Villages of Valeria: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Hand Management, Follow, Drafting
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 1 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 30 - 60 Minutes
Game Designer: Rick Holzgrafe, Isaias Vallejo
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: Rick Holzgrafe, Isaias Vallejo
Rundown:
You are back once again in Valeria, but this time you are building a village. This will be done by developing resources, erecting buildings and recruiting adventurers. Although this is a lighter game than Valeria Card Kingdoms, it still encompasses the feeling of building an engine. On a turn you will perform an action like; harvest (draw three cards), tax (gain one gold and one card), recruit (spend one gold to gain a villager if you meet their requirements), develop (discard one card to play the resource side of a card under your castle) or build (place gold on your castles resources or any other player’s resources to erect a building from your hand, then draw one card). When any of these actions are done, every other player has an option to follow which will either let the player do part of that action, or spend more resources to do the same action. This follow choice will depend on the action that it is shadowing. Once a player has gained a certain amount of buildings and adventurers combined, the game will end and the player with the most points is the winner.
Alteration:
The alteration comes from a multitude of cards. Each card has; a resource on the bottom that it could be developed as instead of using it as a building, a cost to use it as a building, victory points, an emblem to meet the requirements of adventurers, and an ability. This ability can be either an immediate ability that will activate when built, a unique scoring possibility, or an ability that will activate when you are the first player to do the action that turn. Because the cards go through the game so rapidly, you will find unique combinations that you can focus on anytime you play.
There are also several mini-expansions and larger expansions to increase the replayability of the game. These range from events that get added into the deck, to more drastic effects such as a monument that you will aim to build throughout the game.
Production:
The production is exactly what is needed for a game like this. The main focus is trying to fit as many cards into a small game case to make the game portable but also highly replayable. Daily Magic Games have succeeded at this.
Wooden coins and a wooden castle meeple are also included that help players feel immersed. The wooden castle is very helpful in larger player games to remember what action you are following.
Interaction:
Due to the follow mechanism, you are trying to time your actions to create the greatest benefit while having a small effect on the other players. For that reason, this can be a highly interactive game. In the same essence, if you want to focus purely on your village, some cards interact with the other players but not enough that it will cause hindrances for you for the entirety of the game.
Determination:
Pros:
- Multi-use Cards.
- With buildings and adventurers you can enhance the actions you do when you lead a turn.
- The following mechanism feels like it’s at a good level where it's similar but not entirely equal to the person leading the action.
Cons:
- I wan was not originally enamoured with it on the first play but changed opinions after multiple plays.
Villages of Valeria doesn't add much that’s new in terms of known gameplay and mechanisms but it does perform well with what they use. It's a great tableu building game with a structurally sound follow mechanism. Each turn you are trying to progress the effects of your village, while managing resources to then follow other player’s actions. Villages of Valeria is staying in my collection because it's a great compact tableu builder, with plenty of replayability and expansions I have yet to explore.
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