3 Firsts with Everdell

Everdell as one of the most recent editions to my collection, provided me with 3 firsts today:

*First game played at the table in 2022 😊

*First multiplayer game of Everdell played with my oldest daughter 😊

*First solo play 😊

Multiplayer was great, as expected. The surprise was, I won! 🤣 I seriously thought I was in trouble. My daughter's city was looking pretty good but in the end, I had more constructions that had end of game scoring bonuses AND higher value cards in my city which saved me in the end.

Let's talk solo 😎

In Everdell you play against "Rugwort". There is three difficulties you can play with Rugwort, each having different names as well as challenge. They're classified in 'years'. Today I played Year-1 (easy level) against "Rugwort the Rascal".

I was very impressed with how simplistic "Rugwort" is to run. It takes very little brain power to run him playing solo. The brain-buster side of things is how to best build your city so the nasty "Rugwort" won't outscore you in the end!

A quick overview of "Rugwort" in solo play, is that at the start of a season, he places his workers in locations that block you (typical worker placement style). Whenever you play a card to your city, "Rugwort" does the same. To do so it's very simple; Roll his D8 and select the appropriate meadow card to place in his city.

When you 'prepare for the next season', "Rugwort" does as well. His workers in the basic resource spots move one to the right to block the next resource, and his worker in the forest moves counter-clockwise blocking that next location there. The worker(s) gained from 'preparing for the season' he actually places on the first meadow card. This means, it's 'blocked' for me, but he still can play it. So in the final season of the game, this means you have access to only the bottom 4 of the 8 meadow cards.

That's basically it. See? Very simple to run. 😀 His city cards don't use their abilities/effects and he's more concerned with the type of cards (suit on the card). As part of his 'prepare for a season' you look at his city cards to see if he can perform one of the four 'basic events'. If so, he gains that event for points later. As for the 'special events' he'll score those at the end of the game for the ones you DIDN'T use. Yikes!

In the end, "Rugwort the Rascal" took me down. But I really enjoyed how it solo's for sure! Can't wait to play again. If you like worker placement, don't mind a large footprint and great artwork, this is a great solo game. 😀 With all the cards in the deck, the variety in setup with the special event cards, the variety in the forest card locations and the various difficulty levels of your solo nemesis, "Rugwort", this is going to be enjoyed for a long time at the table.