So as I anxiously await FFG to contact me about my missing pieces, as well as wait for work to start back up again on Monday so I can have some opponents to play with, I was wondering how people came to hear about this game?

For me, I really enjoyed To Court the King, but realized after playing several times that it essentially comes down to most people going for the same strategy. There are the occaisional exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, the players that picked up the characters that give them extra dice usually came out in the top positions.

So once I found a game that combined that fun mechanic of claiming advisors and blocking out your opponent from the same, as well as resource management, I figured I had a winner on my hands.

Also, a question for those that have played several games. Have you found any one particular building track or tracks to be absolute necessities?

I came to both games independently. But I found out about Kingsburg shortly after buying To Court the King. I didn't buy Kingsburg right away because I was afraid it would steam roll TCTK and I would never play it. So I waited until I felt I got enough plays out of that before getting Kingsburg.

I hate Yahtzee because of too much luck in that game. I liked that TCTK mitigates this with pip-shifters. But of late, I have found the same things as you. Those who go for the extra dice can usually get to the 8 dice needed to win more quickly. The pip-shifters slow you down and the luck factor kicks back in again. So my feelings for that game are diminishing again.

We played kingsburg mostly 2 player for a bit as my wife and I got comfortable with th flow. We then introduced it to our friend that loves TCTK. He also loved Kingsburg. But either he grasped the game perfectly (which he doesn't usually do on first plays), cheated (most likely though inadvertantly) or stumbled upon some flaw of the game. He somehow managed to separate himself withint he first two productive seasons withe a healthy VP lead. But then after the first year, he managed to somehow get both the King's favor and the Envoy say 6 out of the 8 remaining times. It doesn't seem possible but it all checked out each time he grabbed the extra white die or envoy. So it didn't seem right that he was considered the "weaker" player because he managed to have one house less or a cube less to gets all these favors AND have a healthy lead int eh VP track the whoel time. Toward the end, we cut the cushion down considerably but I failed to build up my army while pursuing and lost the winter battle which caused me to lose my biggest VP building, which sent me down to 3rd. He ended the game with the same healthy lead that he started with.

That game had me angrty for the next 3 days.

I've never played TCTK. I was introduced to Kingsburg by a friend in my gaming group. It was a game he owned and brought to gaming one evening. We sat down and played it and I instantly loved it. I went out and bought my own copy a few days later. I liked the fun mechanic of Kingsburg, claiming advisors while blocking you opponents. I've always loved resource management games, so to add that fun mechanic to the game seemed like a winner in my book.

And in response to your question about what building tracks seem to be absolute necessities. In my opinion the Embassy and Fortress tracks are awesome. Also, the Wizard's Guild and Merchant's Guild are very nice. It really depends on what your strategy is. If you are trying to build stuff that gives you more military strength, then the Fortress and Wizard's Guild are the best for that. However, I don't usually build both of those together. Usually, the combos I like best are the Fortress and Embassy, Wizard's Guild and Merchant's Guild, or Cathedral and Wizard's Guild.

If you like Kingsburg but think you are always using the same building strategy to get VPs, and find that repetitive, then I recommend getting the expansion for Kingsburg. It really changes the game. There are five different modules in the expansion. You can use a combination of any of the various expansion modules in Kingsburg. The expansion really makes Kingsburg more of a gamer's game, rather than a gateway game. I've found with the expansion, I don't always build the same buildings in pretty much the same order. Part of the expansion is that it gives you a province mat with 7 rows instead of 5. And it also includes replacement rows for your province mat. At the start of the game, you randomly draw two rows and can choose to use one, none, or both of them. If you use them, they are placed on top of the indicated row (A-G), and those buildings are what you build instead of the ones that are original to the province mat. I really like how this can change your building strategy. The expansion definitely makes an already great game even better!!