The 4 Squares Review: Dwellings of Eldervale

[Music] welcome to the dice tower a series of video reviews about board and card games here are your hosts hey everybody i'm tom vassell i'm z garcia hello i'm mike delecio and i'm roy canning and we are today looking at the gigantic game dwellings of eldervale uh dwellings of alabama is a game that z and i uh did a preview for back when it was on kickstarter it's also a game that we never expected to see from breaking games breaking games tends to make very light family games this was a step away from that to this is a full-on gamer game uh i don't even know do any of you know how you would quickly describe it to somebody it's a it's very much a hybrid it feels like a hybrid behind me you know so i don't know i don't have a quick i say just let mike do the long explanation of it you know yeah good idea i can't figure it out let's throw it to mike in dwellings of eldervale you're going to be playing as one of 16 different slightly asymmetrical factions and they're all tied into the eight elemental colors that are represented on this board so there are two possibilities for each elemental color i'm playing as blue so i could have chose to either be the atlanteans or the pirates of nightmare cove and the asymmetrical nature comes in on some of your different workers will have different abilities that give them a little bit of a different play on how they normally would work it's not terribly asymmetric but it just gives you a little bit of a thing here you've got the other elemental colors the yellow clerics of the dawn or the pride of bastet just kind of show you quickly here all the different elemental colors have two options you can play as and as i said they are slightly asymmetrical although they're not huge variations they all generally work the same way with just a little twist to keep things a little bit fresh there so you choose which one you're going to be playing as and you get the associated player pieces in that color and just for purposes of this demonstration to keep things relatively small i've got it set up for a two-player game and you're going to be gaining points in a number of different ways generally speaking on your turn you're going to be doing one of two things you're either going to be placing a unit or you're going to regroup all of your units so it's worker placement in that aspect you start off the game with having access to three of your standard workers in my case the atlanteans here i do have a little bit of a power on my workers which is an advanced civilization when i regroup which is pulling everything back from elder veil here if i have three or more workers in elder veil i can advance one space on the glory track which is right here so that gives me a little bit of a slightly different ability to other people who are in the game generally speaking you'll be uh most often times placing a worker out in in elder vale here and taking an association associated action there are two different types of tiles here you've got the elemental realm tiles which have the colors that are associated with whatever realm it is with whatever uh element it's tied to and then you've got these ruins tiles the ruins tiles are in every game in uh for the other colors you're going to have whatever the player colors are and add some extras so in this two player game theoretically blue and yellow would be playing and then i just randomly chose purple and green as the other two elements that are actually in the game so if you place on an elemental tile and the first time you place if you have no units out there you can go anywhere if you place on an elemental tile you can take the top of one of the stacks if there are multiple stacks and if there's only one stack you would just take the top of that stack so for example i take this tile and it shows two gems now there's a couple of things i can do with this number one i can just stick it there in my player area and have access to it later or i could just use it right away to gain two gems from the supply and place them into my player board there's a maximum of five of each of the resources you can have the other thing you can do is certain cards that you have this is the starter card that everybody begins with certain cards will have slots like this you can see there's an outline and in this case if i were to take a gather action i would gain a potion but i can slot this token there and instead now whenever i would re-group a worker and place it there i would gather two gems instead of one potion so you have options when you go to get those tiles the other thing you can do is you can go on to a realm tile now once you've placed your first worker out there unless you have a power that says otherwise you have to place adjacent to one of the units you have out so let's say for example i went to the portal the portal is how you get more units into your supply and you do that by looking at your card you can see what the associated costs are for each unit so everybody has standard workers you've got a warrior you've got a wizard and you've got a dragon those are all available to you but you only start the game with three workers in your supply if you want to gain one of the other units you would have to spend the associated resources and you would gain access to that unit immediately and you would have it for the rest of the game workers are for the uh you would look at the associated cost you're on your board your fourth worker would be any one resource fifth worker any two resources and uh sixth final worker any three resources all right so that's what the portal does it allows you to get more workers out the fortress lets you exchange any two resources for two gold which are wild resources okay and i do want to make a point i should have said this right at the beginning what we're looking at right now is the legendary edition of the game there are different kind of uh build levels for the game and this is the the highest tier so it's got upgraded