Countryside | Solo Playthrough

0:05 Hi everybody and welcome to a new solo playthrough video. Today we're going to be playing Countryside which is another one of the games that I picked up at Spiel this year. It is designed by Peter Prince and the illustrations are by Alice Fevier and Lena Poppen Sheller. Hoping I'm saying that right. published by I actually am not sure Nanox Games. So I was very much looking forward to playing this at Spiel and I demoed it there and I really enjoyed it so I picked it up. The solo of this is really fun. It's the same as the multiplayer um and even a bit crunchier I would say or at least a bit more time sensitive. So you're trying to really push uh forward. So, yeah, I'm very excited to show this to you guys, and I hope you guys enjoy. Let's play. I've already done uh the starting setup. So, I have three starting cards right here.

1:09 These are the area cards. They're basically like fields or buildings that you can play like all the normal cards into. Um there's five different types. They're on the side right here. and you start the game with one of each and you choose three of them and discard the other two. So these are the three I've chosen. So I just did that already um because it's easier to just have done that already. Um so I've gone with a field. [snorts] We have a house and then we have um what's that called? Like a greenhouse. Um, and then besides that, we also still have like a barn uh location and we have like not necessarily fields like this, which are like open fields, but like tended fields where you like plant crops basically.

2:00 Um, so those are our three starting buildings. It's a worker placement type game, set collection sort of. I I don't know. You'll see once we play uh what kind of game it is. We start the game with one coin and we have these like empty baskets that we're going to try to fill with goods. Um the system that it uses is very very nifty. So, uh, a good can become a coin and once you've spent the coin, it becomes an empty basket again. Um, and we're trying to, for example, get milk and eggs and then you can make the milk into cheese and things like that.

2:46 So, we have the like open market right here. And then up top we have kind of like the score tracker as well as a a bunch of goals that we can try to achieve to score points. We also have goals on our starting uh like location cards. Um which you can achieve those. You don't have to. It's kind of like what you're trying to go for. So for example, for this one we need either a cheese, a wine, or a scarf. one of the three. And if we have that, we need to discard it. That's what the little like uh marks on the bottom mean. It's like you have to like discard that. Good. And then we score one point for that. So, it's one of the easier, more lower scoring goals cuz you're only discarding one. This one, for example, we need to discard a milk, an egg, and whatever that is, and then we get five points.

3:48 And this one wants three people, three different types of people in this house. That's what that little green icon means. It means that it needs to be here. So for this one, if I have a a wine on this card, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where the wine is as long as I have the wine. But with this goal, it needs to be in that specific location. Um, and then let's go through the goals that we have up here. They're all quite self-explanatory. So, for this one, it has the slashes again. So, either a cherry, a grape, or an apple, but you can dis like discard multiple of those. So, you need at least three. So, if you have three uh you can do a combination.

4:36 So, you could do two cherries and one grape. You have three of the kind that it needs and then you get two points for that. You could go way more and go like, "Oh, I have five, so I get three points." And you get a card. So, it kind of stacks like that. Um, this one is the goods. Again, this one's just money. You can just discard seven coins, for example. You get four points and a card. This is We'll get to these three later because they're like related to this. So, it has this little symbol right there. Um, and then we have some more fruit. And this needs to be one of each. Um, and this here it's more of a race because you just need a cherry, an apple, and a grape. But you, if you're the first one to do it, um, you get five points and a card, for example. So, it's less of a second. You can also just change up all of this. So, it has another side as well. Um, this is more coins. So you can really change up all the goals. There's m there's even more than these three. There's more in the box and they all have a front and a back. So you can really change up the game with that. Um and yeah, we're just going to play and it will it will explain itself while we play.

5:57 So these are my starting cards. I have two chickens. I have some grape. And I have a little lady that can change my wheat into bread, but or uh gain one bread for each rye. So I can like make my grains and wheat into bread, but I don't have any of that yet. So the lady is going to be for later. Um and we have our little like worker placement area over here. We have four meeples and we have these options available to us. The right column is for the end of day. So, we're not going to look at that yet. So, I think we're going to do some chickens.

