Margraves of Valeria Review

As I’ve said many times before – I am a HUGE fan of the Valeria-verse from Daily Magic Games. From the OG Valeria Card Kingdoms, to even the small dice game Corsairs of Valeria, the world, lore, and gameplay have me hooked. So when I saw a Kickstarter for a worker placement game set in the realm that I love, I knew I had to back it. How does Margraves of Valeria hold up against the established games in the ‘series?’ Spoiler alert – it’s pretty great!

Disclaimer: I do not intend to rehash the entire rulebook in this review, but rather provide a general overview of the rules and gameplay. -L

Margraves of Valeria is a deck-building, worker placement game in which players travel the cities of Valeria to build Ward Towers, fight Monsters, and influence various Guilds in an effort to amass the most VP and become Dukes/Duchesses of Valeria! To setup for a game, consult the rulebook for direction and specifics based on your player count – there are simply too many steps to detail here concisely. (The picture below shows the setup for a 2-player game.) The game is played over a series of rounds in which players will take turns performing various actions. To start your turn, you must first play a Citizen card from your hand to your discard pile and perform 1 of 4 possible actions: Pennant Action, Citizen Power, Recall, or Build. To perform the Pennant Action, you will consult the upper left-hand corner of the Citizen card you just played. The icons listed there dictate what you will do, whether it’s gaining resources, moving your Margrave, or deploying Knights to the board. Whenever you move your Margrave or a Knight to a new location on the board, you may immediately activate its special power, whether trading resources, buying Citizens, or moving your Ship.

To perform the Citizen Power, read the text at the bottom of your played card, and again follow those directions to manipulate resources, placements on the board, collect Privilege Tiles (for end-game points or immediate rewards) etc. Citizen Powers sometimes give you the opportunity to Slay Monsters, which will earn Influence points. You can slay Monsters by sacrificing specific resources, as well as any Knights at your current location. (Hey – there will be some casualties when defending the realm.) If you have 1 or no Citizen cards in your hand at the start of your turn, you must perform the Recall action – discard 1 Citizen card from the market, pick up your discard pile of Citizens already played, and you may pay Gold to purchase a Citizen from the market. Now your hand is full again for future turns! The final action you can take is to Build. Pay the appropriate resources in order to Build a Ward Tower at your current location. Ward Towers earn you Influence points, resources/rewards, and count as end-game points. To end your turn, refill the Citizen market, Monster stacks, and Privilege Tiles, and resolve the Hero Tombs (where fallen Knights get sent, potentially earning you rewards). The game moves to the next player, and continues in this fashion until one of 3 end-game conditions has been met: a player has built their last Ward Tower, the Citizen market can no longer be refilled, or there are not enough Privilege tiles left to replenish the stacks. Everyone takes an equal number of turns, and then final scoring takes place. Points are tallied for resources, Ward Towers, Privilege Tiles, Citizens in hand, and Influence. The player with the highest score wins!

Of all the Valeria games I have played thus far, I do have to say that Margraves of Valeria is the most in-depth in terms of gameplay, rules, and strategy. I’m not saying that it’s complicated by any means, just that its a bit heavier than the others in the same family of games. That being said, I do really enjoy Margraves more than I thought I would. It still gives you that card-drafting element that I so love, while also adding in some non-confrontational worker placement. Unlike other games of this style, in Margraves of Valeria any player can move to any location – there is no finite number of players that are allowed to occupy one location. That alleviates some aggressiveness as that means you can’t really block other players from moving to certain places on the board. Another neat element is that once a Knight is in play on the board, it can be moved by any player on their turn. If I just deployed a Knight, on your turn you are able to use it for yourself – they don’t belong to a single player. Only you can move your Margrave, but anyone can move a Knight. You still get that worker placement feel, but the focus of the gameplay is on your individual strategy and not interfering with other players.

Speaking of strategy, Margraves offers you sooooo many different options. Citizen cards alone can be used in 2 different ways (Pennant Actions and Citizen Powers), and thus give you lots of versatility when it comes to picking a strategy or adjusting a strategy. Do you want to focus on slaying Monsters, or should you work to build Ward Towers quickly to end the game as soon as possible? Or maybe earning Privilege Tiles seems like a good way to earn a chunk of points? Maybe you could have a mix of all three of these examples! The point is, there is not one single strategy that everyone is using at all times, and that keeps the gameplay fresh and engaging.

Let me touch on components for a minutes. As with all Valeria games, the production quality of Margraves of Valeria is top notch. The artwork is cool and colorful, the wooden resources tokens are nice and thick, and the cards and boards are clear and easy to read and manipulate. Daily Magic Games has set quite a precedent when it comes to component quality, and they have yet to disappoint! The only small issue I had is that the Keeps (where players keep their Gold) were a little tricky to assemble. But the nice thing is that it’s a one-time deal – they’re now assembled forever. So a minor inconvenience is nothing really to complain about.

You can probably tell by reading this review that I love Margraves of Valeria. To me, it feels like Valeria Card Kingdoms, but intensified. It is a bit of a heavier game than others, so it’s not one that I’ll likely bring to the table every game night. But it is one that I enjoy playing and will pull out whenever I’m itching for something with a little more oomph. If you’re a fan of the other Valeria games, I would definitely recommend checking this one out. And if you’ve never played a Valeria game before, pick some up! Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a marvelous 5 / 6.