components and things along those lines as a matter of fact these screen printed resources weren't even necessarily part of the legendary edition they were an add-on so just please keep that in mind that the copy that you see or play may be slightly different than this although they functionally work the same the mage tower lets you turn in any two resources to gain three magic cards and discard one you start the game with five magic cards these are all cards that give you abilities they might help you in combat they might be end of game points they might be quests that can give you points throughout the game the mill allows you to build dwellings okay and this is where a huge amount of the points from the game is going to come from and it's the namesake of the game dwellings of elder veil if you let's say for example let's ignore the fact that this i couldn't play it because i don't have anyone adjacent but let's say i had gone to the mill all right then what i would do is i would choose a elemental space that does not contain another dwelling there can only be one drawing per per tile and you have a unit a worker actually you would pay the build cost in this case three tools i would pay three tools for the supply i would take one of my little roofs here in my supply and now this worker is no longer a worker it is one of my dwellings you pop it right there and you gain immediate scoring you gain two points for every ruin that you are adjacent to and if there were any other dwellings adjacent to it of any color you'd gain two points for that so in the case of this i would immediately gain four points because i'm adjacent to two ruins okay that's how the mill works finally you've got the dungeon what the dungeon allows you to do is add a new tile to elder veil and you would get one of these adventure cards to add to your tableau you start the game with only one card in your tableau which is your starting card so let's say i went to the dungeon i gain a tile this happens to be a lair tile which means that the monster of the associated color is going to come out during setup this was randomized there was one layer tile out with the blue monster so let's say i placed this right here i took the green monster which in this case is the ancient treant with associated uh abilities the number of dice it would roll in combat we started the game with the dread crocodile out there that also has its own abilities and that would be placed there then i would have to buy at least one adventure card and two if i could afford it if i can't afford the second card i would have to put it at the bottom so all of these cards have an associated cost and a ability that you would then have so let's say that i bought this open door by spending two more tools i would move up on the green track because this is a green elemental card okay and i would have this now in front of me as a resource also if i'd built this dwelling earlier i would have gotten two points on that so i'd actually be up here if i'd been able to do all these things which is pretty much impossible on the first turn but just to show you okay so now i would have this card in front of me as well and i'd flip over this card and i could either buy another card if i can afford it or if i couldn't afford it i would pick one put it at the bottom of the deck this way you're cycling through these adventure cards all right the other thing i would have done when this tile came out is i would have populated it with tokens all right there we go so that's placing units you've seen how the different uh ruins tiles works you see how the elemental tiles come out okay the other thing that you can do is regroup bring back all of your workers well now i have one less worker because i turned it into a dwelling but let's say i had access to these two workers what you do is you one at a time and in any order you choose you regroup them you bring them back and you place them on these cards to trigger other actions so your starter card always has three actions and this is really the only card that you'd ever be placing multiple workers on normally it would only be one worker that you would place it on here this is another way to do the same thing as the portal which is bringing out more workers so if i regrouped one worker and put it on the summon action i could pay the associated resources and bring one out for the next round i could gather which i showed you here in this case i would get a potion unless i had maybe popped that token on there and get a couple of gems this dwell works the same way as the mill this would allow me to build a dwelling out there on elder veil if i had the associated resources to pay for it and i had an open worker on an elemental realm tile okay if i'd gotten this open door i could place a worker on there to get a gem and if i had also let's say i'd save this instead for this what this is telling me is if you're the highest level on the green track which i would be in this case you would get an extra two gems so if i had done this i placed a worker there and i was the highest on the green track i would gain three gems okay so you're going to be gaining cards throughout the game using them to regroup your workers and bring them out hopefully triggering more powers gaining more points there is also uh combat that happens in this game combat will not happen until every player has taken their first regroup action once that's hap once that happens you go on the glory track to show that now um combat is eligible and the way that combat works is there's a couple of ways let's say for example i'm playing my first worker out there and we've both done our first regroup i go here i would take this tile and now i would have a monster rush okay which in most cases means that if there's a monster that's adjacent to where you place it's going to rush in however this dread crocodile here has an erratic power and it says when a unit's placed in a realm adjacent to him he moves in the opposite direction if he