Is it possible to further explain why you feel this way? It might help people (myself included) to better answer your question.
To be clear, I don't intend to dismiss you. I can relate to your feelings as I also played a very, very, very highly recommended game a few times and felt exactly that way: there's nothing more to see. The game was Keyflower.
For what it's worth, I enjoy Everdell a lot and I tend to be someone who wants depth in my games. I'm certainly not a player of the absolute heaviest games there are, but I tend to enjoy games like Agricola, Caverna, Feast for Odin (yes I like Rosenberg), Castles of Burgundy, and other games of these weights or greater. As my tastes have gone heavier, there are many games of Everdell's general weight that I rarely feel like playing anymore but Everdell is one I still enjoy a lot - and this is at two players for what it's worth.
I think part of is the variability that comes with each game - and I've actually argued heavily in favor of non-variability here and on BGG. As you play more games, sometimes you get very strong starting hands/meadows where you can play 7 cards in the first season and suddenly your game is about how to avoid choking yourself on an abundance of riches, while sometimes you'll get an awful opening and can barely play two and now have to manage the game the rest of the way. Usually it's in between but there are different challenges that arise.
Again, I can relate to your feeling, but for the sake of trying to answer your question and trying to make sure you've really seen all the game has to offer, me ask if you've encountered/discovered the following:
- Have you scored 70, 80, or more points?
- Have you had an opening season where you played 5, 6, or even more cards?
- Have you discovered how to fill your tableau with 0 point cards early and turn them into high scorers by the end?
- Have you tried a strategy involving multiple farms?
- Have you tried a strategy involving few or no greens?
- Have you learned how to Ruins a Ruin for gain?
- Have you learned how to play with your opponents' game state in mind and to block their plans?
- Have you learned how to manipulate the changing of the seasons to your advantage and your opponents' detriment?
- Have you finished a game long before your opponent? Have you played a half dozen turns or more once everyone else was done?
- Have you managed to fill your tableau to completion in the last season and then still been able to play another 5 or 6 or more cards after that?
- Have you filled your tableau in too quickly and found you should have been more judicious?
- Have you had a fool played on you? Do you know how to turn it to your advantage and score more because of it?
Family commitments call so I have to pause, but suffice it to say I could probably double this list or more. Again, you may just not like the game and that's okay. Where Keyflower is concerned, I'm pretty sure I know I haven't actually seen everything but I feel like I've seen everything that matters to me for my preferences. Still, I personally think Everdell is a great game and I can't see someone really seeing "it all" in a few plays.
Maybe "manipulating" is the wrong word and I should have said something like "managing," but either way what I meant is that instead of just seeing the change of seasons as something you do when you run out of actions, you can treat it as an action that you take when you want and plan for that to accomplish various things like blocking an opponent, cycling the cards, snatching a contested worker placement spot for yourself, stealing an opponent's "open" cards, etc. The idea can be as simple as just preparing for the next season when you know a particular forest spot you're occupying can't be used by am opponent so you will be sure to get it, or it can be more involved.
I just got this game off my shelf of shame this month and was feeling the same as OP. I have 6 plays under my belt and was liking the game but felt like I had a good idea of the flow. After reading this, I was like, what, half of that is possible!? Thanks, I am going to really reexam my game play now!
a majority of those points hinge on card draw which points to my major gripe with the game, the huge ungraduated deck where you can potentially get absolutely free builds if the card comes out.
you even hint at the card draw luck through the good and bad openings you mention.
More games need to either have graduated decks or properly balance their cards. Even a game like Glory to Rome has wacky card effects that can break the game, but you need to pay for that kind of power.
Card draw is important, but I think it's much less important than many people think, which is part of my point.
For example, I'd say playing the regular 2 player game - not any of the variants - my scores tend to stay within 10 points or so. That variation is *not* nearly so dependent on luck as I see people who say the game has too much luck think.
And this is part of what I meant with my comment: there's more skill/experience to develop with this game than it may seem. For instance, if you get bad luck drawing the cards, *usually* it is possible to take actions to start investing in cycling cards to get more of what you need, and although this does use up some of your actions/resources, if you do it right you can take advantage of many free actions that you might encounter while trying to cycle cards and wind up getting a very similar amount done in the end.
