Designer: Duncan Davis
Publisher: Sherwood Games
The king has died! To save the city from usurpers, you must use guile, stealth, and cunning to outwit your enemies. Shifting alliances, unreliable partners, and devious opponents all complicate your path to the throne. Manipulate aristocrats, generals, and ignoble citizenry as you seize the crown and save your city.
In the drafting-style game In the City: Origins for 2-5 players. Each player starts with a leader card (different every game 20 in all in the base set) and each turn they recruit a person from the city square. This gets them victory points, influence to recruit bigger and better people, the ability to manipulate the cards you are recruiting, and the ability to interfere with you opponents. The game is over when 2 out of the 7 columns in the city square are empty. At the end of the game, the victory points are totaled and the winner is the player with the most.
The winner of the game becomes the new King of the city. As such, the people you recruit have a certain amount of sway in choosing the new king so those with more sway are worth more victory points. For example, an aristocrat is worth more victory points then a hired digger. Each leader is named after a position of importance or power showing that they would want to take the throne.