DICE KINGDOMS OF VALERIA (2022)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
1-4	30-45 mins	Levi Mote	Daily Magic Games

In this Roll ‘n’ Write game you will be using dice results to activate your Citizens Tableau, Slay monsters, Build (technically explore) across your Kingdom, and recruit more Citizens.

Across two beautifully drawn sheets you will have a collection of guild tracks, a city wall, and a Kingdom to explore.

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In the vein of games like MACHI KORO or SPACE BASE, down time is minimalised due to every player using the black dice results each turn to tick off tracks based on the numbers of your Citizen Tableau.

It’s then only the active player who uses the coloured dice to do one of the other three main actions.

This is great. It keeps you interested in what an opponent rolls instead of just twiddling your thumbs.

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Something else that works well in Dice Kingdoms and makes it one of my favourites in the genre, is the chaining.

Ticking off one or two boxes in a game can feel like a plod. But here, like in games such as GANZ SCHON CLEVER, it’s not just about making progress each turn, but seeing how much you can do with one dice result.

This is done with a bunch of symbols that lead to other smaller rewards like working up the City wall or gaining gold that leads to gaining end game scoring cards.

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As with all games running on Dice, luck can play a massive part of success or failure. It can be frustrating to not have the chance to add a Citizen to your tableau when it keeps coming up on the black dice. There are ways to mitigate the dice results, but some of these have to be unlocked on the Kingdom map.

The game also suffers from a lack of sheet variation. There is a winter themed expansion available, but the base game only comes with one map.

DICE KINGDOMS OF VALERIA is a great addition to both the Valeria series of games, and the Roll ‘n’ Write genre. It gives you a nice build up as you expand your Kingdom and adds that nice ‘high’ from regular chaining.