Review: Kilia

Introduction & Overview

The Baltic Sea glistens in the morning sun, sails flutter in the wind, and aromas of salt and exotic spices drift through the air. Kilia awakens, and with it, your burgeoning shipping company. The Schleswig-Holstein Canal has just opened and, as the resourceful entrepreneurs and proud burghers of Kiel that you are, you will take advantage of these new times to build your own merchant fleet. With foresight, a bit of luck, and your connections with harbormasters and city councilors, you will bring goods from distant lands to Kiel, turning this young port city into a central hub for trade.

This is the premise behind Kilia, designed by Lars Ehresmann (Tippi Toppi: Hoch Hinaus!). First published in 2025 by HUCH! in a trilingual English, French, and German edition, it features artwork by Stefan Sonnberger, the illustrator behind games like Rising Cultures or Kuhfstein.

It is not published in Spain, so you will have to turn to the import market if it catches your eye (the game is entirely language-independent except for the rulebook). It plays with 2 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 14, and has an approximate duration of 60 minutes. The MSRP is €59.95. For this review, a copy of the English, French, and German edition from HUCH! was used as a review copy.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a standard two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom) measuring 29.7 × 29.7 × 7.2 cm (a standard square box akin to Ticket to Ride), we find the following elements:
Council Board (cardboard)

• 4 Player Boards (in 4 colors) (cardboard)
• Additional Scoring Tile (cardboard)
• 10 5x Value Tiles (cardboard)
• Coat of Arms of Kiel (cardboard)
• 20 Ship Tiles (5 in each color) (cardboard)
• 16 Milestone Markers (4 in each color) (wooden)
• 100 Goods Tokens (wooden):
  • 25 Salt
  • 25 Grain
  • 25 Brick
  • 25 Wood
• 82 Coins (cardboard):
  • 66 Value 1
  • 16 Value 5
• 136 Cards (43 × 67 mm):
  • 96 Action Cards
  • 36 Contract Cards (including 4 starting contracts)
  • 4 Wild Cards
• Scorepad (paper)
• Rulebook

How to Play

Kilia is set in the port city of Kiel following the opening of the Schleswig-Holstein Canal in the late 18th century, where each player takes on the role of a shipowner looking to thrive by expanding their fleet and trade networks. The game unfolds over an indeterminate number of rounds consisting of an action phase and a council phase. On their turn, the active player drafts a card from the central display (free of charge if they have as many keys as indicated by its slot, or by paying coins for it) to place it on their personal board in one of two ways: as a merchant in their market pyramid (which grants immediate bonuses and produces goods on subsequent turns when paying coins) or as an expansion in one of four areas by paying goods (castle to gain keys and contracts, university to unlock permanent abilities, shipyard to upgrade their ship, or warehouse to build new ports along the canal). As complementary actions, players can fulfill contracts by delivering goods and coins to gain rewards, trade goods at a 3:1 ratio, or claim milestones at the council by placing scoring tokens. At the end of the round, during the council phase, milestone markers consolidate onto scoring wheels, merchants are refreshed, and ships sail down the canal collecting goods visible through their cut-out windows at each warehouse. The end of the game is triggered when a player places their fourth scoring token, prompting one final full round. After that, points are tallied from council milestones, expansions in each player’s assigned color, completed contracts, and end-game abilities that score bonus goods. The player with the most points is declared the winner.

Key Concepts

Let us begin with the Council Board. Along its bottom edge sit the displays for action cards and contract cards, mapped to key requirements and coin costs according to their left-to-right positions. In its central and upper sections lie the milestone spaces alongside their printed helm wheels, which contain numbered slots with decreasing point values where markers consolidate as players achieve those milestones.

Each participant receives a Player Board that serves as their commercial and maritime headquarters. Its outer perimeter is divided into four side zones for tucking expansion cards (Castle, University, Shipyard, and Warehouse), while the top section holds the personal goods supply and a wax seal indicating the player’s color. In the center we find the market, a stepped pyramid structure where merchants are placed to trigger immediate perks and enable production; along the lower track lies the canal, featuring cut-out window spaces where warehouses are aligned and along which the ship will sail.

Each player controls a vessel represented by Ship Tiles. Every tile reflects cargo capacity (numbered 1 through 5) and features cut-out windows that reveal icons beneath the canal. Players start with the Level 1 ship on their canal track and, through shipyard upgrades, replace it with higher-tier models that feature additional or wider openings. At the end of each round, the ship sails from one end of the canal to the other, docking at built warehouses so the player directly collects any goods and coins revealed through the windows.

