Villages of Valeria

Designer: Rick Holzgrafe, Isaias Vallejo
Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski
Published: 2017
Players: 1-5
Playing Time: 30-60 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.0
BGG Ranking: 1392
Publisher: Daily Magic Games 
Mechanics: Hand Management, Follow
Sleeves: TCG 63,5x88mm,

Game Description:

A village-building card game set in the world of Valeria. Establish resources, construct buildings, and attract adventurers to your Village to be crowned the next capitol city.

Quick play overview:

A player can do one of the 5 actions on his turn and other players can follow his action at a slight disadvantage:

TAX:

Take 1 Gold and Draw 1 Card. (Follow: Draw 1 card.)

HARVEST:

Draw 3 Cards. (Follow: Draw 1 card.)

DEVELOP:

Discard 1 card to add a Resource to your village. (Follow: Discard 2 cards to add a Resource to your village.)

BUILD:

Add a building to your village. Draw a card. (Follow: Add a building to your village, but do not draw a card.)

You build your card by selecting a card from your hand and paying the needed resources. You can get resources from the DEVELOPED cards, from previously build cards or from Adventurers (explained below).

RECRUIT:

Pay 1 Gold to add an Adventurer to your village. (Follow: Pay 2 Gold to add an Adventurer to your village.)

Adventurer will visit your village only if you have the required building types for the specific heroes.

Once a player builds and recruits enough (depending on the number of players) »cards« the game is over.  Players count the points from the built cards + add extra bonuses that some buildings and adventurers provide and the highest scoring city.. is the new capital of Valleria.

Final thoughts:

I really like the follow mechanism. It makes the opponent turn interesting for you as well and a well planned turn can lead into a great follow up that was just waiting to happen.

The game is quick and fun and even if you don't get the best combo this game.. you will get it in the next one.

SCORE:

Gameplay: 9/10

Follow up mechanics are great in this game. Players should sometimes take a suboptimal action if this would mean that an opponent cannot follow them at all. Good decisions.

Art & Graphic Design: 8/10

I just love this type of art in games. The whole Valleria series has beautiful art.

Graphic Design on the other hand is always problematic with this series of games. So many different icons that you need to know what they do.. you cannot play this game without the aid card near by.

Rules & Complexity: 8/10

Rules are short but the icons make you look into the rulebook from time to time.

The game is short and the rules are very easy. The complexity comes from when to follow and what actions to take on your turn to not give other players a great off turn.

Theme: 6/10

Nothing special about the theme and the mechanics also don't have any special connection with the theme.

The building and recruiting of adventurers is acceptable 😊

Fun & Replayability: 6/10

The follow up mechanic and how-to-avoid-that-other-players-follow-you is interesting and gives some »awwww yiiiis« moments.

Replayability is not very high as mostly you are doing the same thing just with different colors. You should always be able to get some resource cards and then be able to build some cards that use those resources.

FINAL SCORE: 7.4/10