Elementica Review: Running Mana
Transcript
Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel.
I'm Mike Delisio.
Today we're taking a look at a game imaginatively called Elementica. I mean, are we running out of names?
It's not the most exciting name. It's not the most exciting theme. Yeah, you're mining elements and then forging them into mana,
which is points, which is the game.
It is. Yeah, it's it's a very simple kind of structure, but yeah, you're right. It's not going to be something that necessarily is going to jump off the shelf based on its name or look.
Well, actually, I disagree on the look part. I think it actually looks really nice.
I like the game on the table. I don't know about the cover for me, but that's just little nitpicky things.
Well, speaking of the table, Mike's about to show it to us. All right, here we see Elementica set up as a two-player game. In this example, uh this is kind of the main one of the main boards. There are two of them. These little uh kind of edge pieces will be there based on player count. So, in a two-player game, these sides, three-player game, these sides, and in a four-player game, the whole map would be open. And then it's seated with these action tiles. there would be a little bit of a preparation phase where each player would uh put out one of their flags. And so, let's say I'm the purple player, and I'm going to go ahead and take a uh one of these tiles. I'll place my flag out there. I'm going to spend two coins for any flag I put out. It's a discount of one if it's next to one of my other uh flags, but it's an increase of one if it's next to an opponent. So, if I didn't go around one of these, I wouldn't have to pay that uh penalty at all. So, let's just say I went ahead and I put my flag token there. This piece would go into my used area. I'd spend the two coins for it. I'd get immediately the bonus, which is moving up two on this track. Boom. Boom. You'll see I hit a little coin marker there, and I would get that as well. That's basically just in the very first round of the game. When you prepare, you each seed the board with one of your flags.
The highlevel overview of this game is that you're going to be taking actions using these tiles. Both you start with three starter tiles and you're going to be getting more tiles by placing your flags out on the board. And uh by taking these actions, you're going to be gaining resources, doing uh items out on these main boards that allow you to get these mana forges into your area here on your player board that are going to produce mana. Then producing mana will eventually earn you points and other coins. So as you're earning mana, you're moving along this track at the bottom. All of these symbols represent victory points. So you're going to be eventually building up enough mana so that each round you're producing a good enough number of victory points. When any player reaches 15 on the victory point track, that's going to signal that at the uh at the end of that round, the next round will be the final round. and then whoever has the most victory points will win the game. And so the game's going to proceed in rounds until that endgame trigger is met. And each round is going to consist of five phases. So we're going to talk briefly about those.
They are also on the bottom of each player's player board. And so here's the round summary. The five different phases are there. And so in the first round, it's going to be known as the action phase. And this is where in turn order, which is right here, turn order is variable throughout the game. it will likely change. Uh you're going to be placing out uh some action tiles. Now, it's telling you you're taking two actions, but just know that in this game, each action consists of putting out from zero to three of these action tiles into your action area. In the very first round of the game, you're only going to be doing this once, but from the second round on, you're going to be placing from zero to three of these tokens two times, taking the associated actions, and then it would move on to the next player uh until every player is gone, and that would end the action phase. So, let's just talk briefly about this. We uh everyone started with the same three starter tiles, and these are double-sided. They're going to allow you to do a particular thing. Let me try to get There we go. That's a little bit better. And so you can see that there are different things on either side.
Those little stripes along the side show that this is a wild color tile. It can count as any one of the four different color tiles that are in the game. And so each of these are double-sided. They allow you to do different things. Some of them allow you to move up tracks. So for example, if I were to take this action, it's moving this workforce track up one. Okay. Um, some of them will give you resources, like this one will give you three gems. Right now, that's not accessible to me. It's in the used area, but just to show you. Um, placing out one of your flags. We already saw that because that happened during the preparation phase. You pay the cost to put out one of your flags and you take the associated action token that's on it, put it in your used area, and then get whatever boon is at the top of the area that you placed your flag in. Um, we also have gaining a movement on this track, which we also saw. This track is going to be one that is going to kind of go in this bit of a I don't know what you'd call it, a stairstepper pattern. And it's going to give you access to different mana forges that you can buy. So, when you're on this first level, level one, you have access to purchase these. Once you go up here and you're in level two, you can purchase any from level two or below.
