Potions of Azerland: Review
Information:
Player Age: 10+
Player Count: 1 - 4 Players
BGG Weight: 2.71
Time to Play: 45- 90 Minutes
Year Published: 2025
Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the VR Distribution
Introduction:
Potions of Azerland is a mostly simultaneous resource management game. Players are selecting what each of the five actions is worth to them. The player with the fastest speed (lowest value) will get a stronger version of the action or get first preference for that action. Rather than perform actions, players can work around town and skip the action to receive gold. The game runs for six rounds and players are trying to craft potions that will either be used for abilities or to attract visitors (gaining points and abilities). The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
Game Anatomy:
Apprentice and Ingredients:
There are three types of ingredients (mushrooms, flowers, and tree sap) that players will gain throughout the game, mostly through the forage action. This allows players to gain ingredients from rolling the dice.
Apprentices allow the strength of actions to be enhanced. These actions are; forage, study, and brew. Using an apprentice allows the player to increase the quantity for that action, i.e. with the forage action, the use of one apprentice would gain the player one additional ingredient. Multiple can be used on a turn.
Cauldrons:
Cauldrons are used when determining the winner of an action if the players happen to be tied. After the tie breaker (lowest cauldron) is resolved, the cauldrons will be swapped around based on how many players are in the tie.
Market Cards:
The main way players will gain gold to spend on the market cards is by passing actions and collecting coins instead. Players will be able to buy market cards in turn order when doing the market action. Any player can buy as many market cards as they would like, however, the cards are not refreshed until the end of the round. Each market card has a cost in gold and a benefit of ingredients, study points, or apprentices.
Player Board:
Each player will have a player board that is heavily focused on potions. The board contains information on how to brew potions, a track used when studying to level up the potions, and information on each potion and the three different effects based on study level.
Each potion contains three different levels of expertise. These levels can be increased by improving the study track of that spell type from Novice, to Intermediate, and finally, Expert.
Priority Holders:
Each player has five priority tokens numbered 1-5 with gold on the other end of the token. At the start of each round, players will pair an action with a priority. If players want to pass that action this round, they will instead slot in the gold side to collect that amount of coins.
Visitor Cards:
Visitor cards are the main way players will gain points. This is done by spending potions displayed on the left-hand side of the card and gaining the points highlighted above. When gaining visitors, players will also gain a bonus of 1 or 2 points if the expertise of that potion type is higher than novice. If there are multiple types of potions used to pay for the visitor, the lowest potion type will score a bonus of 1 or 2 points if they are intermediate or higher.
At the bottom of each visitor card there will either be end-of-game scoring option or an ability that is either; instant, once per round, or continuous. All the visitors have further clarification at the back of the rulebook. The tricky visitors are the continuous ability visitors. Instead of a player taking this card, when the visitor requirements are fulfilled, they will score their points and gain any benefits like normal. However, the visitor will remain available for others, allowing all players to score them this round. Then the card will be discarded back to the game box at the end of the round.
There are two locations where visitors will be displayed; in the town where they can be attracted, and on the road which shows the visitors for the next round.
Round Bonus/Objectives:
A new round bonus will be revealed in each round. These contain either immediate benefits or a bonus one point to performing an action such as brewing potions, attracting visitors, or buying market cards.
Setup:
- Shuffle and display two market cards per player.
- Randomly play 5 round bonus tokens facedown on the round tracker board.
- Place the tokens on each player's board as shown in the game anatomy.
- Each player gains a cauldron. The cauldrons used will match the player count.
- Players will gain the starting resources shown on the image below.
Setup Visitors:
- Display one visitor on the road per player.
How to Play:
Throughout six rounds, players have to make use of their ingredients and potions to score the most points at the end of the game. Each round consists of four phases; refresh, order priority tokens, drink, and execute.
Refresh:
Numerous upkeep elements occur in this phase;
- Visitors from the road will move to the town and new visitors will be revealed on the road equal to the player count.
- Any visitor that had their once-per-round ability used will be returned to a ready position.
- Reveal the next round bonus. The round bonus is only active for that round.
Order Priority Tokens:
Players will discreetly slide in their priority tokens into each action. Remembering that the lower the number, the more likely the player will gain a better action, and players can skip actions by sliding in coins instead to gain money.
Drink Potions:
Players can simultaneously drink any potion they choose. Each potion has three actions associated with it. When drinking, the player can choose any one of the three actions to perform as long as they have upgraded their study track onto the corresponding expertise levels.
Execute Actions:
Each action will resolve in order from forage to fulfil. The players will activate the market and fulfil actions based on the order, starting with the players with the lowest numbers. These options will not be refreshed until the next round. The forage, study and brew actions will allow the players a certain amount of this action based on the priority value (as shown in the image below).
Apprentices can be added to these actions to increase the amount the action is performed per apprentice spent. These three actions will also resolve simultaneously.
Forage:
The forage action will have players gaining ingredients based on the roll of the dice.
Study:
Study will increase any number on the study tracks, spending one movement equal to the value of the action.
Market:
The market allows the players to spend coins to gain ingredients, study or apprentices.
Brew:
This action allows the players to brew a certain amount of potions equal to the strength of the action.
Fulfill:
In turn order, players will spend potions to attract visitors.
End of Game:
The game will end after the sixth round. For scoring, each player will add on to their existing score;
- One point for every two gold or two apprentices.
- Two points for every potion left over.
- In-game points gained
Final Thoughts:
- Easy rules but plenty of depth in how best to optimise.
- Challenging decisions with what it is best to use potions for.
- Not enough rounds to get everything you want done, so efficiency is key.
Potions of Azerland, gameplay-wise, is a fast and mostly-simultaneous game. Rules-wise, it is a fairly straightforward resource management game. Overall, this game is a very big efficiency puzzle, where the main goal is to brew potions. Players have to choose when to use these potions to attract visitors for points, or drink them to gain their bonus. For me, I have not yet found the right balance between the two but I am eager to figure this out. Additionally, players have to try to understand what their opposition are going for and which actions should hold higher priority. This is a very challenging optimisation puzzle and if you enjoy mastering these kinds of games then I think you won't just be a visitor… you’ll find yourself strongly attracted to Potions of Azerland.
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