Milestone Markers are wooden tokens in player colors used to record the completion of shared achievements on the council board. Each participant starts with four markers in their supply and places one onto a milestone space the moment they satisfy its condition. During the council phase at round’s end, these markers move to the highest available space on the scoring wheel linked to that milestone, locking in end-game victory points and triggering the final round as soon as any player places their fourth token.

Goods are represented by wooden tokens in four distinct types and colors: salt (white), grain (yellow), brick (red), and wood (brown). They serve as the game’s economic currency of exchange and are stored in each player’s personal supply. Their main purpose is to cover the escalating costs of expansion cards tucked under the player board and to fulfill delivery requirements on contract cards.

Coins represent money in the game. They are gained via market bonuses, canal warehouses, or card abilities, and accumulate in your personal reserve. Coins are spent to make up the difference when drafting action cards or contracts without meeting their key requirements, to sweep and refresh the card market, or to place onto merchant cards in your market to generate their respective goods when paying costs.

Action Cards form the backbone of the game. Both their front and back faces are partitioned into several functional sections. Their top edge displays an icon and color tied to one of the four expansion areas for tucking beneath the board; the middle strip depicts warehouse berths with goods to align under the canal slots; the bottom section grants ongoing abilities and tech bonuses unlocked through university expansions; and their card back portrays a merchant associated with a specific commodity, played facedown into the market grid.

Finally, we have Contract Cards. These represent commercial orders whose top half specifies a required cost in goods or coins that must be paid to the general supply. Once completed, they grant the reward shown on their lower half and are tucked facedown into a completed contract pile. Each fulfilled contract features a point value in its bottom-right corner that translates straight into victory points during the final tally.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the council board in the center of the table.
2. Keep all coins, goods tokens, and 5x markers nearby as a general supply.
3. Set aside the wild action cards.
4. Separate the 4 starting contracts with colored backs from the rest of the contract cards and set them aside.
5. Shuffle the remaining 32 contract cards and form a facedown draw deck to the right of the council board. Draw 5 cards from the deck and place them faceup on the matching spaces above the board.
6. Shuffle all action cards to form a facedown draw deck to the right of the council board. Next, draw 5 cards from the deck and place them faceup on the spaces beneath the board.
7. In a 2-player game, cover the second-highest number on each scoring wheel of the council board with an unused scoring marker.
8. Determine the first player and hand them the starting player token.
9. Starting with this player and proceeding clockwise, each player chooses their color and takes the corresponding player board.
   Each player receives:
   • The starting contract in their color, placed faceup on their player board as an active contract.
   • Five ship tiles in their color, placing the Level 1 ship on their canal track and setting the other 4 aside.
   • Four milestone markers in their color, kept visible on their player board.
   • Three coins of value 1.
   • Three goods tokens, one of each type except the one matching their own player color.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Kilia plays out over an indeterminate number of rounds. Each round consists of two phases.

Phase I: Actions

In this phase, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes a turn. On their turn, the active player must take the following steps:

1. Draft an Action Card. The player selects one of the 5 action cards available in the market display beneath the council board. Any card can be drafted for free provided the player has at least as many visible keys as indicated above the card slot; otherwise, they must pay the full coin cost listed on that slot (regardless of how many keys they lack). Prior to drafting, the player may spend 5 coins to discard all 5 cards from the display and replenish it.
2. Play the Action Card. The player must resolve the drafted card in one of two ways:
   • As a Merchant in the Market. Place the card facedown onto one of the 6 market spaces on the player board. Placements must start on the bottom row; a card may only be placed on a space in an upper row if it rests atop two adjacent merchants in the row directly below. Cards can be stacked within the same space. When placing a card on an empty space for the first time, the player immediately claims the printed bonus (any one good, 3 coins, a smoked sprats card, or a new contract).
   • As an Area Expansion. Slide the card under one of the four expansion areas matching the card’s color on the player board (revealing only the top section with the icon). Each area accommodates up to 4 expansions. Tucking the first, second, third, or fourth expansion in an area costs 1, 2, 3, or 4 units of that area’s corresponding good, respectively. Upon expanding an area, the player immediately collects the perk tied to that location.
     Replenish the Display. At the end of their turn, the player shifts the remaining action cards and contracts to the left to close any gaps, then refills the open slots on the right from their respective decks.
     Turn order then passes to the next player clockwise.