6:45 Um, we do want three people in this column if possible. We could just ignore that goal and not do it. Um, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to place my mele on this two sun icon and two cards. This means I can play a card that costs up to two sun hours, which which the chicken is exactly two. And then I get to grab two cards from the display. Now, when you gain cards, they have to be next to each other. They have to be adjacent. And the first and the last card are considered adjacent to each other. So, I could grab this flower and the kitty. But I think what we're going to do, I think we'll do the kitty and the grapes.

7:38 We can get some more grapes going. And then we fill out the display. We have some some rye, which is good for our lady. So, we might need to do that. It does. So, the icons down beneath the sun, they obviously show you in which location they can be played. So, for the grain or the rye, I need to have a field. I don't have a field yet. I just have like a grass. Guess it's kind of more like a meadow. I don't know. Um, so what we're going to do next is I'm going to place my mele here. This means we can grab two of the area cards. play one and the other one is is goes at the bottom of the stack. You can choose to grab, for example, one of this one and one of that one. And choose one of the two because I want a field. We're just going to grab two field cards. And we're going to choose one of them. So, this gray icon beneath the field symbol is the amount of cards that are allowed in that area. So, this one can only hold three cards, for example. Um, and we're going to choose depending on the goal it has.

8:55 So, this one wants five different cards. That's not going to We're not going to do that. So, we're going to take that one. This one wants two of this type um crop type. And it wants two of that one in that location. That one is more realistic, I would say. for what we're trying to accomplish. You play the um area card in your like play area straight away. You never have an area card in your hand, only the like normal cards. So, oh, and we we lay an egg on the chicken for playing the chicken. So, when you play the chicken, you gain an egg. You put a basket on the card, and this now symbolizes a basket with an egg.

9:45 All right. So, next up, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to grab cards. You have a hand limit of 12, so that's pretty steep. And we're going to grab all of these. That's what we're going to grab. And then we're going to fill this out. I want that grape lady. Okay. So, what we're going to do now, we have one mele left for this day. I think we're going to go ahead and play this five sun hour uh option, and we're going to plant this rye. Now, this one, you don't put um an icon on it cuz the the rye is just in the field. You don't harvest the rye in a basket. Like the egg you collect in a basket, this rye is just standing in the field.

10:41 And for each rye that we have, we now have one. We either gain a card or a coin. One, two, three, eight. I have eight cards. I could I do really want that grape lady. So, we're just going to grab her. And then we get another card. All right. So, that's looking good. I think we have some good stuff going for us. Um, and that is ending our first day. So, we reset all the meeples to back back home. They're all they were all working in the field. Now, they're going home. And you can do this action before using all your meeples if you want to. In the solo, that's definitely not uh smart, but [snorts] um because you'll get less actions that way. But once you return your meuples at the end of the day, you're going to look at how many meuples have returned home and you get the corresponding amount of actions. We have returned four meles home. So we get two like end of day actions which is on this side. So we can grab a card. We can uh sell one of our goods for a coin. And you can do that as many times as you want. So you could just sell everything that you have.

12:04 Um, you can discard uh three cards to gain three coins. You can also do this like you can discard one card for one coin. You don't have to do all of them. And this one is you discard a card, then you refresh the entire market, and then you pick one new card from the refreshed market. But I think we're good on the refresh. So, what I think I'm going to do is I'm going to discard some cards for coins. I think we're going to discard that lettuce one. Maybe also the kitty. I feel like we don't need those. I feel like I want maybe this one as well. We'll discard these three cards which will give us three coins.

12:51 I like it. And now we will just I could grab a card. Is there anything else that I want? I don't feel like I need anything from I don't want to sell my egg because I want to use it towards this or another goal at some point. Um, gain Oh, it's honey. That's what that is. Gain one honey for each tree in this area. So, to gain honey, I'm going to have to get fruit trees, I think. I've never had used played with the honey before. So, I guess we're going to grab one card and we'll grab these bees in the hopes that we get a possibility to make um to get some trees and then with fruit and then make make honey. I guess we'll find out. Um okay, that's I really I mean we don't necessarily need the cheese guy because we're going to work on the grapes. So, I think we're fine.

