Villages of Valeria

After the war, rebuild your settlements

Set in the Valeria universe, this is a tableau-building card game where players seek to construct the settlement with the most renown, in the hope that theirs will be chosen to be the new capital. Valeria Card Kingdoms saw players defeat marauding monsters to secure the realm; now the war is over and with peace comes reconstruction.

Villages of Valeria is a game for 1 to 5 players that demonstrates clear connections with its precursor. The illustrations are again the work of Mihajlo Dimitrievski, aka The Miko. Players are either going to love or hate the visual presence of this game on the table. Every time you look at the cards your eyes are drawn to some new detail. For me, the cards are a joy to behold.

Components

So, what comes in the box?

Building card (reverse)

There are very few components to this game. There are two main decks of cards: Adventurers (16 cards) and Buildings (84 cards). In addition, there are 5 Castle cards forming the heart of each player’s settlement and an Action card where the active player selects the action for the given turn. As an optional extra, there are 8 special Event cards which may be shuffled into the Buildings deck before the start of the game.

Adventurer card (reverse)

Apart from the cards, there is a screen-printed action token in the shape of a castle and a store of screen-printed wooden coins. And that is basically everything.

With a box size of 18cm x 12cm x 4cm, all the above means that Villages of Valeria is an ideal travel companion.

Card Anatomy

On the top of Building cards (from left to right) there are three pieces of information: an icon denoting the card type (worker, soldier, shadow or holy), the name of the card and the number of Victory Points the Building is worth at the end of the game, if constructed in a player’s settlement. The initial icon is important as it acts as a form of ‘currency’ to allow Adventurers to be recruited (see below). The Building name is also significant, as players are not allowed to have more than one Building of the same name in their settlement.

Immediately below the card name there is information on the effect the card has when activated. This effect may be an immediate, one-off effect activated once the Building has been constructed (indicated by a red lightning flash) or it may be an on-going effect activated when a given action is selected.

The left of the card shows the Resources required to construct the Building, while the bottom of the card shows the resources that the building produces if it is placed under the settlement Castle card as a Resource rather than into the settlement tableau as a Building. In this case, the card becomes a Resource card and ceases to be a Building card.

Adventurer cards have a similar anatomy, except that card effects may also include endgame effects, such as awarding Victory Points if a settlement has Buildings of a certain type. The left of the Adventurer cards lists the Buildings required in a settlement before this character can be recruited. For example, the Bishop requires a settlement to contain at least 3 holy Buildings.

Each Castle card has a picture of a castle, while the icon at the top signifies that the card allows one of any Resource type to be produced.

5 Castle cards

Example Castle card and initial Resource placed underneath

Set Up

Each player receives a Castle card of their choice, together with 3 coins. The total number of available coins in the game depends on the number of players.

Then, the Building cards and Adventurer cards are shuffled as two separate decks. Each player is dealt 6 Buildings face-down. A row of 5 face-up Buildings are dealt onto the table and the remaining Buildings are placed as a draw deck to the left of the row. The same procedure is followed for the Adventurers.

Finally, each player chooses one card from their hand to be a Resource and places this face-up under their Castle card.

A starting player is chosen. Arm-wrestling is my favourite way to do this. But whatever floats your boat will do.

Gameplay

On a player’s turn, 2 actions will occur. First, any coins on the active player’s Resource cards (which includes the Castle card) are taken back to the player’s personal supply. Second, the active player then chooses one action from those available and places the Action marker on the appropriate place on the Action card. The remaining players may either ‘follow’ (i.e. copy) the active player’s action or pass. Once this has happened, the Action marker is passed to the next player, who then becomes the active player.

The available actions are:

Harvest: Take 3 cards from those available in the Buildings row. ‘Followers’ will draw 1 card. Players should remember there is a hand limit of 8 cards.

Develop: Discard 1 card from your hand and then place 1 card from your hand under your Castle to act as a Resource. ‘Followers’ need to discard 2 cards from their hand.

NB When cards are discarded, they are placed on top of cards in the Buildings row. So, at the start of the game there are 5 cards in this row, but as the game progresses there will be 5 stacks of cards and each stack will have 1 or more cards. Only if a stack becomes empty is it replenished from the draw deck.

Build: Produce Resources to build a Building from your hand, then draw 1 card to your hand. ‘Followers’ do not draw a card to their hand.

In order to produce Resources, coins are placed on the coin icons on the Resource and Castle cards. At the start of the game, players will only be able to produce 2 Resources as they have only two cards producing Resources. Also, as they only have 3 coins, players are limited to producing 3 Resources. Thus, players will need to increase their coin supply and increase the number of Resource cards at their disposal before being able to construct certain Buildings.

Recruit: Pay 1 coin to the general supply and draw an Adventurer from the row. Then, replenish the row from the draw deck. ‘Followers’ must pay 2 coins.

Tax: Take 1 coin and 1 card from the Buildings row. ‘Followers’ draw 1 card from the row.

The game ends when the first player constructs the target number of Buildings. This number depends on the number of players. Victory Points from Buildings, Adventurers and Adventurer endgame effects are totalled together with a player’s coins (1 coin = 1 VP). The player with the most VPs is the winner and their settlement becomes the new capital of Valeria.

Impressions

Villages of Valeria is an easy game to teach and play. There is little down-time and there is no real tendency for analysis paralysis is disrupt play. The game generates tension, especially with larger player counts. The feeling that you want to ‘follow’ the active player but don’t have the coins or the available Resource spaces to allow you to do this engenders a sense of friendly rivalry. But there is no take-that element to the gameplay.

The game looks fantastic. The artwork is to-die-for, although that is perhaps a question of taste. I happen to really like this style of art, but others may not. The screen-printing on the wooden pieces adds a lovely touch and brings the game even more to life.

On a practical level, the game does not require much table space to play and, once packed away, it is eminently transportable.

I can highly recommend this to fans of Valeria and those of card games in general.

Tagged card game, tableau, Valeria