Game summary
A game for 1 to 4 players
Playtime is around 40 – 80 minutes
Publishers are Starling Games & Matagot
Introduction
Welcome to the new standalone game set in the world of Everdell
Farshore, each season you lead a crew of workers to build a wealthy city and explore the magical ocean. You must carefully plan your actions to build and sail, for only by adapting to the winds of change will you succeed.
The rough coast north of the Everdell Valley is a land of adventure and mystery. The wind is high. The sun is breaking through the horizon. It’s time to go on an adventure!
Let’s get it on the table
Each player receives two different score sheets, a pen/pencil, and an audit marker.
Based on the number of players, you create a pool of dice;
With 2 players you need 1 gray, 2 white and 2 blue
With 3 players you need 2 gray, 3 white and 2 blue
With 4 players you need 3 gray, 3 white and 3 blue
With 5 players you need 4 gray, 4 white and 3 blue
Let’s play!
On your turn you must perform one of the following actions:
1. Place a worker
2. Play a card
3. Prepare for Season
I will explain a bit more about the 3 actions you can perform:
Action Place a worker
You can place a worker on any of the available spaces on the board. A space is available when it’s not already blocked. When you’ve places a worker, you must perform the action immediately.
Shoreline Location
There are four main locations along the seashore that will give you the resources shown on the board when you’ve placed a worker. Each location can only have 1 worker.
Island Location
Islands are usually locations where you can give more rewards than other locations. You can only visit the Island tiles when they are visible. These locations can only have 1 worker per island.
Docks
At this location you can discard up to 3 cards and then gain 1 of any resource for each discard card. The Docks can be visited by every player and even with workers from the same player.
Lookout
On this location you can discard any number of cards and then you draw cards up to your hand limit. You can take cards from the deck or the Bay. The Lookout can be visited by every player and even with workers from the same player.
Destination Cards
You may visit any footprint locations cards that you have played into your city. When you place a worker at a card, you activate the ability of that card.
Dunes
On this location, you place a worker to claim a Map tile if you have the listed card types of that Map tile already in your city. After you’ve placed a worker, take the Map tile, and place it in front of you. You can only have one Map tiles of each type.
Action Play a card
Your city can only have 15 cards, so you must choose wisely which cards your going to place into your city. When you have 15 cards, you no longer can place a card. But some cards have an ability that a card can be discarded or doesn’t take up any space into your city.
During this action, you can place a card into your city. Pay the resources shown on the card and then you can place this card anywhere in your city. You can place a card from your hand or from the bay.
During the game you have 3 anchors. You can also use these anchors to play a card into your city, but only the cards where the costs are shown in Mushrooms. The card must be the same color as the critter you are playing. Place the anchor on a Construction card in your city and place the new card
Action Prepare for Season
When you’ve placed all your workers and when you’re not able to place a card or when you can’t place a card then you must perform this action and prepare for the next season.
Retrieve all your workers from the board and maybe from your city. Gain 1 new worker for the next season and gain the bonus of the new season.
In the Spring you activate all your green cards, in any order.
In the Summer you also draw 2 cards from the Bay but only if you’re able to take cards
In the Autumn you activate all your green cards, in any order and you draw 2 cards. These cards can be from the deck and/ or Bay.
When you’re the last player in a season, you also turn over the 2 Winds of Changes tiles and you place 2 new tiles open.
In the Summer, the last player also flips over 2 of the Island tiles. These 2 Islands aren’t available anymore during the game. After your turn has ended, the next player can continue with his or her turn.
Differences between Everdell & Farshore
Everdell Farshore is similar to Everdell in many ways but has some important differences between the base game and Farshore. I will briefly list these below, if you are familiar with Everdell then after reading through the differences you can start immediately.
– Each player starts with 2 workers but in every new season, you just receive 1 new worker. The worker that remains at the start will be places into the ship of your color, you place the ship and the worker at the starting place.
– Duplicate cards in the Bay are placed on top of each other so that there are always 8 different cards available.
