Review: Citadels - Easy to Learn, Fun to Stab Friends

Even the thief helps build the city.

This week, I thought I'd take a look at Citadels.  In Citadels, each player builds his city, district by district, until a single player has eight districts.  Along the way, the player picks the city denizen that he feels will best help him that turn.  The catch is that the cards are selected in such a way that no player knows what another player has chosen.  At least, no better than a 50/50 shot.  

Citadels is a crowd pleaser that supports up to 8 players, but can be played with as few as 2.  It shines between 4-7, though.  Citadels moves quickly, doesn't last long, and has great interaction between the players as they try to guess who picked what job in an attempt to thwart one another.  

Weekend Recap: Games for Large Groups

This last weekend found me returning to Agricola and its expansion on Friday.  One of our group is known for obtaining begging cards and having his farmers fall ill.  In fact, we place the begging cards near him so that they'll be within his easy reach when he inevitably needs them.  To our surprise, though, he totally rocked it the last game and came away with a four point victory (and a 14 point lead over 3rd place). 

But what inspires this blog post is the game I played on Saturday.  That day, my wife and I had a housewarming party for our new place.  I spent some time on the grill and even set up a may-pole which many of my wife's friends used.  (My family was never all that handy growing up, so I always feel extra manly when I get to use power tools).  I also took video which is incredibly hilarious. 

But, after things started winding down, I suggested a game and a number of my friends were up for it.  Unfortunately, we had seven players.  Many of my games go up to six, but few support that extra player.  Citadels, Bang!, and Munchkin (with all my expansions) can handle a seven player game.  I also have Taboo and Cranium and a few party games where you can break into teams, but we didn't really want to go that route.  We eventually settled on Citadels and had a great time. 

I'd really like to get a little more of selection for the larger groups.  I've heard good things about the reimplementation of Werewolves of Miller's Hollow, newly subtitled, The Village, but that won't arrive in English until June. 

So my question is, what games do you play when you've got the larger (7+) group to game with?