13:57 We might not go for milk and cheese at all. Maybe. Who knows? Okay, so we're done with our end of day actions. Now, because it's the solo mode, we are going to refresh the entire market with stacks that I have put to the side. So, I have five U stacks of seven cards put to the side. And every time I do an end of day action, um, when I'm finished with the end of the day, it gets refreshed and I have five stacks. So once all five stacks are gone and I then do an end of day action, so there's no more stacks left to refresh, that's when the solo game ends. So, you have a bit more of a time sensitive uh situation going on, which I do like. I like that it has like more of a pressure to it. Um, so here we have our refreshed um market. I love how thematic it is.

15:08 Like this is obviously a rooster. So, once we have the rooster, then all the chickens that we already have gain another egg. You know, stuff like that. I just really think that's just very fun. So, we might do that. Um, uh, as well, we have too many things that we want to do. So, maybe we should I could use her to make rye into bread. U, but I feel like we need to get some more like wheat or rye first to have it really have more of an effect. Because if I play her now, we only get one bread. You know, I feel like we should maybe get some more bread. Even though I have not a single goal that actually needs bread.

16:00 That's good to know. Why have I Why are we going for bread then? I don't know why. I guess because I want to play different people here. I Okay. Well, we're going to we're going to regroup on that goal, I think. So, I think we're going to work on some grapes. Um, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to play um this three sun hours. And with the three sun hours, you can discard cards from your hand. And every card discarded is a new is like an additional sun. So we're going to do that to play the grape. So I have to discard one card. You know what we're going to do? We're just going to discard the bread lady.

16:46 So, we're just going to completely forget about the bread situation. I don't know why my brain was focused on bread. So, we gain one grape for each vine stock in this area. So, we have one. So, we gain a grape. Wonderful. That's our first uh grape. So, let's maybe play another grape. And we're going to use the five sun hours. So we have one waste sun hour, but that's allowed. So we're going to do that. And now we gain one grape for each vine. So we have two grapes now. So we get two two of them. There we go. I'm just going to put all of them on the top one because that's easier to measure. So now we have three grapes, which I think is is a wonderful thing to have.

17:39 [snorts] Um, all right. What else do we want? We might grab some cards. Let's do the two sun hours because I would like to play another chicken to gain one egg. I'm also just going to put them on the top cuz it's easier. And then I get to grab two cards. So, I definitely want to get the rooster. And I I mean, we could go for milk. Cows and milk. We also get this goal is like different animals. So for now we only have chickens. So I could just go for some cows as well. You know why not?

18:25 We have some corn and another cow. Okay. Um so what I can do is I can either get a new location. That could actually be quite nice. Um, and we could get we could achieve some goals. So, the goals you want to achieve, you can't just do it once you have it. You have to do it when when you place your mele here. You can accomplish up to two goals. U, but I don't think we have anything we can do yet. I mean, I have some eggs and I have some grapes. So, we could do um these, but I want to have more first. So, I think we're going to just go for a new location cuz I don't really want to put my cows in here. And we don't have the barn location yet. So, let's just get a barn also for the rooster cuz the rooster can only go into the barn. Um I hope I'm showing that right. The rooster can only go into the barn and then the rooster can be with the cows. I suppose they can be friends. So, let's grab two eggs and eggs. This can only hold two cards, though.

19:49 I guess I could put the cows with the grapes. Sure. Sure. Why not? Sure. Why not? We can do that. No problem. Okay. So, that is our end of day again. So, it goes quite quickly when you're playing solo. Um, all right. So, everybody goes back home. We're going to do two market actions again. I think what we're going to do is we're going to grab this milk guy. We can get some milk. That's nice. I like it. grain. Oh, well, we're not going to do bread, so it doesn't matter. [clears throat and snorts] Still focused on the grain. I mean, we could, but this one's the same ones. So, if we get some more rye, we can at least try to accomplish this goal later on. So, that could be good still. The rye is expensive as well to play.

