Palace of Mad King Ludwig by Bezier Games

King Ludwig was mad all right, well maybe he was. He was declared insane, but they may be partially due to the fact that he liked to spend lots of money building extravagant palaces like Neuschwanstein, which is a place right out of a fairy tale. He was also known as the swan king, which ties into this game nicely because you use swans as part of the game scoring in this game.Like King Ludwig in real life, the King Ludwig of this game wants you to build a crazy palace, complete with panic rooms and bottomless pits. There are upstairs rooms and downstairs rooms, but you have to build them all before the moat goes all the way around the castle. We would all agree that building a castle after the moat has been completed isn't the best idea.I haven't played Castles of Mad King Ludwig, so I can't say a lot about that game, but I do like this game. It's a tile laying game that's fun because you're building a castle for a crazy person. It can get a little mean. You can certainly lay tiles in such a way that you make it impossible for another person to complete a certain room, and therefore missing out on the reward that room has to offer.This game takes a while to punch out and set up. There are so many little swans. It seems like there are swans of every color of the rainbow. There are also some mystery swans. There are so many tiny pieces to this game. Each player also gets a whole set of tiny pieces that goes with their player board to track what rooms they have built and to claim the rooms they've built in the castle. They're really tiny pieces.So keep in mind that you're not going to get this game in the mail and play it right away. First, you have to punch out a bunch of tiny swans, then you can play.

It’s a very different game when you’re all playing on the same “Board.” We love it!Also, our dog loves the little cardboard pieces - only a fair warning, you’ll want to get little containers to go with this one.So Much Fun!

A very fun game, and quite different from Charles of Mad King Ludwig. I liked the collaborative / competitive dynamics and the theme!

We love all the Ludwig games but this is a particular favorite. Play is a little complicated but very fun.

I gifted this to my boyfriend to add to his castles game collection. The box is in terrible shape!! I would have never gifted him this had I known it would come like this. Very sad about that.

Takes time to set up but a family favorite of multiple levels of board game enthusiasts.

So, I like tile laying games. I also like Between Two Castles of King Ludwig a lot. I don't mind point salad games (where you can gain points in a lot of different ways). I even like more complex games. I tend not to like complex point salad games though. If it's a point salad game I prefer the mechanics to be simpler. If it's a complex game, I prefer the victory conditions to be simpler.This game would reward playing it multiple times, to get an understanding of different ways to score points efficiently, but unlike - say - 7 Wonders which you can play very quickly, even the first time so that you can play it again once you've gotten a handle on how it plays, this requires a bigger time investment. And since it's not simultaneous, anyone who's prone to analysis paralysis (which is common among people in the first times they play games), will make the downtime rather long.On the positive side, the components are high quality and attractive, and the rules are pretty solid. There's a good game in there, but the question is how many people will take the time to find it.

We're big gamers (we have like 100) and this was a good addition to our collection. I give it 4 because it's not one of our absolute favorites, but it's still a good game. We like the mechanics and built in variations, which leads to better replay for longer.