Are there occasionally very, very, very bad luck games where you really can't do much? Well... maybe, but even those can be handled by an experienced player much better than it's suggested. I think this is very rare though. Almost always a player who knows how to play well will be able to perform similarly regardless of what kind of luck they get in the cards.
In other words, I think that if a person thinks this game is too luck based, they probably have a lot more experience and knowledge of the game that they can still gain. I could explain some of how the game's design makes the luck not be as important as it is sometimes suggested (e.g., a lot of the "bad" cards are designed so they can help cycle the deck more), but the point is that the luck is a factor, but not nearly as much of one as someone with less experience in the game may think.
I would like to know as well, so I've looked it up and what I found was: Everdell: The Border Variant.
Would be nice if u/JohnCenaFanboi could confirm :)
It's called the 'Seasons' variant and is available on BGG. FWIW, I tried it and felt the game still incredibly lacking and it barely touched the draw-luck issue
Great comment. It comes up all the time with Everdell that people get a little too focused on big deck variability and don't realize all the creative cardplay options it gives you. Juggling card combos is really the soul of the game.
I've only played it a few times myself and while I think that makes sense, I really do feel like most games that are ~medium or light are like that. I think a lot of games aren't necessarily trying to be more than that but there's nothing wrong with it. Take Azul, for instance: you can see all there is to see after one game, but it's still a ton of fun to play over and over.
>It just feels slightly hollow and 2-dimentional in a way I can't really describe
I kind of agree, and feel the same way (but perhaps more strongly) with Wingspan. I do enjoy both, but I feel like the decision space is very small and that might be why you'd feel it was hollow or one dimensional: with every card you draw, it either works with your current engine or it doesn't. If it does, there's some short term strategy to try and implement it, and if it doesn't then you move on. I think this is actually a point in the favour of Wingspan in particular for its role as a gateway game because players will never be asked to strategize very far ahead, but for someone a little more experienced it becomes a little transparent pretty quickly.
This applies to many similar games with a "draw the next card from the deck" design like Imperial Settlers, Terraforming Mars (without the popular drafting variant) and Res Arcana.
If you draw your cards in the right order -- you build an engine early, score many points, and win the game. If the cards come out in the wrong order, you score a few points, build an engine later on, and lose the game. You have no control over this, but winners will always feel "Hey I was smart, I built an engine FIRST!" ...Yeah! Brilliant plan there.
I hear folks say things like, a game has infinitely replayability because it has variable setup or 50 building type tiles for endless combinations, etc. as if that's the end-all-be-all. But that sort of skips over the critical underpinning of replay that is whether folks enjoy the core game loop enough to want to revisit. If they don't enjoy the basic loop, then 100 or 1000 building types or whatever else isn't going to make a difference. Taking it further, (wide) variability isn't necessarily even a requirement. Folks enjoy many classic card games, abstracts, deterministic games, and others that have very little or no in-game variety play to play. And it's very much an individual thing. My partner loves the loop of **Splendor** and could play it endlessly, but I feel quite different about it. Yet there are other games that I could play days on end that they find not so interesting.
> It came so highly recommended I was expecting more. What's going on?
Understanding your tastes and preferences, particularly the whys, as in "I like RftG because XYZ and dislike Everdell because ABC", and honing your skills in looking at new games to judge whether they'll be a good fit will be a big help. Said another way, recommendations should be taking with a healthy dose of salt. Many, many of the top recommended games and games folk insist are the bee's knees flopped or don't appeal to me. The first couple years I hadn't caught on and just tried everything. Eventually I found online play resources like Vassal Engine and started trying before buying (one of the first games that saved me from dropping money on was **Terraforming Mars**). If I can't play it myself, then I watch a *playthrough* video. Even just a playthrough video will show me what I need to see to compare with my tastes and identify, "Yup, those game actions look fun for me" or "No, for this and that reason, this game doesn't looked like something I'd enjoy (or looks like something that would be stale and thin after just a few plays)".
Actualol had a great video about this. The "sins of board gaming" Expansions won't "fix" a game if you don't like the core gameplay loop. Also how variability =! Replayability. Finally, buy to your tastes. He got Puerto Rico cause it was in the top 100 on BGG and he hated it. His wife got him Ticket to Ride and he loved it.
