Dynasties: Verdeel & Heers

GaGarfieldstar6,0

Somehow ok, nothing special. Too much is depending on timing/turn order and who can pick what first. But some nice mechanism. Unfortunately we married 13 times and not a single marriage produced a child... [c] Theme: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Gameplay: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Good, many choices --> Interaction: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Artwork: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Luck: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Turn order sometimes is crucial --> Strategy: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]Where can you get the most points --> Components: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok, nothing special --> Play duration: ★★★★☆ <!-- size 7]Very good for such a game --> Easy to teach: ★★☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]A lot to teach --> Rules quality: <!-- size 7]not read --> Setup time: ★★☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]A lot to setup --> No downtime: ★★★☆☆ <!-- size 7]Ok --> Replay value: ★★☆☆☆ <!-- size 7]Not much variety --> [/c]

EvEvanstar10,0

At the start of the game, each player gets a hand of cards. Each card has three printed actions on it, which dictate what you are allowed to do on your turn. Already, we have a very flip-lucky situation. The game also features dice, which have some very powerful effects, including just get 6 points, get an extra meeple in a region, or take an extra 'get goods action'. The game also only goes for 3 rounds, so everything you do is tight tight tight. From just reading the rules I was sure that this game was going to be far too random for my taste. Turns out, I don't know a good book by it's cover. This game turned out to be fantastic. With the multi-use cards, you can usually get what you want from a round if you plan carefully. Not to mention, there's mitigation in the fact that one of the cards activates these special once per round use tiles in the blue area of the board, so even if you don't have the black action in your hand, if you are clever, you can use the blue action to get what you wanted instead. Another big plus to the game is that most of the actions have a mechanism where by one player splits a lot, and the other player chooses which lot they want. This is done with the goods collection, and it's done with the die roll results. This is a very fun mechanism, but most games I've seen that have used this suffer from massive downtime problems. Not so here. This game makes the splitting choices hard, interesting, and fast. Not to mention, that when you get those powerful die results, knowing that your opponent gets their pick of the results first, really evens out the randomness nicely. Another big luck mitigation is the fact that at the end of the game, when you score regions for whoever has the most meeples + crests belonging to that region, if two players tie, they both get full points. This means that in general, if you are 1 up on a region, someone can get a lucky roll or do a last minute plant into that region, and you still get credit for your work. I can't emphasize enough how important this is in this game. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★★★ Raw enjoyment