can't then he moves in your realm well there is no tile for him to go to so now again that's a legendary thing it's got these sound effects bases not necessary but fun he comes into my tile and we would have a combat he's going to be rolling five dice in combat i would be rolling depending on the number of workers and the type of workers in my case these workers only roll one die now i could spend a sword or multiple swords to add dyes so let's say i spent a sword there now i could roll two dice against the monster's five dice so probably not a huge chance for me to do well but i will show it to you just the same here's the monster dice they roll their five dice actually that's not a bad roll four and two so what you're doing is you're looking at the highest die the highest die for both of us is a four so that's tied so now we go to the next highest die my next highest die is a two they've got a three they would win the combat i go to the underworld i gain a sword every worker that goes to the underworld gains a sword they're gonna come back to you at the end of the year or at the end of the round i should say if i had won the combat i would move up the glory track and gain whatever the associated bonuses speaking of bonuses you can earn these orbs which can allow you to trigger very powerful cards you can also immediately use them to gain ore rewards which you can get points you can get magic cards you can get resources etc play is going to continue like that until one of two things happens either you one player builds their sixth and final dwelling or this realm stack runs out once either of those things happens both players will get well all players will get one final turn and then you'd go to end game scoring most of the scoring happens at the end of the game it says here that during the game 20 to 40 percent end of game 60 80 percent and there's a little kind of flow chart to show you where you're going to get your points and how you're going to get your points that in a nutshell is dwellings of eldervale [Music] dwellings of eldervale has to be one of the most impressive productions i have ever come across it is filled to the brim with high quality components now again i want to state that this is the legendary edition of the game however most of what you see here is still going to have some representation in any version of the game you get probably the biggest difference is going to be in the fact that in the deluxe and legendary version of the game you're going to get these minis for the monsters in the legendary edition you get the sound effects bases which as i said before are completely unnecessary although they are delightful but these pre-washed minis come with the deluxe and the legendary edition of the game the difference there is that in the deluxe edition of the game you get one monster and associated mini per elemental color which would be eight and in the legendary edition of the game you get an extra set of those monsters which you can see here so those are the legendary monsters one in each color they have slightly different powers and they are different monsters of course here are the four monsters we didn't use in this particular example the game here all right so the components are all of very high quality although like i said some of the things you see here may not be in the addition you have the art is uh consistent and vibrant and colorful the tiles are of high quality the cards are of good quality really there's nothing i can say as far as the components in art that in my opinion is a strong negative the one thing that i would point out is that while it is really nice that you've got these player trays like this that have this player faction that snaps over it the way it works is that you've got these kind of pressure points that helps it snap in and unfortunately since that's the case and this is cardboard you can already see that there's a little bit of bending and i think it with increased use over and over again you're gonna have those pressure points that are gonna begin to fray uh and that is something that is a bit unfortunate i i wish that there had been a better way to do it and still kind of keep that locking mechanism maybe some plastic that could have gone over the top of it that would have been would have been nice but other than that the iconography is clear things are are relatively easy to tell how they work and it's consistent throughout [Music] all right i'm gonna slightly disagree with mike because i don't feel like he was strong enough here i think drunks of elder bale has some of the nicest components i have ever seen in the game and one of the things i've been complaining about over the past year is the over deluxification of games and this game is probably guilty of that to some degree but it does it so well and it's so easy to pull out and set up comparatively to other games it's if you're gonna make a game look grand this is the way to do so i love the art i love the miniatures again folks do realize that what we're showing is the super deluxified version there's multiple levels but even the lowest levels i would be happy with i love the meeples i like the the colors work the palette everything i'm extremely happy with for components for me it's a 10 out of 10 on just it's really fantastic wow z you don't think it's as good as i said i don't know if i would go as far as saying a 10 out of 10. i agree with you to a degree that the the over deluxification of things is going crazy but oh boy those trays those trays put those in every game are you kidding me i can get going immediately with those trays everything is in its right place it gives me a a reminder of how many resources i can store the cost of the extra workers i mean fantastic just incredible that should be in so many more games so that i very much like i think everything else is good very good and uh again if you step up your your your level you know if you pick the higher pledge level then the minis were very nice and then those