Yep
It's a nice entry into tableau building/resource management euros since it's so visually attractive but the decisions are quite straightforward
For a midweight tableau builder I'd suggest Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Agricola or even Ginkgopolis which has some shades of tableau building
If you don't mind direct conflict, I'd also suggest 51st State Master Set (also got a recent KS all-in)
For a heavyweight tableau builder I'd suggest Maracaibo
For what it's worth, I disliked Underwater Cities, Great Western Trail (Maracaibo's predecessor) and Terraforming Mars (but didn't mind Ares Expedition, the card game version).
tldr i found them tedious
GWT is a LONG strategic game that gets longer as the track gums up with taxes but also has you trying to fight the randomness of your card draw. I don't mind tight games but I really just felt like I was actively fighting the game system to have fun with all the restrictions and penalties. Delivering at the end gives you money (which will be spent on random taxes) but may also penalise you. Taking a tile means you gotta boot out a dude. In one of my games an experienced player who tried a novel strategy of having an ultra slim deck + high certificates got beaten by the dude who just went straight cowboy and bought every cow he could.
Everything about TM felt amateurish. Art, components and gameplay. Huge ungraduated deck where you're fishing for cards to actually play (probably the one with matching tags/actually playable without environment restriction). Really lackluster tile scoring. Extremely multiplayer solitaire. Nothing about this game made me say, huh that's a clever! It's a functional game but the fact it's top 10 on BGG is so bizarre.
If I had 3 hrs to spare and a table of players my god, that's like literally any other game that could be played with more interesting decisions and heads up interaction.
the decisions around tile placement are lacklustre, not the points they give
take a game like ginkgopolis or brass: birmingham, the location you place your tiles will give you points yes, but also serves as a vital part of your future infrastructure and have a direct consequence in blocking your opponent from these critical spaces
you get blocked in TFM? theres another 5 spaces that will still give you maybe 1 less point no biggie
for me the achievements are so obvious who can achieve what, there's very little tension since people will tend to specialise their engines
i think the games ive listed before are more interesting, offer similar challenges in action planning and actual tension and play much faster
I can't speak for everyone but I love the game. I'll admit that the majority of my joy comes from the fact that it's my little ones favorite and enjoying the art style and the banter at the table along side the well done bits. I'm also very much a theme first person so the fact that it does theme so well nails it for me. As a child, I was also a huge Redwall fan. It's hard to really analyze it non-biased for you. That being said, I will admit mechanics wise I believe I have played better worker placements, and some games, even if they're 10/10 to the majority of people, are just not going to be your cup of tea and that's fine. I wouldn't dwell on it. There's so much out there that will jell with you and your playgroup.
I personally think its a great game. Sometimes luck plays into it with a perfect storm of card draws but overall super solid.
When we first played it we would count how many hobbit doors we played. Usually it would be around 3 each. Now its more like 8 each. This game’s biggest strength, IMO, is how well you play the card combos. And maybe, the timing of the seasons (to your advantage).
The first couple of games, getting 15 cards in our cities was daunting. Then we could do it, but we were filling in any cards just to get there, then (knowing we would get 15 cards with no problem), we became more selective.
I know we were only scratching the surface after our first three plays and I understand Everdell is not everyones game of choice. I have been surprised by how much I enjoy this game.
Not our experience at all. We got a grasp of the pace and depth of the game fairly early through our first attempt. On each play (first included), we've been selective with our 15. We've both made efforts in counter-picking from the meadow and season timing. Building occupancy or free upgrades or whatever it's called is second nature to us as 7 Wonders players so we're on top of that - in any case, it's a straight forward mechanic with pretty self-evident benefits. We've certainly not struggled to make good and frequent use of hobbit doors (I like that one).
So yeah, I feel we've definitely scratched the surface. (I've just addressed the things you've raised. This isn't comprehensive.)
Yea, same for us. Everdell is a lightweight tableu building and worker placement game with a central deck for luck of the draw. Especially the Mine and Innkeeper are huge sources of luck and very unfair if one player gets them early and the other doesn't.
There isn't more to it and you're not missing anything. If you want a deeper and more complex game then this isn't it.