20:49 And I think what I'm going to do then, I kind of want to keep all the cards I have right now. So, we're not going to discard anything. I also don't want to get rid of the grapes that I've already collected. So, I think we're just going to forego the second action because I don't want to do any of them. And then we're going to discard

21:21 a pumpkin. another rooster. That could actually be good to get even more eggs going. We might do that, actually. So, yeah. All right. So, let's first How expensive is the rooster? It's four. Maybe I'm going to grab four cards first. So, grabbing I'm going to grab these. There we go. Now, we're gonna play our rooster in the barn. And we have to discard a card. So, I'm going to discard the sheep. And now we get uh eggs on our chickens.

22:07 There we go. So, we can accomplish this goal in a little bit. I think that's good to do. I think that's what we're going to do. We have two different animals now. We need at least three different ones. So, what I can do is let's do it. So, I'm going to play I'm going to go to this two. So, when you So, for example, the five and the two, they don't have this discard a card for a sun situation. or you can do it, but you can always spend coins as suns. So for this one, two suns, we're going to spend one coin to be able to play our cow, which is three sons. We're going to play it into this uh field.

23:04 So this is my only downside of the game where I'm like, so these are grapes. Okay, so these are going to go like that. Three grapes. And now we gain one milk for our cow. Milk. Okay. What we're doing is I'm going to do the five sun hours. We're going to do another cow to gain another milk. There we go. And do we want to do that? Actually, no. No, we don't want to do that. I apologize. I'm No, we're not doing that. It's our last worker. So, we're going to go and accomplish two goals. That's what we're going to do. [snorts] So, first I'm going to accomplish this goal. So, you remove one of your like thingies from this. Um, and once you free them up, they give you a new action that you can do. So, which one though?

24:07 Because they're all pretty good. Let's start with this one. So, we're going to do four points for four eggs. So, these are going to be gone. And then I'm going to do different animals. So, we only have three different animals right now. Um, we have a rooster, a cow, and chickens. So, we're going to do the three. One, two, three. just because I want to free that up and it it feels like a waste to not accomplish two goals. Um, so yeah, we're gonna re refresh, reset, and what are we going to do? Let's fill in this first so we know if there's something out there that we would want. H, not necessarily.

25:01 I would like to let's do let's do this. I'm going to sell one of my grapes for a coin. That's what I'm doing. I don't want to sell the milk. We could have also done No, we can't. We can't do that one. We don't have wine or cheese yet. So, can't do that. Um, which is fine. And what I'm then going to do, I could get some more coins maybe from discarding cards. I do want to keep a lot of these things. I feel like I'm too focused on the honey and the honey is really messing with me.

25:50 But I do want to do it. We're going to do it. We're going to try to get the honey accomplished. Um, should we forgo the cheese and milk situation? No, I don't think so. No, I'll just do this one tomato for one coin. There we go. Okay, done. Refresh.

26:22 Haven't seen any more rye, which is sad. We do have some more grapes, but I feel like I don't need it at all. I went kind of went hard on on the wine situation when I only need one wine for one point [gasps] and I don't need wine for anything else. Well, I I guess I could use grapes for that one. So, yeah, it's still it's still good. Okay. So, what I'm doing is first and foremost, I'm going to go to the five sun hours and I'm going to play this here. I need to pay four coins because it's nine sun hours. So, we're going to pay four coins. One, two, three, four. There we go. So, we're able to play it. We can now get turn one grape into four wine. I can do it for both of my grapes, but since we only really need one wine, I feel like it's a waste to do that. Oh, she needs to go here. Sorry about that. She needs to go with the chickens.

27:26 Um, so we're just going to leave that grape there for this. So, we can just Yeah, leave it like that. So, that's our first move. Then I'm going to go ahead and go here because I want a new field for my cherry tree. I could just put it in the field though. [sighs] Should I just put it in the field with the cow? And I can put the other cow there as well and I've But I want to put the grapes there as well. So, no, we're going to we're we'll we'll just do it. We're going to get a new field, meadow, whatever. Oh, look at that. Two grapes. Let's do it. There we go. So, now I'm going to go ahead and The cherry tree is five.

