Stats:
No. of players: 2-4
Amount of time to play: 120 min
Age requirements: 12+
Set-up time: 10 minutes

Dragon Valley Description:

Dragon Valley is a mix of a resource management, tower defense and tactical war game. Once you score 30 points the game is over. If you manage to finish with the highest points you win.

In Dragon Valley as the start player (called the King’s Favored) you get to divvy up the resources for the round. Depending on the number of players a certain number of special ability cards, buildings and units will be available. The King’s Favored splits the resources into lots and the player with the lowest total points selects the first lot. The King’s Favored selects the last lot.

After lots are chosen you deploy your units and enemies. Then players take actions consisting of moving their armies, placing buildings or recharging used buildings.

Some of the units in the lots will be on your side. Others will be enemies like dragons, battering rams and orcs. These each move at different rates but they all move toward your keep. You must eliminate them first. Your knights, archers and trebuchets interact with each enemy differently. Some are destroyed by units while others destroy those same enemy units.

Enemy units may also be destroyed if you can force them off a cliff. This is accomplished by constructing buildings that will guide them off the map.

Each turn there is a new King’s Favored that will pull random resources and divvy them up. So the above cycle continues until someone reaches thirty points. Once a player reaches thirty points it signals the final round. The player with the highest score after the final round wins.

Quick Review of Dragon Valley:

Dragon Valley has some interesting mechanics. The first is the “divvy resources and choose last”. This forces you to figure out what units will help others and possibly match them with tougher enemies. Paying attention to what the other players are doing is very important. What buildings or units do other players want? Are they willing to pick up a dragon to get what they want? Those kinds of questions will guide you as you create the lots.

The tower defense aspect of Dragon Valley is fun too. You need to decide where to place buildings and units in order to route the monsters where you’d like them to go. Usually that is off the cliffs or into the waiting arms of your army.

The components and artwork for this game are good. I really like some of the artwork while some of it is just ok. The board looks great and everything is pretty durable. Everything but the cards. I highly suggest sleeving these as you will shuffle them often and they tend to show some wear quickly.

The downside of such interesting choices in the initial phase is the downtime it creates. The player that has to divvy things out has a lot of things to consider and that will take time. In fact if the play suffers from analysis paralysis it can be painful. This may be accentuate by the fact you cannot plan for what to do next as you do not know what resources you will be receiving.

Dragon Valley is a game that gets better the more you play it. Experienced players will have less downtime and you’ll know what buildings will help bolster the strategy you are trying to use to win.

If you like tower defense games or the “divvy and pick” mechanic I described above you should try Dragon Valley out, or if you are looking for a game with some different mechanics.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 2 out of 6
Replay Value 4 out of 6
Complexity 4 out of 6
Fun 4 out of 6
Overall 4 out of 6