’t win every game, and while it is important to focus on the short game (as winning a game can earn you victory points for the overall campaign score, there are several other ways to earn points at the end of the game.

Components Review

Like all games from Stonemaier Games, the components in Charterstone are top notch. All of the little pieces you use to play with are solid wood, and feel and look great. Cards are glossy and nice to the touch, and the stickers are easily removable from the cards, but stick firmly to the board once played.

Also included with Charterstone are solid metal coins, as opposed to cardboard pieces. This is a phenomenal additional bonus to the game – while cardboard pieces would have easily worked, the solid metal coins give the game that extra premium feel.

While playing Charterstone, you’ll often be asked to place cards in the Archive box, and this is for good reason. You may notice that with your initial purchase of Charterstone, you received a two sided board; each side is identical until you begin placing stickers. That is because the publisher provides you the opportunity to purchase a recharge kit, which will come with a whole set of new cards, new Charterstone chests, and a few other items that need to be replaced. By consulting the Archive box, players can easily determine which cards need to be put back into their game, so they can easily play another full campaign!

Game Play Review

What generally makes me tire of worker placement games is when actions are limited by the moves of other players. For example, if in a worker placement game, where there is only one place to get a specific resources, and only one or two players can go there per turn. In Charterstone, that doesn’t happen, which makes it a much less stressful experience. At any time, a player can place his worker on a spot occupied by another players worker. In that situation, the other player’s worker is bumped back to their supply to be used again.

While there is no disadvantage to the player doing the bumping, there is a huge advantage to the player getting a worker back, as that will allow him or her to take an additional action before having to collect all his workers (as part of a turn).

But what I really like about Charterstone is how the game introduces new concepts and ideas. Just when my wife and I got comfortable with the rules in games 1 and 2, we were given a new game play element in game 3, and an additional element in game 4. And these new elements are added at the perfect time, and it appears that some might never get added, which could be the reason why the game could be played twice, with different outcomes each time!

Conclusion

As you have seen, we’ve tagged this review as “in progress.” There is much for us to write about yet – including our impressions on the final story, once complete. At this time, however, this game has crept into my top 5 of all time. By straddling the line between fully functional legacy game, as well as a standalone board game when you are done, there is so much value here for your entry price. This is an easy recommendation to anyone.