28:17 So, I'll grab some cards first. Let's just grab these four.

28:42 There we go. And now I'll do the three sun hours to get the cherry tree. Here we gain one cherry. We need to discard two cards. So cheap. And an apple tree. I feel like I want to do so many things and I just don't have the time. It's awful. Awful. Okay, end of day. I feel like last time I did so much better.

29:15 But that's fine. That's absolutely fine. No worries. All right. So, what can I do that's useful? Not much. Oh, I also have this one now. I should have done that actually. We'll do it next time. I freed [clears throat] up this space so you can play two cards. One costing three sun hours. One, two, which is really nice to be able to play more cards in your turn. So, that's why I did that and then I didn't use it. So stupid. Um, let's just grab a card cuz we can feel like I don't need any more grapes, but we can do the dog. The dog is cute.

30:03 And then we can go ahead and maybe discard some cards for coins. again. Feel like I need everything. We should probably I feel like I want to do too many things. I feel like this game you really need to like decide kind of your focus and then go with that focus. It's hard. There's so many things you can do and I want to do all of them and that's just not realistic. So, yep. That is a problem for show. So, I guess we're just going to do a [sighs] What are we going to do? I could sell some of the grapes. That's maybe a good idea because I only need one wine.

30:48 So, we can sell three of the wine. Not the grapes, the wine. So, let's just do that. So, we have some coins. That's nice. All right, we're going to refresh again. Hey, there we have another rye after so long. after such a long time. All right. Okay. Let's try to accomplish some goals this turn. Okay. So, I want to do this one. We have a milk. We don't have eggs. Uh, and we don't have honey. So, let's fix that first. So, there we go. Let's go ahead and first just use the five sun hours. I'll play the rooster and we get two eggs cuz we have two chickens. So, one egg each.

31:48 Then I'm going to play the bee. Uh or what is this? Like a a hive situation. Um so I think what I'll do, let's do uh this one. So, for the bees, I'm going to use the three sun hours and pay one coin to get to four. We get one honey for each tree. We only have one tree, but that's enough. So, one honey. And then for the two sun hours, I'll use the cow and pay a coin to make the two sun hours three. So, it's enough. We place it here. And then we get another milk. So, we'll have two milk and we have two eggs. And now we're going to accomplish some goals. So, first I'm going to accomplish this one. Let's just use Oh, boy.

32:47 Let's do that one. Sure. So, we have a honey, an egg, and a milk. There we go. For five points. Seven. I have seven. So, 12. And then the second one. What can we even do? We could do this one. Yes. Cuz I've worked so hard for that one point that it's just it's a good thing to do. Okay, good. So, which goal are we going to work on next? I could work on the grapes. I need two though, and I only have one right now. What we could also do is maybe we should definitely just grab some cards.

33:41 Feel like I don't need too too many of them, but I would like this rye. That's a good one. Then we have cherries and we have grapes to work on as well. So, I think what I'll do is I'll do the two sun hours and so I'm able to get two cards as well. With those two sun hours, I'm going to plant some grapes. I'm just going to put them underneath the cows like that. Um, it is four sun hours though, so I need to pay two coins to be able to play it. And now we get three grapes for that because one of one per grape. So, now we have four grapes here.

34:30 And I get to grab two cards. So, I'll just grab these two. There we go. Now, we reset. Okay. So, what I'm going to do now is first I'm just going to grab a card because it's good to have just another card that I can also use to discard. Um, and what I'm going to do is this new thing that I unlocked. And this is you get to reactivate a card that you've already placed. So, it's really good. I'm going to use it on the grapes. So, I get three more grapes and then we can use that next time to fulfill one of the goals. I think that's good. I think that is really nice. All right. So, reset. This is the last reset because after this, so I have one more like round that I can play. Um, and then it is over.