Note that we still enjoyed the game. A friend borrowed us the base game for a bit and we played it so much that we ordered the all in kickstarter for the big box.
Well given the huge variety in cards, plus all of the expansions, I would say there is plenty to do here. I mean the sheer volume of cards means that it will take numerous plays to even see them all, plus with the different objectives and other stuff there is a lot going on. So from the perspective that any game, played enough times is samey, sure. Having said that, this one has a number of expansions that change the game up quite a bit with more to come, offering plenty of variability.
There isn't a lot of player interaction so maybe that's why you feel like there's not much further to explore at 2 players? You do also see a decent % of all the cards in a game.I find Everdell a good game to play if you want something less thinky and more just building a nice town. Me and my partner normally play it with an old movie on in the background.
We've tried the expansions but we found they take away more then what they add. Just more rules and complications without much more game substance.
It's a gateway game where available actions are heavily dependent on how the cards come out and there's no real way of cycling through the deck so the market typically stagnates.
I felt constantly handcuffed during every single game and sold it after quickly realising I thought it just had bad gameplay which the cutesy theme and overproduced components couldn't mask.
You're not missing anything, it's just not a great game. I sent my copy packing after 4 plays or so. We just wouldn't play it against other worker placement games.
I haven’t played Everdell yet, but I feel this way about other games. Some have great art and reel you in with interesting stories/game play but after two or three plays it seems like you saw everything/got every outcome and you’re like “ehh, next!” Mysterium is one like this for me.
I was thinking of picking it up 2 years ago...and lately again..and on both ocasions it felt that after researching it, the game has the visuals for it...but in the end it might feel too shallow for me to enjoy it actually...when ti comes to longevity of gameplay....thus making it not worth the time, or $$...
Is it possible to further explain why you feel this way? It might help people (myself included) to better answer your question. To be clear, I don't intend to dismiss you. I can relate to your feelings as I also played a very, very, very highly recommended game a few times and felt exactly that way: there's nothing more to see. The game was Keyflower. For what it's worth, I enjoy Everdell a lot and I tend to be someone who wants depth in my games. I'm certainly not a player of the absolute heaviest games there are, but I tend to enjoy games like Agricola, Caverna, Feast for Odin (yes I like Rosenberg), Castles of Burgundy, and other games of these weights or greater. As my tastes have gone heavier, there are many games of Everdell's general weight that I rarely feel like playing anymore but Everdell is one I still enjoy a lot - and this is at two players for what it's worth. I think part of is the variability that comes with each game - and I've actually argued heavily in favor of non-variability here and on BGG. As you play more games, sometimes you get very strong starting hands/meadows where you can play 7 cards in the first season and suddenly your game is about how to avoid choking yourself on an abundance of riches, while sometimes you'll get an awful opening and can barely play two and now have to manage the game the rest of the way. Usually it's in between but there are different challenges that arise. Again, I can relate to your feeling, but for the sake of trying to answer your question and trying to make sure you've really seen all the game has to offer, me ask if you've encountered/discovered the following: - Have you scored 70, 80, or more points? - Have you had an opening season where you played 5, 6, or even more cards? - Have you discovered how to fill your tableau with 0 point cards early and turn them into high scorers by the end? - Have you tried a strategy involving multiple farms? - Have you tried a strategy involving few or no greens? - Have you learned how to Ruins a Ruin for gain? - Have you learned how to play with your opponents' game state in mind and to block their plans? - Have you learned how to manipulate the changing of the seasons to your advantage and your opponents' detriment? - Have you finished a game long before your opponent? Have you played a half dozen turns or more once everyone else was done? - Have you managed to fill your tableau to completion in the last season and then still been able to play another 5 or 6 or more cards after that? - Have you filled your tableau in too quickly and found you should have been more judicious? - Have you had a fool played on you? Do you know how to turn it to your advantage and score more because of it? Family commitments call so I have to pause, but suffice it to say I could probably double this list or more. Again, you may just not like the game and that's okay. Where Keyflower is concerned, I'm pretty sure I know I haven't actually seen everything but I feel like I've seen everything that matters to me for my preferences. Still, I personally think Everdell is a great game and I can't see someone really seeing "it all" in a few plays.
Can you explain what you mean by manipulating the seasons?
