Everdell

I like Everdell! Here are some thoughts:

• It looks beautiful. Everybody agrees on that, so let's get that one out of the way first.
• For such a physically large game, setup is surprisingly fast.
• My first worker placement game. It's a nice genre, I'm curious if there are other more lightweight variants on this game.
• Similar to other games, you'll probably go through an eco-boom phase and a point scoring phase. Figuring out when to shift is a tricky and fun.
• I've noticed that I often go for similar builds. My resources usually come from the farm + farmer and the shop + shopkeeper, but I'm eager to try out different approaches.
• The font on the mission cards (or whatever they're called) is absolutely horrible. Luckily it's just four cards per game that you need to read.
• The cardboard evertree is a little silly to me. It's similar to the workbench in Paleo, but less useful and not as cool.
• I don't like hyper-competitive or zero-sum games. This game hits the sweetspot in amount of player interaction. Each player does their own thing, occasionally claiming a card or resource another player wanted to go for. The cards with an 'open' spot gives a really nice dynamic as well. You only compare scores at the end and it's usually pretty close.
• I've not played any of the expansions yet. I'm not yet sure if I want to expand Everdell or go for the standalone sequel Farshore.
• Ramon can't keep himself from stacking things.