Check out my final thoughts

My d4 DICE reviews are a quick and easy to digest review of a board or card game. Along with a brief introduction to the game I use DICE as an acronym for Duration, Interaction, Complexity and Engagement to quickly explore a game. Enjoy!

Player count: 1 – 5 players
Play time: 30 – 45 minutes
Designers: Isaias Vallejo
Publisher: Daily Magic Games

Monsters are running amok. The land of Valiera is under threat from a horde of deadly and dangerous monsters. You and your fellow Dukes have decided it is time to take action. You must recruit citizens, purchase domains, and build up your kingdom to be strong enough to face the monsters. 

Valeria: card kingdoms is a 2016 release with a second edition released in 2021 and it is the second edition which I have picked up and been playing. Card kingdoms is a one to five player tableau building and dice rolling game. On a player’s turn they will roll two dice and activate various citizen cards with the corresponding pip values as well as the sum of the two pip values. These citizens will typically grant you money, magic or might. All other players activate their citizen cards as well. The active player will then perform two actions which include spending various resources to slay a monster, recruit a citizen, buy a domain or simply gain a single resource. 

The game will progress in turn order in this fashion until the end game is triggered and the player with the most points is the winner. 

d4 D.I.C.E. Review

Duration

Overall game length is great. 30-45 minutes for a multiplayer game. On the lower side of that for a solo game. Setup can take a bit of time setting up the various stacks of cards but with several people it is overly long.

Interaction

Apart from the obvious interaction of everyone gaining resources on every turn, there are also some cards which allow you steal resources from other players. If this is not your thing then you can simply not use these cards.

Complexity

The overall rules are fairly straightforward and the iconography is fairly easy to understand. Getting Valeria: Card Kingdoms to the table and teaching it is very easy meaning that it gets a lot of plays.

Engagement

The overall gameplay is very engaging and the simultaneous gaining of resources keeps everyone engaged even when it is not your turn. Add to this the relative quick turns and short(ish) overall game length and Valeria: Card Kingdoms most definitely does not out stay its welcome.