And then once you get up into three, you have access to all of the mana forges that are on display. Okay. So, let me just give you a quick example of what you might do on an action uh phase of the game. So, let's say that for example, I want to do something like this. I'm going to place out this token here. You can put them in any order that you want, and you don't have to put all of them out. However, in this case, I'd be incentivized to put out all three, and I'll show you why in a moment. Then, let's say that I did this, and let's say that I did this finally. Now, you'll notice there are some preprinted icons on there, and that's because, as I said, you don't have to put any of them out there. If you didn't, you would just do what these say in this order, which would be move one on this track, get a gem, get a coin. These are not terribly powerful, which is why you're almost always going to be placing uh one or more of these. So, let's go back into the example I showed. Now, in this case, I'm getting the same thing that's there.
I could flip it over. Yeah, maybe I'll do that. Let's just do that so I can show you something different. Then, we'll do this and this. We go in this order. Before you actually take the actions, you're going to first check for a color combination or a color sequence. It's not going to apply in this case because these are all wilds. And when you're checking for a color sequence, you can only use one of the wild tokens. But let's say for example that I had had some of these mana forges built out. Well, in this case, checking this color sequence, if I count this as a blue, then I have orange, then I have blue, I'd get this bonus over here. So then I would move on to taking the actions here. Simply move this up one. And then you would take the tile and move it into the used area. Here is placing out one of these, which I showed you. You're going to pay a base of two, but you get a one discount if you're next to one of yours. So maybe what I'll do is I will spend one coin to place that right there. Get the benefit here, which is to move up on the water track. And then this action tile goes into my used area.
This comes down. The last thing I'm doing is mana forge uh production. So or mana forge purchasing. This is a huge part of the game. This is where you're going to be generating the mana to gain you the points. Okay? And so right now I'm on this row. So I have access to these different mana forges here. The cost of them is in the upper right of each of these uh pictures here. And it shows plus cube. The idea is that when you purchase one of these, you'll be placing one of your cubes on the one you're purchasing. And now it means that anytime either yourself or any opponents go to buy that, they're going to be adding an extra coin to it. So, all of these are going to allow you to produce mana in a different way. This particular uh forge, the orange forges, is going to allow you to spend gems to create mana.
The blue forges are going to allow you to use your water track, converting them to gain mana. The green forges are going to be looking at this track right here, the environmental track I believe it's called, and you're going to be utilizing what level the tree is at to produce mana. And then here, the the purple ones are going to be using coins to produce mana. Maybe I'll go ahead and do this. I pay three coins to the supply. I put my cube there. And then I find that particular mana forge, which is the level one green, and I can put it anywhere I want on my player board. Wherever I play it, I'm going to be getting some kind of a benefit or a boon there. So maybe what I want to do is uh go ahead and go right here. I'll move up two on this track. So, I do that right there. All right. Again, you don't have to go from left to right. You can put it in any one of these rows that you want to. Then, that would be moved down.
Anytime your standby area is empty, you're going to take all of the tiles from your used area and you're going to be moving them over there. So, this is kind of like a cyclical system where you want to make sure that you're being as efficient as you can in using your actions. The next thing that you're going to do is the mana production phase, and that's where you're actually going to be firing off all of the mana forges that you have on your player board um to gain the mana that will give you points. You can activate any or all of them in the order that you like. Right now, I only have one mana forge, so this is the only thing that's going to be producing for me. So, let me show you this particular tile. What this is saying is that this actually has a base of one mana. It's going to produce one mana no matter what. So, you have a base of one. And then what it's saying is that for every three spaces on the environment track, you gain an additional mana. And you can do that up to two times. So let me show you how that works in practice. I have a base of one mana. So this goes right here. And then for every two, uh, sorry, sorry, for every three, I'd gain one. It's on number six. And I can do that twice. So three and three, that would give me two.