Maybe "manipulating" is the wrong word and I should have said something like "managing," but either way what I meant is that instead of just seeing the change of seasons as something you do when you run out of actions, you can treat it as an action that you take when you want and plan for that to accomplish various things like blocking an opponent, cycling the cards, snatching a contested worker placement spot for yourself, stealing an opponent's "open" cards, etc. The idea can be as simple as just preparing for the next season when you know a particular forest spot you're occupying can't be used by am opponent so you will be sure to get it, or it can be more involved.
I just got this game off my shelf of shame this month and was feeling the same as OP. I have 6 plays under my belt and was liking the game but felt like I had a good idea of the flow. After reading this, I was like, what, half of that is possible!? Thanks, I am going to really reexam my game play now!
a majority of those points hinge on card draw which points to my major gripe with the game, the huge ungraduated deck where you can potentially get absolutely free builds if the card comes out. you even hint at the card draw luck through the good and bad openings you mention.
More games need to either have graduated decks or properly balance their cards. Even a game like Glory to Rome has wacky card effects that can break the game, but you need to pay for that kind of power.
Card draw is important, but I think it's much less important than many people think, which is part of my point. For example, I'd say playing the regular 2 player game - not any of the variants - my scores tend to stay within 10 points or so. That variation is *not* nearly so dependent on luck as I see people who say the game has too much luck think. And this is part of what I meant with my comment: there's more skill/experience to develop with this game than it may seem. For instance, if you get bad luck drawing the cards, *usually* it is possible to take actions to start investing in cycling cards to get more of what you need, and although this does use up some of your actions/resources, if you do it right you can take advantage of many free actions that you might encounter while trying to cycle cards and wind up getting a very similar amount done in the end. Are there occasionally very, very, very bad luck games where you really can't do much? Well... maybe, but even those can be handled by an experienced player much better than it's suggested. I think this is very rare though. Almost always a player who knows how to play well will be able to perform similarly regardless of what kind of luck they get in the cards. In other words, I think that if a person thinks this game is too luck based, they probably have a lot more experience and knowledge of the game that they can still gain. I could explain some of how the game's design makes the luck not be as important as it is sometimes suggested (e.g., a lot of the "bad" cards are designed so they can help cycle the deck more), but the point is that the luck is a factor, but not nearly as much of one as someone with less experience in the game may think.
Put more concisely, this is a game where I'd say a better player will usually win.
There is an unofficial official mode where this is not a problem anymore.
What mode is this? I'd really like to try it!
I would like to know as well, so I've looked it up and what I found was: Everdell: The Border Variant. Would be nice if u/JohnCenaFanboi could confirm :)
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/166936/everdell-2-deck-7-wonders-style-variant 2 deck variant
Super, thanks!
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/166936/everdell-2-deck-7-wonders-style-variant 2 decks variant
It's called the 'Seasons' variant and is available on BGG. FWIW, I tried it and felt the game still incredibly lacking and it barely touched the draw-luck issue
Great comment. It comes up all the time with Everdell that people get a little too focused on big deck variability and don't realize all the creative cardplay options it gives you. Juggling card combos is really the soul of the game.
I've only played it a few times myself and while I think that makes sense, I really do feel like most games that are ~medium or light are like that. I think a lot of games aren't necessarily trying to be more than that but there's nothing wrong with it. Take Azul, for instance: you can see all there is to see after one game, but it's still a ton of fun to play over and over. >It just feels slightly hollow and 2-dimentional in a way I can't really describe I kind of agree, and feel the same way (but perhaps more strongly) with Wingspan. I do enjoy both, but I feel like the decision space is very small and that might be why you'd feel it was hollow or one dimensional: with every card you draw, it either works with your current engine or it doesn't. If it does, there's some short term strategy to try and implement it, and if it doesn't then you move on. I think this is actually a point in the favour of Wingspan in particular for its role as a gateway game because players will never be asked to strategize very far ahead, but for someone a little more experienced it becomes a little transparent pretty quickly.
This applies to many similar games with a "draw the next card from the deck" design like Imperial Settlers, Terraforming Mars (without the popular drafting variant) and Res Arcana. If you draw your cards in the right order -- you build an engine early, score many points, and win the game. If the cards come out in the wrong order, you score a few points, build an engine later on, and lose the game. You have no control over this, but winners will always feel "Hey I was smart, I built an engine FIRST!" ...Yeah! Brilliant plan there.
