The Game
Nidavellir is a simple game about collecting cards. The backstory is
that you are dwarf chieftains putting together armies and hoping to be picked
by the dwarf king to become the dragon-slaying expedition force. To get picked
for this prestigious mission, you must assemble the strongest army. Most cards
in the game are dwarfs in 5 different professions. Their strengths are
calculated in different ways. You play 8 rounds, and normally you will recruit
3 dwarfs every round.
There are three taverns in the game, and you recruit dwarfs here. When a round
starts, cards are drawn and the taverns are filled. Every player secretly
places a bid at each of the taverns. Taverns are resolved one after another.
Whoever has bid the highest coin gets to pick a card from the tavern first.
The player with the lowest coin will have no choice and can only take what is
left.
The players' armies are initially empty. You build from scratch. The dwarfs
come in five different professions - warriors, hunters, explorers, miners and
blacksmiths. The total strengths of each of the professions are calculated in
different ways. E.g. the hunters' total strength is based on the square of the
number of hunter icons. If you have 5 hunter icons, your hunter total strength
is 25.
Every player has the same set of five starting coins: 0, 2, 3, 4 and 5. $0 is
the weakest, but it comes with a special power. You get to upgrade one of the
coins you don't use that round. The higher among your two unused coins will be
upgraded by the value of the lower unused coin. E.g. if your two unused coins
are $5 and $9, your $9 will be upgraded to $14. This is an important aspect of
the game.
This royal treasury shows all the available coins to be upgraded to.
Quantities are limited. There is only one each of coins $15 and above. In case
the coin you are supposed to upgrade to is not available, you get to take the
next higher coin. Sweet!
Normally when you focus on getting many dwarfs of the same profession, you get
much better returns on the total strength. Going deep is good. However, the
game also encourages you to go wide, because whenever you have a set of five
different coloured icons, you get to immediately recruit a hero for free.
Heroes are dwarfs with special powers, and most of them are very handy.
The special ability of this hero is you may transform her to be of any of the
five professions at the end of every round. If you are only short of one
colour to make your next set of 5 icons, she will be useful.
This was Han's hero. With this hero, he could wait until Allen and I revealed
our coins used in bidding before he decided which coin of his to use. This was
very useful. He could save his strength and optimise the use of his coins.
However he still needed to spend effort to upgrade his coins. If he didn't
have powerful coins, knowing what coins we had wouldn't be helpful to him. He
wouldn't be able to outbid us anyway.
When you complete the first half of the game, there will be an inspection done
by the dwarf king. For each of the five professions, if any player has more
icons than everyone else, he gets a special bonus which he can use for the
rest of the game. This inspection event is quite important. The first half of
the game is like a preliminary round, and the second half is where things
truly get interesting.
At the end of the game, in addition to your dwarfs in the five professions,
some non-profession-specific heroes contribute strength, and your total coin
value also contributes strength. The player with the highest total strength
wins.
The Play
Nidavellir is a set collection game. You collect stuff throughout the
game, which contribute to your strength in different ways, and victory is
determined only at the end based on total strength. There is no point scoring
during the game itself. The king's inspection at mid-game is a form of
reckoning, and it is important, but your strength only matters at game
end.
Since everyone gets roughly the same number of dwarfs in the game, the key to
getting on top is how to create effective combos with your dwarfs. You need to
balance between depth and width. Depth is good because the more dwarfs you
collect of a certain profession, the more strength each additional dwarf will
be worth. However width is also important because every set of five different
professions gets you a free hero, and heroes are powerful! It seems to me
width is more important in the early game, because you want to grab heroes to
help you. You only prioritise going deep later on after analysing the
situation and your opponents, and deciding which professions you want to go
deep with.
There is plenty of player interaction. You are not only collecting dwarfs
based on your own needs, you must also pay attention to what others want, and
try to deny them. Your highest coin is usually reserved to compete at the
tavern you are most desperate to win. Upgrading coins is important, not only
to help you compete, but also for the game-end strength. Money is power. If
you have the highest coin in the game, you are guaranteed at least one dwarf
that you want every round.
There are many heroes and many different special powers. On the first play
this is overwhelming. The heroes are the fun part of the game, spicing things
up greatly.
At this point my (green) highest coins were 9 and 19. There was no particular
tavern I needed to win, so I used neither of these coins. I set them aside so
that I could upgrade my 19 to a 25, the highest coin in the game. 19+9=28, but
25 was the highest I could go.
I (green player) wanted to focus on the blacksmiths (purple dwarfs). One of
the heroes I took came with two purple icons.
Miners (orange dwarfs) give strength based on the sum of their card values
multiplied by the total number of orange icons. Allen (blue player) had six
orange icons, but most of his card values were 0. He only had two 1's. So his
miners were only worth 12. In contrast, Han (red player) had more non-zero
miners, and he currently had a strength of 77 from his miners.
The Thoughts
Nidavellir is a simple game. There are many heroes, and you calculate
the dwarf strengths in different ways. These make the game sound more
complicated than it actually is. At the core it is pretty straight-forward. I
enjoy the heroes the most. The basic dwarfs don't really do much other than
creating the set of five colours collection aspect. It seems to me the general
strategy is to go wide first, and then switch to going deep in the second
half.
The game is easy to teach and highly interactive. It will work with families
and non-gamers. Only one thing rubs me the wrong way - in order to be more
immersive the rulebook uses some special terms. It reminds me of the Lord of
the Rings books. Yes, I get that it's nice to have a rich world with its own
language and terminology, but in this case I find these thematic elements get
in the way of new players learning the game.
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