Villages of Valeria

To set up Villages of Valeria, each player receives a castle card, which serves as their starting point for building their village. They also get a reference card that outlines the available actions and their effects. Additionally, each player is dealt six building cards from the main deck, forming their initial hand. The remaining building cards are placed face down to form the draw pile, and the adventurer cards are shuffled and placed face up in a row, with a certain number revealed based on the player count.

The objective in Villages of Valeria is to become the architect of the next capital city of Valeria. Players achieve this by strategically building a village around their castle, developing resources, and attracting famous adventurers. The player who accumulates the most victory points by the end of the game will have their village declared the new capital city.

On your turn, you select one of five actions to perform: Harvest, Develop, Build, Recruit, or Tax. You play a card from your hand to activate the chosen action. The Harvest action allows you to draw three cards. Develop lets you trash one card to add another card to your castle as a resource. Build requires you to provide resources to add a building to your village, then draw one card. Recruit involves paying two gold to add an adventurer to your village. Finally, Tax allows you to trash one card to gain one gold. Other players can also follow the active player's chosen action by playing a card of the same type.

Victory points are primarily earned through the buildings constructed in your village and the adventurers you recruit. Each building card has a victory point value indicated at the top. Adventurer cards also provide victory points, often based on specific conditions related to the types of buildings in your village or other game elements. Some special powers on buildings or adventurers may also grant additional victory points at the end of the game.

The game concludes when any player successfully builds their fifth building in their village. Once this condition is met, players complete the current round, ensuring everyone has an equal number of turns. After the final round, players tally their victory points from all their built buildings, recruited adventurers, and any other scoring conditions. The player with the highest total victory points is declared the winner and their village becomes the new capital city of Valeria.