Finally! A chance to play a proper Euro on a game day. Village is a worker placement game where you kill off your workers! mwah ha ha!
It’s one I’d heard of, it was on my ‘want to play’ list after hearing positive reviews which usually means something good.
Life in the village is hard – but life here also allows the inhabitants to grow and prosper as they please. One villager might want to become a friar. Another might feel ambitious and strive for a career in public office. A third one might want to seek his luck in distant lands.
Each player will take the reins of a family and have them find fame and glory in many different ways. There is one thing you must not forget, however: Time will not stop for anyone and with time people will vanish. Those who will find themselves immortalized in the village chronicles will bring honor to their family and be one step closer to victory.
I’ll just say straight away that I LOVED this game.
It really feels like your workers are ageing, being born, growing up and eventually passing away.
In many ways, it’s a standard worker placement game but some actions cause the time to pass.
Player Setup
Each player is given a board with their home farm on it and your workers start with the number ‘1’ on them. (newer workers you control are numbered 2 and 3 in order) The home farm has a time track around it.
Certain actions cause the time to elapse and you move your time token around that track. When it crosses the bridge at the top, one of your oldest workers dies.
While keeping your workers alive is good as you can flog them right up to and including their dying day. Your deceased workers that died in an action space will be added to the Village Chronicle which can give you end-game points.
Actions
When taking an action you also must take an influence cube that represents a certain skill or piece of knowledge that is randomly placed on the board. Eventually, as cubes run out those actions can’t be taken or only black cubes are left. These represent the Plague and increase your time track, slowly killing your oldest villager.
So, What are the actions?
Grain Harvest: Gain 2 bags of grain. If you have some livestock and a plough you get more.
Family: Gain a new worker
Market: All players in order can buy an item from the Market
Church: Add a member of your family to the bag. When drawn out of the bag during mass they can start to work their way up the Church hierarchy.
Craft: Send workers to work in one of the 5 different crafting areas gaining you easier access to various resources.
Travel: Send a worker out to neighbouring towns
Council Chamber: Make one of your villagers a member of the Town Council for great benefits
Well: If you need to take an action but there isn’t a cube available in that space, you can trade in 3 of the same type of cube and take that action anyway.
This was a VERY brief overview and I in no way did it justice but if you like worker placement games then I really suggest you give this one a go.
Village Update 19/05/2018
As this was the first kind of ‘proper euro’ I played I overhyped myself a little bit 🙂
While it’s good and much better than the ‘most Euro’game I had played so far, Lords of Waterdeep, it’s fallen behind since. I’m thinking of games like Terra Mystica and Gaia Project obviously, as well as other Euro-style games that I like.
I also feel that a player worked Village out by just taking the actions that gained the ‘highest value’ of good per action… Is it true? No idea, but he won 🙂
So, while I might not play it again, don’t let that stop you from giving it a go.
Jesta ThaRogue