35:28 It is over after this crazy. I need more time. Okay. Should we Okay, let's see. We have one goal that we can accomplish, which is this. This goal. We also have What do we have? I have one milk and one egg. That's not a lot for this situation. So that's not ideal. I would say we need at least four. Don't have that, but we could maybe accomplish that. I do want to play the rye and we can go for that one. It's only two points though. Not a lot of points, but still not bad. So maybe we start with that. We go to the fives and hours and play our rye. I do get to choose a card or a coin for each that I have. So maybe we'll do two coins. That could be useful for us. Mayhaps.

36:28 And then what I'm going to do is I think we're just going to go ahead and accomplish two goals straight away. So I'm going to go ahead and use this one to do eight uh of these collected goods because we have seven grapes and we have one cherry. So that's eight total for five points. 13 + 5 is 18. So there we go. So we're going to discard all of these back to the like storage area, I suppose. There we go. It's also good to have some more goods available. So these are all the goods or like all the baskets slashcoins that you have are here. There's no way to get more. So, if you have all of them like on your cards and you want to get more, you can't. So, that's also good to keep in mind. Um, and then for the second, we're going to go ahead and do Yeah, cuz I don't have that. So, we're going to do this. We have two rice. So, we get two points for that. I'm happy with that. That's absolutely fine. Um, okay. We're going to grab some cards.

37:37 I'll just grab these four. could have gotten another rye, [snorts] but that's fine. And then for our last mele, what I'll do, what are we going to do, though? Too many decisions to make and two little ways to accomplish more goals. I could do that. Let's do Let's do that. Okay, we're doing the two card sun situation. So, first I'm going to play this corn in a field somewhere here.

38:26 Uh, I need to pay a coin for that because it's costs me four sun hours, not three. We get one milk on each cow. So, I'm just going to put two milk on the top one.

38:37 [snorts]

38:37 And then as the second card, I'm gonna play this dog. Uh, let's play him with the chickens in the barn. Um, we also need to pay a coin for that. So, I'm doing that. And we get to fulfill a goal straight away. So, what I'm going to do, do I want to do that? Yeah, sure. Why not? Sure. Yeah, we'll do a goal. We're going to do this one. We have three milk and one egg. So, we can do uh well, four. Yes, four. There we go. For two points. Not great, but we're going to have to make some decisions. There we are. Now, we're going to do end of the day. So, what I'll do is I'm going to do another re re, you know. Yep. We're going to reactivate. That's the word.

39:32 And I think the best thing I can do is we're going to do um the grapes. So I'm going to reactivate the grapes. So we get three grapes. There we are. And then I'm going to do this which lets us accomplish another goal. And I'm going to accomplish this two grape action for two points again. So, we have 24 points and that is the end of the game. There's no other ways that give you points. The points are just the goals that you see and you're trying to accomplish those. This is not a great play through. I apologize. Um, the last time I played I got 34 points.

40:19 So, this is the the little tableau. So, 34 points is clean but not perfect. I was happy with that. That was like my first playthrough. We now have 24. That's just the worst one to get. So yeah. Um definitely a game that is very replayable for me cuz there's so many things that you can try to focus on. You could try be like, "Okay, I'm going to focus more on the fruits." I was like, at the beginning, for some reason, my brain was like, "Oh, you need bread." And then I was like, "No, I don't need bread at all." So, I don't know where that came from, but you you kind of need to decide which goals you're going to focus on. I could have probably focused on these two more, like go for the fruit trees. I think it's very fun, very satisfying to like make the combos happen. And yeah, I think it's very clever uh how all the cards like work together. So you have the chickens that just lay eggs, but then you have the rooster which will activate the chickens again so you get more eggs and then you have the cows and then you have the corn which you feed the corn to the cows so they are going to make more milk. I love how all the cards like thematically work together. I think it's just very clever and I really enjoyed this game. So, I hope this was fun and I hope this gave a bit more insight to the game of countryside and I hope you guys

41:51 like it. Let me know and I'll see you guys soon with a new video. Bye.