Kingsburg Serving the Crown App Reviews

I got this for my iPod. Looks like it would be a nice game to play but the graphic glitches are making it hard to play. Here is an example: Architect "Roll your dice to adjust the turn o_der: t__ _______ _______ lowest sum total will b_ _he first one to act." Each _ represents an illegible letter. Ugh. And whats up with not being able to see the dice. This is a dice game where you make your decisions on the dice rolls.

Let me start out by saying that I’m not a fan of Kingsburg as a board game. Although it is a popular game that many people seem to have connected with a strong way, it struck me as too long, too random and too repetitive. The pieces are all there: a now-classic roll-and-collect game where the die rolls provide you with stuff. Unlike Ra: The Dice Game or Roll Through The Ages, Kingsburg makes you compete with others to get what you want. When you roll and then select an advisor that will give you a certain resource or advantage, no one else can do the same. While there are often other ways for you to get what you need, you usually can’t do it as efficiently. My issue with this kind of game is that efficiency, which we generally strive for in games, doesn’t come from good choices, it comes from lucky rolls. So, Kingsburg amused me for three years (I think) - only to have the game go on two more years! But what about the app itself? Kingsburg on the iPhone/iPad means the game will not only move faster but I can actually remove the annoying analysis paralysis that the game seemed to engender. With all these advisor choices, it could often overwhelm deliberative players and make them take quite a while to determine how they should place their dice, especially since you can put them together for other combos. Anyway, I was quite excited to give the game a try in iPhone format. And for the first game, I was pleasantly surprised that it seemed to move along well. I lost, though, and realized it was because I was hurrying in my consideration of advisors and wasn’t making the best decisions. Why did I hurry? Well, despite the terrific production quality and great artwork in Kingsburg, the learning curve is there. Although the publisher’s come up with a reasonable format to open settings and back to certain screens, the icons used are not always indicative of what you are selecting nor are there clear paths everywhere. Often, I’ve found myself hitting the same wrong choices over and over again, winding through a path of building lists, resources, and advisors that seemed to never end. In a way, I think iOS games often benefit from having fewer paths to places because when you can get anywhere from anywhere, the flurry of options can overwhelm even the savvy player. I think I also hurried to select advisors because I couldn’t really picture all the advisors at once. The producers of the game made a choice that I can only see as sensible - you only see one advisor at a time. When you select a certain choice on the dice (by clicking them), you are presented with the advisor that would be selected with that number of pips. If you add another die, the advisors that woudl come from that addition instantly pops up. Similarly, if you select an extra bonus die or other die-altering choice, the right advisor pops up. In fact, the reaction time on this option is so fast that is it dizzying - heck, I even played with it for a bit to see if I could crash the app (nope, they’re okay). What this failed to give me was a chance to look at all my options at once. Thus, I made poor choices quite often. This is certainly not a crippling flaw for everyone but, for me, this led me to the conclusion that perhaps Kingsburg has too much going on, too large a board that you want to see all at once and too many turns to consider to really work as a eurogame. Just because a game can be reproduced and played on the platform doesn’t mean that it ideally should. Kingsburg is a competent implementation with good music, sound and the AI seemed fine but, I will admit, I’ve only gotten through two games of it so far. I just feel like this one isn’t for me but if you are a Kingsburg fan, you can enjoy this opportunity to knock out a game faster and train for the face-to-face games in the future.

Im not sure what bugs they fixed, butthey introduced a new one. Cant get past the loading screen on my iPad without a crash. Also, when is the expansion coming?

I was so happy that I could now play on my iPad. I turned on Pandora and loaded Kingsburg only to find kills music playback even with the audio turned off in the game. Also, an iPad version would be best.

Originally bought this game for my iTouch. Needs a version optimized for the iPad 2. Also, as a previous reviewer stated, waiting for the promised expansion.

...cant wait for the iPad version!!!

This was a much needed update to fix the graphics, the game was good otherwise, but almost unplayable due to poor graphics, now everything is clear and legible. However, this is not a full retina support app, many of the mobile graphics are largely pixelated.

DO NOT BUY!! Game crashes on load. Tried rebooting and still DOA. Its too bad since the board game is fun.

Nice game, was working fine until last "bug fixes". No it wont pass the title screen on either iPad or iPhone. Annoying.

I cant even get this game to load on my ipad1. It does look better on my wifes ipad2 however.

As game enthusiasts, my wife and I were excited to hear about this title, but unfortunately you cant play it on the iPad since it doesnt load....it only shows the intro music and title screen, then as you see the progress load bar at the bottom, it only gets about 25% loaded then crashes.....we have uninstalled and reinstalled...its too bad since the older version worked ok.... Dont Waste Your Money!

Ive had this app for a long Time (6 months). And it worked without crash for my iPhone. Ill start off by saying it is a great implementation of the boardgame and they really did a good job of showing things like which season it is, etc. it is subtle at first, but it is a complete game. However, I was aware of glitchy iPad issues. And it has a defect where farms subtract 2 from battles instead of just one. It also dishes out resources at end of season out of order. Not a huge deal, but it does impact things every now and then. Now a new update arrived in January, 2012. Supposedly to improve support for iPad. I now have a 35% chance of crashing the app when it is end of year (battle phase). Also, the AI stepped backwards with the black hawk player rarely building and hoarding resources. Ive seen him with 18 gold once!!! I love love love this game but Januarys patch is a big setback. And, of course, the expansion makes this even better (if ever implemented)

Crashes a lot.

Kingsburg in general is a good implementation of the original board game. The app, however, does have some issues. Ever since the latest update, the game frequently freezes. The games AI seems to have been dumbed down as well. Also, support for the retina display seems uneven with certain graphic elements of the game, such as the dice, numbers for the seasons, and the borders on the pull down menu looking as if they havent been updated.

I managed to get the win five with the black eagle but not the win three? Having the same issue with other "amount" badges.

This was a good app until the last update. Now it just crashes both on my iPad version 1 and on my iPhone 4S. Now it doesnt work. come on get a clue and fix this!

I want so badly to give this 5 stars, but I have not been able to finish but 1 game! It crashes constantly! Please fix Please fix Please fix Please fix Please fix Please fix

DO NOT DOWNLOAD! Game crashes upon startup!

Ever since the update it wont load. Get to the screen with the load bar and the bar freezes after only about 1/4. The game worked before the update.

I have never been able to use this game on my iPad. I bought it when it first came out, only to find that the implementation was horrible. You need to be able to see the entire board at once to see what is available and what other players have already chosen, rather than having to flip through 18 screens to see each board location individually. Now, its even worse because it CRASHES everytime I try to open it, even after a shutdown.