The available expansion areas and their benefits are:

• Castle (Key Icon – White). Requires salt. Grants additional keys to access higher-tier action cards and contracts. Immediately after expanding the castle, the player may draft a new contract card from the display using standard key requirements or coin costs.
• University (University Icon – Red). Requires brick. Unlocks permanent abilities shown on the bottom of action cards. Immediately after expanding the university, the player takes a second action card from the display (paying coins if lacking the required keys) and tucks it under their knowledge area, showing only its lower section. Abilities allow swapping two specific goods when paying costs, taking a complete bonus action when expanding a given area, or earning end-game points for specific goods.
• Shipyard (Ship Icon – Brown). Requires wood. Upgrades the player’s current ship tile on the canal track to the next size up, maintaining its current position and orientation.
• Warehouse (Anchor Icon – Yellow). Requires grain. Constructs a new warehouse along the canal. Immediately upon expanding this area, the player drafts a second action card from the display and slides it under any open canal slot in whichever orientation they prefer.

At any point during their turn, the player may perform one or more of these free actions:

• Trade 3:1. Return 3 identical goods from your personal supply to the general reserve to gain 1 good of any other type when funding an expansion or fulfilling a contract.
• Activate Merchants. Place a coin onto a merchant card in your market to immediately gain the good pictured on its back. Bottom-row merchants may be activated once per turn, middle-row merchants twice, and the top merchant up to three times (placing a coin for each activation). Goods gained through merchants must be spent immediately and cannot be hoarded in your personal supply.
  Fulfill Contracts. Either before or after resolving their main action (never mid-action), the player may spend the goods or coins listed on the top half of an active contract to reap the bottom-half reward and flip the card facedown into their completed contracts pile.
• Play a Wild Action Card. This special card can be used in two ways:
  • As a wild good of any type to execute an expansion across any of the four areas by paying the required goods instead of drafting a card from the display, or
  • Discarded alongside your action to immediately take a coin or any one good from the general supply.
• Place a Milestone Marker. Whenever a player meets the requirement for one of the available council milestones (filling 1 area with 4 cards, having 2 areas with 3 cards, having all 4 areas with 2 cards, filling all 6 market slots, completing 3 contracts, or spending 15 coins), they immediately place one of their scoring tokens onto that milestone.

Phase II: Council

This phase is resolved simultaneously. Each player proceeds as follows:

1. Advance Milestone Markers. All scoring tokens resting on milestones are shifted to the highest-value empty space on the helm wheel directly above that milestone (starting from the center and moving outward from left to right). If multiple players achieve the same milestone in the same round, they share that scoring space.
2. Retrieve Merchants. Clear all coins stacked on market cards and return them to the general supply, readying those merchants for reactivation in the coming round.
3. Sail Ships. Players sail their ships along their canal track, advancing them from one end to the other in the direction their bow faces. The vessel halts at each built warehouse to match the half-stars: the player collects any goods and coins visible through the ship’s cut-out windows from the general reserve at each warehouse (including the starting dock). Once the opposite end is reached and goods are gathered, flip the ship to face the return direction, setting it up to voyage back the following round.

A new round then begins.

Game End

The end of the game triggers at the conclusion of a round where at least one player has placed all 4 of their milestone markers. That round is finished normally (including its council phase), followed by one final, complete round and its council phase, with the sole exception that ships do not sail at the end of this last round.

Final scores are determined by tallying:

• The sum of values on all helm wheel spaces occupied by the player’s scoring markers (or matching goods tokens).
• 3 Victory points for each card tucked under the expansion area matching the player’s color.
• Victory points shown in the bottom-right corner of each contract completed during the game. Incomplete contracts are discarded and score zero.
• 1 Victory point per unit of the good pictured on applicable ability cards remaining in the player’s supply or generated on the spot by activating merchants (paying 1 coin per activation).

The player with the most victory points claims victory. In the event of a tie, the tiebreaker goes to the player holding the highest combined total of leftover coins and goods.

Personal Opinion

There was a time, not all that long ago though it can feel like a bygone board gaming era, when mid-weight eurogames without bloated gimmicks ruled the landscape. These designs did not need to bury you under rulebooks the length of novels, gargantuan table footprints, or marathon runtimes that commandeered an entire evening just to deliver a rewarding experience. They featured concise rule footprints and tidy playing times, where the real meat came from clean, compelling decision-making rather than endless layers of grafted-on sub-systems. Accessible titles with enough strategic crunch to hit the table regularly—a breed that feels dangerously endangered these days.