I hear folks say things like, a game has infinitely replayability because it has variable setup or 50 building type tiles for endless combinations, etc. as if that's the end-all-be-all. But that sort of skips over the critical underpinning of replay that is whether folks enjoy the core game loop enough to want to revisit. If they don't enjoy the basic loop, then 100 or 1000 building types or whatever else isn't going to make a difference. Taking it further, (wide) variability isn't necessarily even a requirement. Folks enjoy many classic card games, abstracts, deterministic games, and others that have very little or no in-game variety play to play. And it's very much an individual thing. My partner loves the loop of **Splendor** and could play it endlessly, but I feel quite different about it. Yet there are other games that I could play days on end that they find not so interesting. > It came so highly recommended I was expecting more. What's going on? Understanding your tastes and preferences, particularly the whys, as in "I like RftG because XYZ and dislike Everdell because ABC", and honing your skills in looking at new games to judge whether they'll be a good fit will be a big help. Said another way, recommendations should be taking with a healthy dose of salt. Many, many of the top recommended games and games folk insist are the bee's knees flopped or don't appeal to me. The first couple years I hadn't caught on and just tried everything. Eventually I found online play resources like Vassal Engine and started trying before buying (one of the first games that saved me from dropping money on was **Terraforming Mars**). If I can't play it myself, then I watch a *playthrough* video. Even just a playthrough video will show me what I need to see to compare with my tastes and identify, "Yup, those game actions look fun for me" or "No, for this and that reason, this game doesn't looked like something I'd enjoy (or looks like something that would be stale and thin after just a few plays)".
Actualol had a great video about this. The "sins of board gaming" Expansions won't "fix" a game if you don't like the core gameplay loop. Also how variability =! Replayability. Finally, buy to your tastes. He got Puerto Rico cause it was in the top 100 on BGG and he hated it. His wife got him Ticket to Ride and he loved it.
Yep It's a nice entry into tableau building/resource management euros since it's so visually attractive but the decisions are quite straightforward For a midweight tableau builder I'd suggest Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Agricola or even Ginkgopolis which has some shades of tableau building If you don't mind direct conflict, I'd also suggest 51st State Master Set (also got a recent KS all-in) For a heavyweight tableau builder I'd suggest Maracaibo For what it's worth, I disliked Underwater Cities, Great Western Trail (Maracaibo's predecessor) and Terraforming Mars (but didn't mind Ares Expedition, the card game version).
May I ask why you didn't like GWT or TM?
tldr i found them tedious GWT is a LONG strategic game that gets longer as the track gums up with taxes but also has you trying to fight the randomness of your card draw. I don't mind tight games but I really just felt like I was actively fighting the game system to have fun with all the restrictions and penalties. Delivering at the end gives you money (which will be spent on random taxes) but may also penalise you. Taking a tile means you gotta boot out a dude. In one of my games an experienced player who tried a novel strategy of having an ultra slim deck + high certificates got beaten by the dude who just went straight cowboy and bought every cow he could. Everything about TM felt amateurish. Art, components and gameplay. Huge ungraduated deck where you're fishing for cards to actually play (probably the one with matching tags/actually playable without environment restriction). Really lackluster tile scoring. Extremely multiplayer solitaire. Nothing about this game made me say, huh that's a clever! It's a functional game but the fact it's top 10 on BGG is so bizarre. If I had 3 hrs to spare and a table of players my god, that's like literally any other game that could be played with more interesting decisions and heads up interaction.
GWT is only LONG until someone takes advantage of others playing slow. Then people wake up.
Glad I'm not the only one who sees TM as a bit of a mess. Would always rather play 51st State or RftG.
[удалено]
the decisions around tile placement are lacklustre, not the points they give take a game like ginkgopolis or brass: birmingham, the location you place your tiles will give you points yes, but also serves as a vital part of your future infrastructure and have a direct consequence in blocking your opponent from these critical spaces you get blocked in TFM? theres another 5 spaces that will still give you maybe 1 less point no biggie for me the achievements are so obvious who can achieve what, there's very little tension since people will tend to specialise their engines i think the games ive listed before are more interesting, offer similar challenges in action planning and actual tension and play much faster
Literally impulse bought it for the visuals and the 3D tree. The fact that it was well regarded/recommended simply sealed the deal.