– The cards in Farshore contain new abilities and modified abilities compared to the base game
– Your ship advances on the track as soon as you play cards in your city that match one or both of the Windrose tiles. There are also cards that allow you to take extra steps but by playing the cards at the right time you can earn extra steps and treasure tokens.
– Treasure tokens can be used for a wild resource of your choice or at the end of the game for points.
– Events are replaced by Map Tiles. You can get these from the board, multiple map tiles are multiplied with each other and can earn many points. You may have one of each Map Tile in your possession, after playing the action you put the Map tile in front of you. Of course, you must meet the conditions to obtain a Tile.
– Occupied tokes are replaced by Anchor tokens. You can place these on a Construction and play a Critter from the same color for free. Per game each player has 3 Anchor tokens.
– There are no “open” Red locations, you may only visit those in your own city.
– Resources are slightly harder to get, and cards are easier to get more frequently used for purposes other than playing them into your city.
– The last player to prepare for each season must perform additional steps to adjust the game like Windrose tiles and Island tiles.
The Game ends
The game ends when all the players has passed at the end of autumn.
Now we are going to count the scores of the different players:
- Points of the cards
- Purple bonus points
- Point tokens
- Treasure tokens
- Map tokens
- Ship location
Final Conclusion & rating
Weight: 2.90/ 5
Replayability: 8
My rating: 8 out of 10 dices
Farshore is definitely one of the games that many players wonder if it should be added to the collection or not. Which is a tough question, Everdell was and is really a hit for many players. For us too, Everdell is and will always be one of our most enjoyable games and we are both very happy with the Big box. the most you keep hearing is the price tag around €100 euros and we certainly understand that this is a thing. Games have been getting more and more expensive lately but so much money for just a basic game and if you compare it to the Everdell which can be bought for around 60 to 70 euros. In the box you get all the playing material which is in a kind of insert, you have enough space for all the resources, these are again really nice! You get all kinds of different playing material that also feels and looks different, only disadvantage is the mushrooms that, like the berries, can easily roll off the board. The artwork on the cards is again very nice, this time they have chosen a different artist, this time not Andrew Bosley but Jacqui Davis.
With this review we will not answer the question of whether you can purchase it but hopefully we can help you a little bit.
Everdell Farshore is a good game, if you have already played Everdell then you can start playing really quickly. Do take a look at the differences between the two games but that’s all there is to it. What they did keep is a, in our opinion, useless lighthouse, it does even less than the Evertree. We already don’t set this one up because it’s actually already in the way. After setting up the game and going over the differences, you can start right away because the rest of the game rules are completely the same.
A number of improvements have been included in this game, making it really more fun. Double cards in the Bay are now e.g. placed on top of each other so that there are always 8 different cards available. This was not in Everdell but you can of course use it as a house rule. The option to use the anchor tokens to play a type of card is very nice, this saves you a lot of resources, unlike the occupy tokens that were in Everdell and you had to search for a specific card to place it for free.
EEverdell Farshore plays away very easily, I don’t know if this is because we have played Everdell a lot already or if it is just a fine game. But the locations are great, you can really do something in with all the locations. You also can go the islands, yet also different per game and it makes it nice that they are not always available. Your cards contain locations that you can activate to collect resources or perform other useful actions, these are now only available to you!
Then the sailing, this is one we are not so sure what to think of it. You can earns points and yes sometimes (too) many but also tokens which you can use as a wild resource or save for points. But why are these ships so big? They look nice but they just don’t fit on the board, especially when players are equal in points. You have to look closely at the Windrose tokens in order to really make progress, if you manage to meet both conditions then you can make a lot of progress, but don’t let that hinder you because you also want to play your cards and use actions from these cards.
Everdell Farshore has come up on the table on a regular basis and also when we play it with other players the sounds are hugely positive about the game. I am curious to see if there will be more to come out after this version, as you can see a bit online, the expectation is that there will be more of these types of variants to come because on the box there is also an image with Edge of the Map, which may be an indication that they have more in the planning. I am very curious, although I hope for a little more variety when a new Everdell is coming.
My thanks goes out to Matagot for this review copy.
