by RogueM
Trump wrote:
Kingsburg... You can't really plan in the game. If you want some gold next turn, you just hope to roll something that will get you on to a gold space.
Err, of course you can plan in the game, but you must do so multiple turns ahead (a whole season in broad terms in mind)... Sure, you can take the highest spot your dice allow you all the time if you wish, but splitting your result for multiple options is how you win the game, and don't blame a loss on the dice.
Anyway, an in-depth Kingsburg strategy discussion is off-topic, but it is clear you haven't played the game enough, or at least with the motivation to be better at it... it's like saying you win/lost a game of CoB by focussing on animals and ignoring everything else, for example.
I think approaching Kingsburg and CoB the way you describe it, as a puzzle to solve would be a good analogy, actually, and you have as much info in both games about what will be available in later turns. The main difference is that in CoB most of the pieces are unique, which they are not in Kingsburg, which is somewhat tied in with the possibility (CoB) / lack of (Kingsburg) to control turn order.
So while I wouldn't disagree that there is somewhat more luck in the dice in Kingsburg, there is more luck involved in CoB in respect to the resources up for grab in the course of a game. In other words I don't see one or the other particularly more 'luck based' than the other.
... but all this is missing the main difference between the games and that is the player interaction. In CoB there is usually a low-ish penalty for your opponent if you steal a tile he was after, while in Kingsburg it can be devastating, and a player can play quite aggressively to this effect - I don't see this aspect in CoB. Not that this is a bad thing, but a much more significant difference between those games, which was not mentioned.