I purchased this after reading a couple of reviews online and what a brilliant game it is. It doesn't take too long to get the hang of the game and the more you play the more you understand the tactics of the game. We play as a family and my children (ages 13, 11 and 9) all agree it's one of our best games. Absolutely superb game and will be purchasing for friends I am sure.

Welcome to the Queen's banquet, a place where you will make both friends and enemies. The gameplay is very simple to learn and quick to teach making this game incredibly accessible. Each player starts the game with a hand of 3 cards and during their turn will play all of these to 3 distinct areas. You must play 1 to the Queen's table, 1 to your own domain and 1 to any opponent's domain. At the end of your turn you simply draw back up to 3 cards and then it's on to the next player. If cards are placed about the Queen's table then that family will be esteemed but if they have more cards underneath the Queen's table then they have fallen from grace.The play continues until the deck has run out and all players have played the final cards from their hand. End game scoring is very simple, you score 1 point for each family member in front of you from an esteemed family and -1 point for those from families who have fallen from grace. Each player also has their own secret objectives and these are scored at the end. The real joy of Courtisans is the difficult decisions you are forced to make when deciding where to play your cards. How will you impact the families sitting around the table at the Queen's banquet. How will I choose to balance benefitting my own game whilst also preventing others from scoring at the same time. And then there are the spies, these are cards from each family that are played facedown and are not revealed until game end meaning that anything could happen at final scoring. I really enjoyed Courtisans and would highly recommend it!