Once everyone has completed their actions for the final season (fall) the game ends. The winner is determined based on the sum total of points on all of the cards that players have in their personal tableau (up to a maximum of fifteen.) There are eight bonus objectives to score as well (four of which are randomised during setup) and some cards provide bonuses when combined, or bonuses for collecting certain resources or similar. The Bellfaire board contains the Market location, and spaces for the Flower Festival Event and Garland Award tiles. This is a more of the same expansion adding new events and awards along with a new market location. The player powers are interesting although they do fundamentally change how you approach the game. Now you need to make the best use of this power to do well to make up for not having an extra worker in the final 3 rounds. With one less worker it is now harder to get as many regular and special events. My scores have been higher than in the base game and I run out of spaces in my city faster so these powers do help you gather resources just as well as the extra worker. My favourite part of the expansion is the market board as it changes constantly during the game. I do find the player boards to be too big and cumbersome and wish that they were much smaller. The Bellfaire board itself is very useful and makes the events and players’ workers much easier to see although I still use the tree to store the cards. Overall this is a good expansion whilst not essential it adds a little bit more variability to the base game with few rules changes. Hedgehogs: If you did not gain a berry when you placed a worker on a Basic or Forest location, gain 1 berry.

Bellfaire offers a number of expansion options that may be used when playing the base game of Everdell or one of its expansions. Before setting up the game, players should choose which modules they wish to include. The details for each module, including setup and rules, are outlined below. My daughter even passed me her Rugwort cards as part of a card effect. It was a sweet gesture, because she knew I would just discard him at the first opportunity in favor of resources, points, or anything else. The Everdell franchise is known for its stunning artwork and Bellfaire does not disappoint. Every aspect of the game fits beautifully with the main board and other expansions, should you wish to play with all of them together. The setup was no joke, obviously, but once laid out the game is quite stunning on the table. Assuming, that is, that a table of sufficient size is available. I’m not sure I’d have been half as happy playing on the floor! By game’s end, our dining room table might have been able to bear a third player, but even at two we were often standing for portions of our turn because the needed component was out of arm’s reach. The scores were bloated, but not to an extreme. Honestly, they were only a small percentage higher than my most recent play of Newleaf.

Settled

Toads: Whenever you play a Production card, you may discard 1 card and then activate the Production card twice.

What this results in is the initial impression that the game might be quite brief (because everyone only has two animals) but in fact, it’s more likely that the first season will last four or five rounds of turns, with the second more than doubling in length and the third and final season taking up around half of the play time. As each season begins, the players will take one or two new workers to add to their pool (depending on the season.) At the end of a couple of the seasons, all buildings that previously produced when they were built, will produce again, generating a vast amount of resources for the final round of play. Everdell is a game of worker placement, resource collection and tableau building in a woodland realm populated by one to four groups of animals. Each player controls one such group, which will be represented in game by gorgeous little wooden animeeples. Everdell is set in a forest beneath the Evertree, which is represented in the game by a large, well made and gloriously detailed model that is included in both the basic and Collector’s Edition versions of the game.First, I recognize how important solo gaming can be within the hobby. I know the original Rugwort solo experience was viewed with mixed sentiments. Too punishing: I think that is the common phrase that accompanies the rat. With Nightweave, however, there is now a solo experience that feels more like the actual game with several twists.

A follow-up to the game called Everdell Farshore has been announced and is expected to release in August 2023. [1] Gameplay [ edit ] Now, the Market! I think this is my favourite part of Bellfaire. The Market is an open worker location, but each player can only have one worker on it per season. 4 tiles populate the market each with a different mix of resources and cards on them. There are two areas, the Gain row and the Trade row, all tiles start in the Gain row. When you visit the Market you may take the resources and cards printed on any card in the Gain row, then that tile gets moved down to the Trade row.The expansion doesn’t add any new ways to win just changes how you get resources and how easy it is to get events and awards. The replayability of the game is increased with 15 vastly different player powers, lots of new events, 4 more forest locations and the new market space which fluctuates during the game. The game end scoring remains identical to the base game. During setup, shuffle the Garland Awards and draw 1, placing it either faceup beside the main board or in the designated area on the Bellfaire board.

In the name of science, I had no choice but to play one game with every available expansion (with the exception of Mistwood) simultaneously to see if Everdell can bear the weight of its own worldbuilding glory. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised, though the absurd play did reinforce several of my opinions regarding the expansions. Squirrels: Any time you use a worker to gain at least 1 twig, gain 1 additional twig. When playing a Construction, you may pay 2 twigs to replace 1 of any resource from the cost.

A word on components

The garland award introduces a majorities aspect to the game. It gives 6 and 3 points at the end of the game to the 1st and 2nd place player, respectively, for certain objectives, such as most production cards, or most critters. There are 7 garland award tiles, and only 1 is in each game. This mechanic adds interactivity, as they are more common objectives for which players are competing. One of the biggest criticisms I’ve heard of Everdell is that it can veer into multiplayer solitaire, but this majorities bonus — and some of the content in the other expansions — fixes that. One of the most exciting features of the Bellfaire Expansion is the addition of new game mechanics. Players can now utilize the Companions mechanic, which allows them to build relationships with various animals in the game. These Companions provide unique benefits and add a new layer of strategy to the gameplay. The term gateway game is now used so frequently that I’m not sure it has any value. What is a gateway game anyway? Often it simply seems to suggest that a game has to be as straightforward as something like Monopoly, yet I find that a lot of games carrying the label fail to prepare their charges for what modern board games are really capable of. Everdell might be the perfect gateway game based on my new definition. Why, you ask? Simply put, it does almost everything right — it’s beautiful and well made, it’s very simple and easy to teach, yet despite all that, it’s complex enough to develop some very competitive play. If I have one complaint about Everdell , it’s only that the final scoring can be a bit messy with the frequent need to recount when the score is close. At the end of the game, the player who has the most cards in their city of the type listed on the Garland will gain an additional 6 points. Second place will gain an additional 3 points.