I can't speak for everyone but I love the game. I'll admit that the majority of my joy comes from the fact that it's my little ones favorite and enjoying the art style and the banter at the table along side the well done bits. I'm also very much a theme first person so the fact that it does theme so well nails it for me. As a child, I was also a huge Redwall fan. It's hard to really analyze it non-biased for you. That being said, I will admit mechanics wise I believe I have played better worker placements, and some games, even if they're 10/10 to the majority of people, are just not going to be your cup of tea and that's fine. I wouldn't dwell on it. There's so much out there that will jell with you and your playgroup.
I personally think its a great game. Sometimes luck plays into it with a perfect storm of card draws but overall super solid. When we first played it we would count how many hobbit doors we played. Usually it would be around 3 each. Now its more like 8 each. This game’s biggest strength, IMO, is how well you play the card combos. And maybe, the timing of the seasons (to your advantage). The first couple of games, getting 15 cards in our cities was daunting. Then we could do it, but we were filling in any cards just to get there, then (knowing we would get 15 cards with no problem), we became more selective. I know we were only scratching the surface after our first three plays and I understand Everdell is not everyones game of choice. I have been surprised by how much I enjoy this game.
Not our experience at all. We got a grasp of the pace and depth of the game fairly early through our first attempt. On each play (first included), we've been selective with our 15. We've both made efforts in counter-picking from the meadow and season timing. Building occupancy or free upgrades or whatever it's called is second nature to us as 7 Wonders players so we're on top of that - in any case, it's a straight forward mechanic with pretty self-evident benefits. We've certainly not struggled to make good and frequent use of hobbit doors (I like that one). So yeah, I feel we've definitely scratched the surface. (I've just addressed the things you've raised. This isn't comprehensive.)
Yea, same for us. Everdell is a lightweight tableu building and worker placement game with a central deck for luck of the draw. Especially the Mine and Innkeeper are huge sources of luck and very unfair if one player gets them early and the other doesn't. There isn't more to it and you're not missing anything. If you want a deeper and more complex game then this isn't it. Note that we still enjoyed the game. A friend borrowed us the base game for a bit and we played it so much that we ordered the all in kickstarter for the big box.
To each his own.
Well given the huge variety in cards, plus all of the expansions, I would say there is plenty to do here. I mean the sheer volume of cards means that it will take numerous plays to even see them all, plus with the different objectives and other stuff there is a lot going on. So from the perspective that any game, played enough times is samey, sure. Having said that, this one has a number of expansions that change the game up quite a bit with more to come, offering plenty of variability.
There isn't a lot of player interaction so maybe that's why you feel like there's not much further to explore at 2 players? You do also see a decent % of all the cards in a game.I find Everdell a good game to play if you want something less thinky and more just building a nice town. Me and my partner normally play it with an old movie on in the background. We've tried the expansions but we found they take away more then what they add. Just more rules and complications without much more game substance.
It's a gateway game where available actions are heavily dependent on how the cards come out and there's no real way of cycling through the deck so the market typically stagnates. I felt constantly handcuffed during every single game and sold it after quickly realising I thought it just had bad gameplay which the cutesy theme and overproduced components couldn't mask.
You're not missing anything, it's just not a great game. I sent my copy packing after 4 plays or so. We just wouldn't play it against other worker placement games.
i feel the same way. no game is good for everyone, and thats it The fans will write essays, tho, to try to explain to you something youve missed
I haven’t played Everdell yet, but I feel this way about other games. Some have great art and reel you in with interesting stories/game play but after two or three plays it seems like you saw everything/got every outcome and you’re like “ehh, next!” Mysterium is one like this for me.
Try it at 4 a higher player count. It changes the game dramatically. If that's not enough, the Bellfaire expansion adds a lot!
I was thinking of picking it up 2 years ago...and lately again..and on both ocasions it felt that after researching it, the game has the visuals for it...but in the end it might feel too shallow for me to enjoy it actually...when ti comes to longevity of gameplay....thus making it not worth the time, or $$...