If any publisher championed that ethos for years, it was Hans im Glück. The German house turned the mid-box eurogame with straightforward rules and immense strategic depth into an art form. Heavyweights like Stone Age (here is its tocho-review), El Grande (here is its tocho-review), or the brilliant Carcassonne (here is its tocho-review) stand as testament. While not every release hit the bullseye, as long as Bernd Brunnhofer was steering the ship, any title bearing the name of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale commanded attention. His retirement in 2017 was a blow, and his son, the current managing director, has not displayed quite the same keen eye.

Still, there is good reason eurogames are often referred to as German-style games. A healthy roster of publishers has kept releasing titles in this vein. Numerous labels have kept the spirit of the classic eurogame alive and kicking—names like Schmidt Spiele, Kosmos, or HUCH!, the publisher behind the title on our table today.

Let us examine what Kilia brings to the table—a design from a little-known designer with only one other BGG entry, which flew largely under the radar when showcased at Essen Spiel 2025. Modern audiences often have their eyes on flashier things. A game named after a city with merchants on the cover rarely sparks immediate hype.

In Kilia, we take the reins of fledgling shipping enterprises in the booming port of Kiel, set against the historic late-18th-century opening of the Schleswig-Holstein Canal. Immersed in the Baltic breeze and the scent of foreign spices, our objective is to weave an elite commercial network that establishes the city as a bustling crossroads of maritime trade. To cement our standing among the local patriciate, we must win favor with the town council, construct warehouses along waterways, commission larger vessels, and ultimately become the bay’s most revered shipowner.

A match unfolds over an indeterminate series of rounds divided into two phases. In the first phase, each player drafts an action card from the central track to execute one of two options. The pool of choices hinges on the number of keys on your board, though gaps can be bridged with coins. These multi-use cards can either be deployed as merchants in the market pyramid to yield on-demand goods, or tucked into four expansion tracks—castle, university, shipyard, and warehouse—unlocking contracts, passive traits, ship upgrades, or canal berths. Simultaneously, turns provide windows to fulfill contracts and race for council milestones.

Phase two handles council business and navigation. First, players lock in their achievements by moving markers to scoring wheels that diminish in value as slots fill up. Once merchants are cleared of activation coins, each ship sails down the canal, pausing at completed warehouses to scoop up goods and coins visible through cut-out slots, before pivoting around for the upcoming round. The endgame is triggered as soon as anyone places their fourth scoring token, leading to a final tally that scores council achievements, completed contracts, cards matching your player color, and endgame abilities.

Mechanically, as you can see, there is little mystery here. Draft a card, then decide whether to tuck it into a matching track for perks or station it as a merchant for virtual resource generation. Developing these merchants across the market is easily one of the most versatile facets of the game. Beyond the one-off perks earned by slotting cards into vacant pyramid spaces, their true strength lies in operating as on-demand resource caches.

Each merchant can yield virtual goods up to the tier they occupy in the pyramid (one, two, or three), costing one coin per activation. These resources never materialize as physical tokens; instead, they funnel directly into covering expansion costs or fulfilling contracts without draining your physical warehouse. It pays to establish at least one merchant for every resource type—especially the one matching your player board, as every remaining unit of that good scores bonus points at game’s end, making it far wiser to hoard physical tokens than spend them.

This dynamic is where the core tension shines. Every turn presents a real dilemma over what to do with your drafted card. Tempting and vital as it is to populate your market to lubricate your economic engine, every merchant you place feels like burning precious tempo. It essentially functions as a transition turn where you forgo a board upgrade and yield ground in the race for council milestones. Taking that step sideways, however, can prove instrumental down the road, as successive expansions in any single track grow progressively more expensive.

That said, a merchant cannot subsist on council milestones alone, even if they form the primary scoring avenue and fuel a fierce racing dynamic. The contract track is equally essential, serving as the most direct and consistent means of locking down victory points for the final tally. Everyone starts with a base contract, but castle expansions open the door to up to four additional cards from the board (on top of bonus contracts granted by fulfilling others).