bases that make sounds or just no that's that's where like you jump right over the shark on that one that's now come on i will always use those no no but anyway it's very good roy what do you got what do you think i think it's interesting there's a lot of these games that you see come out with game trays that you just take the pieces out when you start the game this one's very different because the stuff stays in the game trades and it just makes it easier to set up i love everybody's little game tray board and it has little slots for things you gain during the game and you're spinning things and not spinning things and all sorts of stuff like that and even has like information like max of these different new types you can have for the resources and stuff like that and make setup much faster and better um i think the miniatures are sufficient i think they're pretty good the details on them aren't super crazy as far as like if you want to paint them but the wash and stuff that comes on makes it so you don't really have to do any of that craziness you just put them out there and play um i agree that the sound bases are kind of crazy but i think they're fun and silly you know um but yeah i i have the version of this that's just the standees and i really want to get those miniatures to like add to the game and the way it feels especially since those monster battles are so epic right now we that's the components but it doesn't matter if the game is not good or not so let's talk about the game here this is designed by luke laurie who has done some other games i've enjoyed a lot and in it it's at its core a worker placement game that does a couple things different it one you can pull your workers back which has been done in games before but here when you pull your workers back you are placing them on spots that you can change which is neat the other thing it does is it allows you to fight people to some degree this has been done in a couple games like carson city but this one has combat the combat isn't in my opinion too devastating it hurts the loser a little bit because they can't then pull that worker back and or maybe get some new spaces on the board but it's not soul crushing and it feels good because you have those different workers this dragon does this when i place them out this worker does this and then that you add into that the asymmetrical nature of each board where everyone has slightly different abilities of their workers and this is to me one of the main cores of this game and i really like it z z i know you like luke larry's games also i do one of my favorite games is actually manhattan project energy empire which he's a co-designer of and uh i agree that the a lot of what's in this game has been seen before i wouldn't necessarily say this game's revolutionary but man it's a good stew you know it's a really good mix it's got you know we said uh it's a it's a hybrid and it's because it's got work replacement but you throw combat in there you know it's got a different worker types but then special ability cards that stick around and give you new abilities it's got resource management but boss fights it's like what you know it's all these things work together and and it's this fantasy world that doesn't feel like they could have called the game uh you know paris 1737 and you're like whatever you know it's a it's fantasy and yes it's generic fantasy to a degree but still it feels like a fantasy world it's not uh just a work replacement game so i like this game i think it's uh it's engaging now i will say i have a couple of small issues with it i think the wizard and the dragon or the i think it's a dragon the little wooden guy i think they're a little too similar in their power one can go two spaces away one can just ignore how far away and i know that some of those that there are other differences because of the cards they can go on i wish they were a little more distinct to each other besides that i there could have been a little trimming to this game and it would have not hurt i think it's a lot going on there are little things here and there that i think could have been trimmed could have been simplified a little bit and um would have cut down on a couple barriers to understanding and what i mean i'll give you one example those tokens you pull from the board you can keep them you store them they can also be locked on cards but then you can also just cash them in for the stuff they are and you can only have a certain number but it's just like how many different things is this and what what's why not just you take when you lock it out or you cash it in i don't know it's one of those things there are a couple of moments i had where i felt like this could have been streamlined for me this this kind of fits a a just right category uh in in in total in the game's design where there's combat but as you mentioned tom it doesn't ever feel punishing i never felt like anything was arbitrary and all of this that i was setting up for got destroyed with a bad die roll i feel that the way that the the dice combat is handled is really well done there's worker placement but it doesn't feel like as you said again z it's not terribly innovative but what it does it just does so well i feel like everything makes sense uh it's very to me it's very easy to teach because everything just makes sense um i know you said you feel like it could be trimmed to me i'm having a hard time finding what i would trim from the game because i i just everything and it works for me i i like that it's asymmetrical but it's not so asymmetrical that you feel like it's confusing people it's like okay we've got 16 different factions that you can choose from in the game and they are slightly different from each other but not so much that you feel like oh my gosh okay how does this one work how does that one work it's it's just enough to give it that spice that flavor that you're doing something a little different but it's not overwhelming it's not confusing so to me this is like