Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Kingmaker simulates the Wars of the Roses, the period of sporadic Civil War in England between 1450 and 1490.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Area Movement
Move pieces between connected regions rather than along individual spaces.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Movement Points
Spend a movement allowance across spaces with different costs.
Voting
Players collectively approve, reject, or select an outcome through votes.
Events
Triggered events alter the shared state, rules, or available choices.
Simulation
Model a real or imagined system through detailed cause-and-effect rules.
Read the full game description
Kingmaker simulates the Wars of the Roses, the period of sporadic Civil War in England between 1450 and 1490. Ruled by a weak and mentally unstable king, Henry VI, demoralized by the defeat in France at the end of the Hundred Years War, and encouraged by the ambitions of Richard, Duke of York, and his sons; the country's Noble families used their large private armies in attempts to gain control of the government. The game is based on the premise that the powerful Noble families used the Lancastrian and Yorkist princes as pawns in a greater game of gaining control of England. Players control factions using their military and political power to control and influence the royal heirs, supporting the heir in their control as king while trying to take down all of the other heirs. Kingmaker has been published by several companies, starting with Philmar under their Ariel imprint in 1974, by Avalon Hill in 1976, by Gibsons Games in 1983, and by TM Games in 1988/9. In 2023, Gibsons Games published a new edition, which has its own entry under Kingmaker (2023).