''Löwenherz'' (;

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

for "Lionheart") is a

German-style board game A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...

Klaus Teuber Klaus Teuber (born June 25, 1952) is a German former dental technician and designer of board games. He is best known for designing the strategy board game Catan. Career Teuber won the Spiel des Jahres ("Game of the Year") award four times: for ...

and published in 1997 by Goldsieber in German and by

Rio Grande Games Rio Grande Games is a board game publisher based in Placitas, New Mexico. The company primarily imports and localizes foreign language German-style board games. History In 1995, Jay Tummelson began working for Mayfair Games. At that time, ...

in English. A revised edition, titled ''Löwenherz: Der König kehrt zurück'' (''Lionheart: The king returns'') in German and ''Domaine'' in English, was released in 2003 by Kosmos in German and

Mayfair Games Mayfair Games was an American publisher of board, card, and roleplaying games that also licensed Euro-style board games to publish them in English. The company licensed worldwide English-language publishing rights to ''The Settlers of Catan'' ser ...

in English. The players take on the roles of regents in a kingdom in disarray. Players seek to secure territory under their control. The game is considered to be one of the three "brothers", as ''Löwenherz'' was born from the same idea that brought forth ''

The Settlers of Catan ''Catan'', previously known as ''The Settlers of Catan'' or simply ''Settlers'', is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as ''Die Siedler von Catan''. Pl ...

'' and ''

Entdecker ''Entdecker'' (, German language, German for "Discoverer") is a German-style board game designed by Klaus Teuber and published in 1996 in games, 1996 by Goldsieber in German language, German. Although the game won 2nd prize in the Deutscher Spiel ...

''. Like the other two, ''Löwenherz'' is critically acclaimed, the original edition having won the

Deutscher Spiele Preis __NOTOC__ The Deutscher Spielepreis (, ''German Game Prize'') is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine ''Die Pöppel-Revue'', which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals ...

and the revised edition having won the

Schweizer Spielepreis The Schweizer Spielepreis is a Switzerland, Swiss board game award, awarded since 2002 in three categories: German-style board game, Family games, Children's games and Strategy games. The game is awarded yearly at the ''Schweizer Spielmesse'' in O ...

while finishing fifth in the Deutscher Spiele Preis.

Gameplay

The game is played on a modular board, using randomly placed smaller boards. These boards form a grid pattern, and the kingdom in question. At the start of the game, players place castles with the objective of scoring points by sectioning off areas of the board using walls or boundary markers, each section containing only one of their castles. The main part of the gameplay centers on ''action cards''. Actions include: * Placing walls and boundary markers * Expanding a closed region into other players' closed regions * Placing knights to protect closed regions—players may only expand to other players' regions if they have more knights * Collecting money (in the 1997 edition) * Drawing a ''politics card'', which give the player other abilities (in the 1997 edition) * Removing an opposing knight from a neighboring closed region and replacing it with one in the friendly region (in the 2003 edition) * Preventing two neighboring regions from expanding into each other (in the 2003 edition) Points are scored according to the closed regions they control.

Reviews

*''Backstab'' #9

References

External links

''Domaine''
on Catan website

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowenherz Board games about history Board games introduced in 1997 Deutscher Spiele Preis winners German games Klaus Teuber games Kosmos (publisher) games Mayfair Games games Rio Grande Games games