the that middle bed in in goldilocks it's just right uh roy what do you think i think this game is uh super interesting overall i really enjoy games where you gather resources and collect stuff and get to build up like your faction and your your civilization or your fantasy race and i feel like this game does a ton of that and it has that that little bit of combat that whether you win or lose sometimes you get good stuff out of it if you win you're going up a track that helps you unlock things if you lose you're getting those sword resources that you can use to win combats in the future or use them to build out units or build more magic cards um the magic system in this game is really cool that's one of the things that i feel like brings the whole fantasy world together because there's so many different types of magic and different types of magic are going to be better at different things and you're trying to race up those different magic tracks and those are all multipliers for the in-game scoring and like the whole thought behind that and the game is called dwellings of elder veil because dwellings is one of the main way you gather points in this game so like figuring out how to get your guys on spots and hopefully they stick around to the end of round or you purposely put other guys in other work replacement spots to build the dwellings on the high point spots that match the magic things you're going for and trying to figure out how to multiply your points hardcore all while building this crazy magical fantasy world and civilization that you're building and doing at the same time and fighting monsters there's so much stuff going on in this game there's definitely a lot going on but i don't feel like it's super complex a lot of it's work replacement and figuring out how to min max resources um and i just really enjoy that that whole experience overall so um i think i think the the mechanics of the game are super spot on i think we can all agree that the game looks more complex than it is for sure um one of the things i wanted to ask real quick before we went into final thoughts were what everyone thought about the scoring because that's really it's one of those this is one of those games where you can get caught up in doing things and then forget about how you actually get points because there's main ways to get points is through cards collecting these cards and moving up on the different tracks and having magic of different types and in fact they work together um in a pretty powerful way and then there's the dwellings and by the way shout out to the meeple who turns into a house both how it works and how it looks just it's great um and also that's a neat mechanism to pull a worker out of the game but had something on board so but i was just curious what you thought of the scoring because the scoring in this game at the end suddenly you're like wow this is a lot of points this is a lot of points this game has a ton of end game scoring what'd you think of that z i think this score is okay i don't i like a lot of the scoring 2b end game scoring i a in any and you know in just about any game i am happy with let's call it 50 in game scoring and 50 end of game scoring this is actually more ends game than that it's like actually they tell you in the rulebook i think like 60 to 80 is end-game scoring um the scoring mechanisms i find um less than thrilling i think like buying a car that moves you up on the red track and the red card moves you up on the red track because it's a red symbol and you'll multiply the track times the symbols um it's one of those things i was kind of talking about where they have a lot he he this game does not feel uh messy but it does but i do think there could have been a couple of things that could have been i you know i i don't necessarily want to say the dreaded word of elegant but a couple of things could have been a little more elegant let's let's put it that way that's all i i did not find the scoring necessarily exciting the gameplay was more exciting than the scoring does that make sense i was kind of going for obviously you're scoring and obviously you are worried about that i just wasn't thinking about it too much while i'm playing i'm having a great time playing right scoring will happen you know because of it what'd you think mike yeah it's it you were right it says it right on the player age uh sheet you get on the back side it says i think you're right it's about 20 to 30 percent in-game right 70 to 80 percent end game scoring what i like about the scoring is that there are varied ways to get points but it doesn't feel like a point salad game which i don't think would suit with the the way this game plays out you shouldn't feel like you're getting a point for everything that you do so it doesn't work like that but you're also not locked into one particular strategy i think that you can clearly try to boost up one or two of those elemental tracks and then synergize that through cards adventure cards that you're getting to build out your tableau i also like that there are some quest cards that you can get that are in game so you can kind of see how people are doing with those but there are some end game cards that you keep to yourself until this kind of and they even put in the in the rule book to have the person in last place reveal their cards first add a little bit of a uh you know nice little dramatic moment there but i'm happy with the scoring i feel like the scores have been generally tight but it doesn't feel like it's artificially tight if you know what i mean there so roy what were your thoughts there um one of the times we played this game i was actually shocked how much in-game scoring there was and and how the whole game ended up shaking out um i was actually thinking a lot about the scoring and trying to figure out how to multiply that as we were playing i was definitely focusing on getting more of those adventure cards that match the colors that it was high in score on i'm like i really need