Prioritizing your board’s native color track is equally non-negotiable, with twelve points up for grabs that cannot be replaced elsewhere. Tucking all four cards there before the game wraps is practically mandatory; falling behind on this track in favor of other avenues is almost always a misstep.

Then come the rewards unlocked via the university, which often tip the scales. These cards bestow passive perks like bonus actions, resource substitutions when paying costs, or end-game scoring multipliers for goods held in your supply.

Being a race at its core, this game demands reaching cruising altitude quickly. That makes development actions—namely shipyards and warehouses—crucial. While they award no direct victory points (unless tied to your specific scoring perks), they ramp up resource production significantly across rounds. Every warehouse card creates a new canal stop for your vessel to reap extra resources in a single run, while shipyard upgrades expand cargo space at every berth.

Speaking of ships, the cargo delivery mechanism using cut-out boat windows deserves special praise. On paper, it might sound like an aesthetic gimmick engineered for trade-fair photos, but in execution, it functions brilliantly. The rhythm of your boat sailing one way down the canal and pivoting 180 degrees for the return voyage completely shifts which goods are exposed at each stop, adding meaningful depth to card drafting when placing new warehouse tiles.

It naturally brings to mind the elevator mechanic in Coal Baron (here is its tocho-review). Once again, a tactile, eye-catching component that also happens to be mechanically sharp, solving action tracking and pick-up-and-deliver dynamics in an elegant, intuitive way. Moving your ship back and forth across the canal accomplishes the exact same feat.

While there is much to praise, Kilia does harbor an issue capable of sparking real frustration: the card display’s susceptibility to high variance. All too often, you settle on a clear tactical plan only for the public card row to stubbornly refuse cooperation.

Watching rounds tick by without a single viable card appearing to expand your board’s primary color within your reach can be maddening, forcing awkward detours. While the market provides an emergency escape hatch via wild cards, that band-aid wears thin when Lady Luck turns her back round after round. In those dry spells, the helplessness of being locked out of your board’s scoring track leaves a bitter taste.

This links directly to a mild scalability issue. At two players, the tension around council milestones slackens considerably, whereas at four players, the card row churns so rapidly that strategic planning between turns becomes nearly impossible. Three players hits the sweet spot, though even then, back-to-back double-card drafting via university or warehouse turns can wipe out the display before your turn arrives.

Fortunately, the game moves at a blistering pace with virtually no downtime. At heart, it remains an elegant design where you simply draft a card, then choose between paying resources to upgrade a track or slotting it as a merchant. This brisk pace makes it exceptionally easy to bring to the table; games rarely stretch past the one-hour mark, leaving you with the satisfying sensation of having executed numerous meaningful decisions in a tight timeframe.

All told, I find Kilia to be a thoroughly enjoyable design, echoing the best of classic mid-weight eurogames where occasional bad card luck does not spoil the experience enough to sour the ride, precisely because turns fly by and you are constantly engaged. Mechanically divergent as they are, in terms of sheer table feel it reminds me of Raiders of the North Sea (here is its tocho-review) or Carpe Diem (here is its tocho-review): games with minimal downtime where you rapidly funnel gathered resources straight into victory points.

Turning to production quality, components hit solid industry benchmarks. Punchboard pieces feature adequate thickness and density, with dual-layer player boards being a welcome touch to anchor both the canal track and the merchant pyramid. Wooden goods tokens sport classic shapes with clean paint applications. Cards offer suitable weight, a smooth finish, and decent snap (sleeving is hardly necessary since cards spend very little time in hand). The rulebook is logically organized and leaves no ambiguities.

Aesthetically, the game embraces the functional restraint of traditional historical eurogames. The box art depicts period harbor life within a clean white border. Inside, the visual identity leans into that classic era with parchment textures, sepia-toned engravings, and period-appropriate illustrations like inkwells, quills, and wax seals on player boards. The cards and boards opt for muted cartographic designs paired with clear iconography, discarding modern flash in favor of old-school German styling.

And let’s wrap this up. Kilia leverages an efficient multi-use card draft to drive tableau building and contract fulfillment. The push-and-pull between constructing an on-demand resource engine with merchants and racing for council milestones keeps decisions compelling every round. Its brisk pace and lack of downtime pack a substantial amount of strategic play into a short playtime. On the flip side, harsh variance in the card display can punish players when key tracks are denied. Overall, it stands as a focused, tidy mid-weight eurogame that offers fluid, rewarding sessions. For all these reasons, I give it a…