“Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The land of Valeria is under siege by hordes of monsters. You and your fellow Dukes must recruit citizens and buy domains to build up your kingdoms and slay the foul creatures that lurk in the surrounding lands.
This is a game like Machi Koro where a player rolls dice then everyone activates cards based on the numbers rolled. But, in this game, you always roll 2 dice and activate both of them as well as the total. So if you roll a 4 and a 2, you activate all cards that are 2, 4 and 6.
If none of your cards activates, you can take 1 resource of any type so you always get something on every turn.
You choose a Duke card which gives you an endgame scoring goal. Mine gave me a bonus for slaying Monsters!
You start off with two ‘Citizens’: a Peasant and a Knight.
Citizens have 2 values for income, one if you rolled the dice and one if another player rolled them. On your turn after rolling and collecting income and take actions. You can take any 2 of the following…
Slay a Monster
Spend Attack tokens to take the monster card and the reward on it. Each Monster has a point value for end-game scoring.
Recruit a Citizen
Pay the cost in Gold and add it to your tableau. Each Citizen has different values to trigger dice and also different values and types of income.
Buy a Domain
If you have the required icons on cards already in your tableau, pay the cost and add the Domain to your play area. Domains have end-game points and abilities.
For an action, you can just Gain a Resource, either Attack, Gold or Magic. Magic can be used as either Gold or Attack, as long as you use at least one ‘proper’ Gold or Attack piece with them.
When 8 piles of cards have gone, the game ends, and most points win.
Valeria: Card Kingdoms Positives
I felt more part of the game than Machi Koro. You’re always getting something or doing something each turn in Valeria.
The dice activating on 3 numbers each turn is much more interesting and I’m sure those that want to math out the odds love it 😉
Plenty of different ways to score points.
The art is great.
It has a Rogue 😀
Valeria: Card Kingdoms Negatives
Your Duke, which gives you bonus points for a certain thing, almost fully dictates your game. For example, mine gave me points for killing Monsters so I did, barely recruiting any Citizens in the process.
Some ‘take that’ abilities are annoying.
Summary
Not too bad, very pretty, better than Machi Koro
Jesta ThaRogue