more of those and the game ended a little bit faster than i wanted to because i'm like man i was just about to buy that car there was so many times where i was like i want to buy that card before z does or before mike does and sometimes that's happened or didn't happen and um i did a lot of focusing on that and the dwellings in this game are just so huge in those points and there's so many in-game points especially if they match um things you're really high up on that influence track on i think it's cool the way the whole magic stuff fits the theme of the game but also has a ton of those in-game scoring points great all right final thoughts time and rating what do you got z well for me i i feel like i've been playing devil's advocate a little bit on the whole review here mostly because not because i don't like the game but because i know a couple of you at least really like it we're not gonna point fingers at anyone but um having said everything i said it's definitely nitpicking at the end of the day this is a superb game from a very accomplished designer who has put out a a hybrid game that it for its weight class for its kind of gameplay i think rivals some of the best hybrid games out there i really think so so this is going to get an 8 out of 10 from me i really like it i uh definitely would recommend that anybody who wants something meaty it feels like a euro game but it's got that conflict that flavor all of this lore a little bit you know not not a story driven game by any means but a little lore this is a good one for that so yeah eight out of ten for me what about you roy i think i get pegged as being like the ameritrash guy but honestly my favorite style of game is all hybrid games i love games that give you those interesting meaningful decisions but then also allow you to have combat or allow you to have player interaction and this game has that in spades so i really enjoy that this is going to get a 9 out of 10 for me i really enjoy the way the game plays i enjoy building up all of your stuff i enjoy battling monsters and capturing monsters and the the tons of different abilities you can get from all those magic cards but also micromanaging your resources to figure out you can buy more units and get more magic cards and put more things on the board i really enjoy all of that that's exactly what i want in a game so this is a 9 out of 10 for me i really enjoyed it this was one of my most anticipated games of the year and it delivered it was fantastic and fun i'm also giving it a nine uh i would give it slightly higher i have a few minor things i think sometimes the luck in a card that shows up and or a tile you know like a double tile's way better than a single tile sure by far to me and sometimes you just have a little bit of bad luck and i can see that kind of bumming you out possibly but again i feel like i'm nitpicking like z the monster the basses the sounds is amazing the fact this game to me is a storytelling game in that game i beat the dragon in this game i took control of the golum in this game i set my dragon out we had a fight with roy and it feels good it never feels like it's a game that you're out of yeah you know because attacking games can feel that way because once the round's over you got all your guys back let's do it again so uh and then of course the production faction your faction helps you tell that story you know this last game i played i had the you know these guys who were when they went into the underworld i got bonuses so i was like yes boom underworld lost the fight i'm good either way so absolutely that story like i was saying i think i think it develops yeah so i love the game a lot but i pale in comparison to visitor delecio what do you think time to go i think i've made myself a little bit too clear on this one yeah look i don't think there is such a thing as a perfect game and dwellings of eldervale is not a perfect game but i i think it might be a perfect game for me uh i'm i'm with you roy in that my favorite game tends to be hybrid games games that have those euro mechanics that feel rock solid that you feel like you're the best player is going to win more often than not but there is a huge amount of interaction in the game i think this game pulls off so many neat tricks where there is a lot of interaction and a lot of potential combat or actual combat i've played games where there have been fight after fight after fight after fight but it never felt mean or unfair or king building or anything like that this game just seems to work it just works this is one of those games that we've all mentioned has a lot going on yet i actually look forward to teaching it i would never ever turn down an offer to teach this game to people because i just feel like it makes sense it flows it it just is like oh that's how that works okay yeah part of that is down to the amazing components that help with the players interaction with the game all the things we've mentioned the little cues that you're given on the trays all of that comes together for what package that for me i i struggle to find things that i could talk about other than the few things i mentioned in the overview so this gets a 10 for me i was 10 out of 10 out of 11 certainly right that must be what you mean yeah 10 out of 10. there when you should folks you should see mike set up the game he kisses each piece before he puts it on the table it's very loving it's a wonderful game that's right dwelling of elder bale thanks for watching until next time i'm tom vassell i'm pete garcia thank you i'm mike delecio and i'm roy candidating have fun fighting monsters [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

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Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming, GeekUsername: TomVasel, board game review, boardgame, uno, ticket to ride, apples to apples, educational games, educational, top 10

Id: AuZyNiLBejc

Length: 37min 28sec (2248 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020