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In Castellans of Valeria, players are vying to become the Castellan of the city of Kosk. Their mission is to manage the city’s growth by gathering resources, developing districts, and earning influence with the guilds. The game is played over five rounds, and in each round, players go through four phases: draft, action, score, and reset.
👥 1-5 players, ages 14+
🕰 Playing time: 60-90 minutes
📝 Designer: Isaias Vallejo
🎨 Artwork: The Mico
🏢 Publisher: Daily Magic Games
The Kickstarter campaign for Castellans of Valeria lauches on June 13th: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dailymagicgames/castellans-of-valeria?ref=8eqbt4
🎲 The first phase is the draft phase. The player with the 1st player token rolls the dice and sets them up for everyone to see. Each player then picks a die and places it on their own board, acquiring the resource depicted on it. This keeps going until all players have three dice each. After that, it’s time to get moving with the action phase.
🔨 During the action phase, players spend the dice they drafted to do actions. With their dice, players can perform one main action and maybe some extra sub-actions. Main actions include building manors or temples, recruiting citizens, gathering resources through harvesting, or engaging in trade with ships.
🏯 Building a manor or a temple means you put one in a district and spend resources. This helps you gain influence with the guilds. Recruiting a citizen means you pick a citizen card and pay for it, which gives you bonuses and more influence. Harvesting lets you get more resources from your dice. Lastly, ships allow you to buy or sell resources based on special wharf cards.
⛩️ Besides the main actions, there are also monument actions. You can build monuments like gates, ward towers, or statues by paying gold. These monuments give you extra points, making your city even more impressive.
🏆 Next comes the scoring phase. This is where players see how well they did in the round. They earn points for controlling different parts of the city, for the monuments they have built, and for trading at the wharf.
After everyone gets their points, if it’s not the end of the 5th round, it’s time to tidy up in the reset phase. The game board is cleaned up, the round marker moves ahead, and the 1st player token passes to the next player.
❎ Finally, after the 5th round, it’s time to count up points one last time. Players earn extra points based on their standing in the guilds. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game is crowned the new Castellan of Valeria!
Castellans of Valeria is a game by Isaias Vallejo, part of the popular series by Daily Magic Games set in the Kingdom of Valeria. If you’re familiar with the series, you’ll instantly recognize the charming artwork by The Mico. The game has a blend of dice drafting and area majority mechanics, making for a playing time of about 60-90 minutes.
🎲 In Castellans of Valeria, players cleverly draft and spend dice to perform actions like building or trading. Essential to keep in mind is that if the face of the die matches the action, you’re rewarded with a bonus. Magic also plays a neat role here, as you can use it along with other resources during the action phase, but remember that you’ll have to pay at least one of the required resources.
🔮 One of the things we like the most about Castellans of Valeria is its asymmetric gameplay. You can gain special abilities and perks through citizen cards, such as tweaking dice or getting one-time bonuses. Building manors is especially exciting, as it unlocks powers on your player board that can give you an edge throughout the game. For instance, one of the manors is the lighthouse, which allows you to collect victory points for the number of ships in its district in each scoring phase.
📊 As you perform actions, you usually earn influence, which you can track on guild tracks. Crossing specific points on these tracks grants you instant rewards. Actions also allow you to grow your presence in different districts, which is crucial for scoring phases where you compete for the majority. Moreover, ships offer you some extra flexibility, as you can move them to different districts as the game progresses. Keeping an eye on which districts score in each round is vital, and balancing short-term gains with long-term strategy is essential.
🏆 Another important aspect of the game is building monuments by spending gold. These are quite an investment, but they can really pay off in victory points. What’s cool is that the placement of these monuments can grant you extra points during each scoring phase. But, be cautious as your presence in certain areas might inadvertently benefit your opponents too if they have the proper monument there.
🌈 Castellans of Valeria is visually stunning, even in its prototype form. The vibrant board and delightful artwork feature clear iconography, making it easy to understand. The wooden screen-printed tokens add a nice touch to the overall experience.
👥 While the game is designed for 1-5 players, we find it best with 3 or 4 players. Nevertheless, the game scales smoothly across different player counts thanks to a neutral green player with keep tokens participating in district majority scorings.
💭 Castellans of Valeria captivates with its clever use of dice, resource management, and area majority mechanics that keeps players fully engaged. With charming artwork, a vibrant board, and the excitement of unlocking powers through building manors, this game is as visually stunning as it is fun to play. For those interested, the Kickstarter campaign for Castellans of Valeria is set to launch on June 13th, and can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dailymagicgames/castellans-of-valeria?ref=8eqbt4
📦 We received a prototype copy of Castellans of Valeria from Daily Magic Games, so please note that all components in the pictures are prototype components. The final version components might be different from what’s shown in the photos.
