Castellans: Rapid Review

Castellans: Rapid Review

Information:

Mechanics: Engine Builder, Dice Drafting, Area Control
Player Age: 14+

Player Count: 1 - 5 Players

Time to Play: 60 - 120 Minutes 
Game Designer: Isaias Vallejo

Game Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Publisher: Daily Magic Games

Year Published: 2024

BGG Weight: 3.00

Rundown:

Valeria games are mastering the mechanism of dice drafting on a larger scale. Castellans of Valeria is a new twist on this dice drafting system that heavily focuses on controlling areas and scoring big by having the majority in the districts, the wharf and influence over the guilds. 

Each round, three of the districts will score 6, 4 and 2 points for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. The scoring districts will change throughout the rounds, culminating in all of the districts being scored for the last round. 

As a general rule, each token of your colour in a district will give you one point towards controlling the majority. The exception to this is the windmill which helps with tie-breakers by giving players 0.5 points to two neighbouring districts.  Throughout five rounds there will be a drafting, action, score and reset phase.

Drafting:

During the draft phase each player will select one die from the freshly rolled pool of dice. Each time a player drafts a die they will gain the resource, gold or influence shown on the face. Three dice will be left over at the end and moved to the game board to be accessed at times by a citizen or unlockable Manor bonus.

Action:

In the action phase players, in turn order, will select one dice and move it to the used section. Now choosing one of the five actions to resolve. These actions are used to place tokens onto districts and gain resources and influence. At the end of the action phase the player can choose to build a monument which will score points at the end of each round.

Score:

During the scoring phase, each of the districts shown by the highlighted edges on the icon of the round tracker will score. Each player with pieces on these districts will tally their control points; one point for each Manor, lighthouse, temple, ship, and citizen, and 0.5 points for each district neighbouring the windmills. The player with the most control points will score 6, second place will score 4, and third place will score 2 points. If the players are tied, the points for that position and the next position will be totalled and then split between the tied players. For example, 6+4 points divided by 2 if there are two players tied for first place. All three positions are added together and divided by 3 if there are three players tied for first. 

Each player will also gain points from their monuments and cargo on the wharf. The player with the most cargo will gain 3 points, second place gains 2 points, and third gains 1.

Reset:

In the reset phase, players will clear the cargo crate tokens, draw a new face-up wharf card, discard the two left/right most citizen cards, refresh and refill the new citizens, move the round tracker to the next round (showing which districts will score), and gather and re-roll the dice.

At lower player counts of two and three the decision die will be rolled. A bot player (green token) will be placed on the district matching the number. This works to add in enemy forces that keeps the opposition fierce throughout the districts.

Actions:

On your turn the active player will spend one dice and choose one of the five actions listed below. If your dice matches the symbol attached to this action you will gain a bonus resource. 

When building on your turn you are allowed to play the token onto any district. Some spaces like those for the windmills have a limited amount that can be built on each spot. 

The five actions are:

- Temple Action
- Manor Action
- Recruit Action 
- Wharf Action
- Harvest Action

After you complete this action you can perform a monument action, assuming you have enough gold available.

Temple Action:

Building temples cost 2 stone (plus 1 gold for each previously built temple). When built the player will gain two influence in both guilds attached to the chosen district.

Manor Action:

Manors will unlock special abilities that will activate when certain actions are chosen in the future. The three exceptions to this are; the lookout which will score points based on the number of ships in their district, a bonus that will give you either 3 resources or 6 gold immediately; building a Manor that will unlock more gold storage and another cargo token.

To build a Manor it costs 3 wood (plus 1 gold for each other Manor in the district). The result is one influence on each guild track associated with that district.

Recruit Action:

This action allows you to gain citizen cards by spending food equal to the cost above the citizen on the board. 

This action gains you the citizen and an influence for the guild on the card, as well as placing 1 citizen token on a chosen district to gain an influence in one guild associated to that district.

Citizen cards will either have one-time effects, or various ongoing effects that will let you manipulate dice, gain bonuses when certain dice are drafted, gain bonuses in the reset phase and even enhance certain actions.

Wharf Action:

The wharf action will allow a player to either buy resources for one gold or sell resources for gold/victory points/influence. 

Players can place one or more cargo tokens onto the wharf card of a matching resource they plan on spending. 

There are two bonus actions a player can also do with the wharf action; build a ship for 2 wood (plus 1 gold per existing ship in the district), and move a ship by spending 2 gold. 

Harvest Action:

During the harvest action you gain the resource, coin, or influence on each of your drafted dice for a second time. 

There is also a sub-action where, if the player has enough food, they can place a windmill for 2 food (plus 1 gold for each existing windmill on the road section between two districts. 

Monument Action: 

Monuments are a free action that a player can take after their main action. These special buildings do not count towards control of districts, instead they give you victory points at the end of each round.  The gate scores for each citizen in the surrounding districts, the ward tower scores for each Manor in its district, and lastly, the statue scores for each temple in its district. All these monuments score off any player tokens and each district only has one space for each monument type.

Each monument has a high gold cost of 6-8, and awards players with 1-2 influence for either one or both guilds in the district they are placed on.

Production:

The production of Castellans matches perfectly with my expectations from the Valeria series. It has a game tray insert, wooden tokens, and containers for each player. The part that caught me off-guard was that each player container also contains an individual mini-rule leaflet explaining all available actions on a player's turn.

The other side of the production is the valerian atmosphere. Magic is used in this game allowing you to spend one as a wild for other resources. Your favourite characters from past Valeria games return here and all the iconic guilds also help to create the prominent atmosphere that Valeria players are used to.

Interaction:

There is a high level of interaction in Castellans as players are vying for control of the districts, however, there is no direct confrontation in the game. A player will simply have control of the area or will have to build more, in that region if they want that score. The main challenge to overcome is having to spend additional gold if you are building in a place where that token type already exists. In saying this players do have to factor in the guild track not only for the bonuses along the way but also for the first three players to reach the end for each guild will gain a different breakdown of points.

The interaction players face is mainly personal in how they maximise their engine. This is where citizens and building manors come into play. Players have to work on enhancing their engines through the upgrades gained by these two mechanisms.

Determination:

- Multiple methods of gaining points.
- I enjoy the changes to the dice drafting mechanism previously established in other Valeria games.
- Great components.
- Complex rules to learn at first but once understood everything is detailed throughout the player and central board.
- Instantly able to build one Manor as part of setup, whereby unlocking a different starting benefit for each player.

With games like Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria and Guild Academies of Valeria, I am getting more entranced into the decision space that they make in these dice drafting games. When you draft a dice you aren't simply drafting for one purpose. In Castellans when you draft a dice you choose it for numerous reasons; what you gain immediately, if any bonuses occur when you draft a certain type, and how it can be set up for later decisions. The other engaging element is how players build, players are planning their infrastructure in two major methods of scoring points, that don't always relate to each other; controlling districts and building high-scoring monument sections. Both of these scoring tie directly into how players plan their engines, this isn't purely a dice drafting or area control game, but a combination of these elements that easily has me returning for more as I attempt to optimise my engine each round while striving for control of the board. Castellans is easily receiving a Go-To Golden Seal as it is another great addition to the Valeria franchise that can be played easily with fans of area control and euro games.

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