REVIEW

Quests of Valeria Review

by Luke Walsh, March 2nd, 2017

Quests of Valeria is the third game in the series, where you are tasked to recruit adventurers to complete various quests in the Kingdom. This game really reminds me of a PC game called Majesty 1 & 2, where instead of playing the adventurer you play as the recruiter in the Guild Hall or similar. Advanced tip, I really enjoyed Majesty the game…

As resource management games go, whether on PC or table-top like Quests of Valeria, your key is down in the name. Manage your resources to be able to come out on top. This game is playable between 1 – 5 players but it probably best suited for 3-4 players. It is perfectly acceptable and achievable to play on your own but having people other than yourself can add to the fun.

In a nutshell, the game works by recruiting adventures and players take turn to send those adventurers out to complete quests. When completing a quest, players are rewarded with victory points and bonus actions. When any player reaches 5 successfully completed quests, the game ends and the one with the most victory points wins. The three main decks in the game would be Citizen cards, Quest cards and Guild Master cards which are all easily marked on the back. Some additional cards come with the pack, which act as quick reference cards allowing you to understand the various iconography at a glance without having to refer back to the rule book. These types of games work well with these information cards, each player can be given one and there is no need to waste time every turn trying to remember or work out what the little red shield means.

How to play Quests of Valeria

Setting up the game can take a little bit of time but building the “Tavern” is an interesting experience for new players of the game as it gives you a sense of those RPG elements. The Tavern consists of 6 different quests that are available for players to take (4 in a 2 player game) and 6 different Citizen cards which you can “hire”. On top of the Citizen cards is the cost tokens which indicate how many cards you need to discard to hire that adventurer.

Once decks are shuffled, each player is given a Guild Master card and can keep it a secret from the other players. The first player then takes his turn consisting of 2 different phases; the action phase and the end phase. Like a lot of card games, the two phases allow the player to perform different actions with those actions only being able to happen in that phase. Understanding the different phases is important to reading the flow of the game and making the most out of them.

During the Action Phase a player must take at least 2 actions from 4 different available actions in the game. These are broken down by Draw, Hire, Reserve and Quest.

Drawing a card is pretty simple, you just need to draw said card from the top of the Citizen deck. While the Hire action, allows you to hire a particular adventurer from the tavern line by paying the cost (discarding cards from your hand) or hiring Citizens you already have in your hand by discarding 2 cards. The Reserving action is useful for those looking to take on a certain quest but might not want to at that time. By reserving the quest you put it into your guild, if you don’t like any of the current available quests, you are able to discard all the quests in the tavern and draw new ones then reserving from those new cards. Finally, Quest is an action which speaks for itself, by doing this you can select a quest from your guild or tavern and discard the cards needed to pay the cost to undertake that quest.

Completing quests with your available resources enable you to usually take extra actions which can be again selected from the above 4. There are also unique actions that can be taken when you fulfil certain conditions.

The End Phase, is much simpler than the Action Phase. At the end of the players turn all Citizens in the atvern are moved to the left and the spaces are filled by new ones. The same is also done for any missing quests which might have been actioned during that players phase.

I had not played the other X of Valeria games, so going into any title by Daily Magic games was new to me. Quest of Valeria is a solid card game to play on your own or with your friends but I’d really suggest playing it with some people. I tried a couple times on my own, when noone was around to play with me and of course you can go on quests, hire adventures and still have to think about your resource management, but there is no urgency. I would suggest to try a few games on your own so you can get used to the mechanic and phases, afterwards though grab some friends and teach them how to play.

Learning the game is easy, setting up chains is the more intermediate skill of the game. Although you might find you can accidentally chain together actions to give you more actions, thinking ahead, looking at the tavern line and your own hand is really where the fun comes. The good thing about Quests of Valeria is although you can think about your chains and ways to get the most out of each turn, sometimes awesome chains just happen without you realising. In some games, you or your opponents might start of with one action that ends up in 4 or 5 because of the luck of the draws.

Delving deep into the tavern line though is important, you will want to work out when it is your turn how you can maximise your chances of completing quests. This require you to think proactively but also relatively, the quests you wanted to take on your turn might not be available when it actually comes around. Quickly thinking, “if I hire this guy and take this quest which allows me to draw three more card and in turn I can take another quests” is how you can take yourself from zero to many victory points in just a single turn.

The only real downside to the game is the lack of overall depth. Hire, quest, discard really are the only main actions within the game. This can make it quite repetitive which usually means only a certain number of games can really be played in one sitting. As there is a lack of role-playing element or levelling in the game, there is not real progression that allows you to get more meat as part of your over adventure. It would be nice to have heroes who can level, or equip items as part of their questing and try and overcome a big goal such as a final boss or dungeon. Arguably, this could change the game’s mechanics a lot but I’d like to see how they could expand the game to allow depth if that is what the players are after.

Games will typically last around 45 minutes to an hour, which from a repetition point of view is not a bad time. Once you get to the point where you are at an end, you will most likely be there and can get ready for your next game which send you off with different Citizens and quests to undertake. These short turns also add to the urgency of the game. Planning your turns is great, but wasting them is not. You don’t want to fall into the trap of hiring too many adventures that you have not had a chance to take any quests but your opponents have taken 3 or 4 already.

Players do interact with each other as part of the game, certain cards allow you to take special actions such as stealing cards from other player, making them discard a card, gain additional draw actions and many more which shape the flow of the current game. This addition makes it more than purely a pickup and discard game but the actions are limited which does increase the repetitiveness after sometime. On top of card actions, players can also use the game mechanics to their benefit. If you see a player, reserving certain quests or you get an idea of what their hand could be like from previous. You could wipe the quest line before their turn, reducing the number of quests they can take. If you believe they have a particular quest in mind of their next turn, reserve that quest in your guild and watch them flare up.

Overall I have to say I really enjoyed playing Quests of Valeria, it did remind me a little of Majesty and also Welcome to the Dungeon which is great to play with friend in short bursts. The artwork is well done and the set pieces are well made, with mechanics that are complicated enough to give players some strategic breathing room but simple enough to learn fairly quickly. This does come at a cost of it being a little repetitive like Welcome to the Dungeon but it does not detract if from the fun you can have.

In Quests of Valeria you have to learn quickly, move quickly and sometimes (okay most of the time) play ruthlessly. One player matches are good to learn the game and two player matches can get dull quickly if as the scores get close to win but with 4 or more players, it adds a lot of chances in the game by extending the game time enough for you to experiment.

If you like card games, fantasy games and resource management games then for £20, Quests of Valeria is a solid choice for you to add to your collection. If you developers of the game are reading this and want some help with the “expansion” 100% in to help with that.