And I can activate it two. So it gives me an extra two mana. So right now this is producing three coins for me. I would go ahead and take those three coins and put them in my supply. Now obviously first round of the game you're not getting a lot but as you are gaining and gaining more you're going to be getting both coins and points. This gets reset at the beginning or this gets reset every round and um it's going to be based upon who has the least amount of mana will then be first, second, third in that order. And that's the main core of the game, taking actions to get these mana forges, getting the resources that you need to fire off these mana forges to get the most uh of your output, getting you the points and coins as well to do that. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner of Elementica.
Now, the production of this is pretty pretty good. I like the board. I like the look. I found it very easy to remember what colors did what things.
Uh, moving on the chart, the little tracks. The only thing I really had to look up was when you get those uh tiles that score at the end of the game, what do they each mean? But you only really need to worry about that when you get one. And then you just go through the five, four tiles, however many it is.
Yeah.
And and take one.
And you'll only have two by the end of the game, so maximum. So yeah, it's only it's a little thing.
I also liked it's a simple thing, but I like when games make the setup for two and three players easier. Yes.
And these little boards that you put on the hex grid that cover up a certain number of hex's
worked really well. The little frames. Yeah, it was very, very easy. And then the actual action tiles that you're placing on the board, they have listings for if it says three, don't put don't put those out or four for the player counts. Very simple. Now, this is the definition of a procedural game. You are going through and you do this first and then you do this and then you run your mana machines a little bit like furnace where you're running things to get points and then you'll get
a point maybe two and but that ramps up as the game goes by and at
you can't really tell where you are halfway. You'll be like I only have four points but oh we're halfway through because we're about to start scoring five points a turn. Yeah, get it. It's very uh exponential basically where where it'll take you the first few rounds like in the first round you're essentially probably getting zero points. You're getting a couple of coins and then as it goes on and goes on, you feel like you're you're scraping by, but eventually you're going to be humming along and you're going to have six different mana forges that you're activating and and that 15 points will come quickly once you get it moving. An interesting part of the game is essentially it's a bag builder. Not sort of. You have these tiles of actions that you're going to run and then you bring them down and you circle around. It almost feels a little bit like Terrammystica that way, but you're kind of running things through this rondelle.
Yeah.
And anytime you want, you can pull these tiles off. Sometimes it's helpful to do that. And in every single one of these games I've ever played in my life, with no exception, have I said I I've always said, "Well, you definitely want to get rid of your starting tiles and upgrade them." This is the first time I've ever done where I'm like, "I don't want to get rid of my starting
I I I believe you can't get rid of your starting tile."
Okay. Well, then I never did.
Um but yeah, you're right because those give you like kind of the core actions,
right? you know, whereas the other ones are usually going to be something that is going to be giving you resources, maybe based upon where you are in a particular track, things along the line, or it might just be like, hey, here's three gems, but the core actions are on those starting tiles.
And this makes the game fascinating in a sense that you have this area control sort, not area control, but pattern scoring, which I'm not a big fan of, but I mean, it's there.
Yeah. So, I'm thinking about that, but I'm also thinking about what tile am I getting and adding to my thing and when's it time to pull a tile out? Not not often. It's not a game about culling that much.
Not too much,
but about taking these action there at the end of the game. What am I doing to maximize my points? Yes, it's an efficiency uh style game where you are essentially you're not wanting to waste any any of your kind of action turns because you know you have those three preprinted icons which are the just very weak you know get get a gem get a coin type of thing. You're wanting to be able to have your engine moving in such a way that every action phase you're using exactly those six tiles and then you're taking them from used and putting them into the ready area. And so there's a bit of a puzzle there. Um but you're also trying to do it in such a way that you are getting that. It seems silly because the bonus you get for it is so so small, but I really love getting that color matching bonus. Well, I don't know that it's I mean, it's small in the first row and that's you'll find that
right
the columns and but getting it multiple times I feel like everyone the first time they play that's all they're going to try to do because you're like oh a bonus two coins
anyway but it's still a bonus but the bottom row is is a point I think and that's pretty powerful
and you don't and you can place it I mentioned this in the overview but you can place those mana forges wherever you want they don't have to go in the first in the first row they can go wherever they they don't even have to go to the leftmost spot You could put them however you like. Now, I will say on the negative side, I feel like the game has barely any interaction with the exception of the board and even more that's like
you went to the spot I was going to go to. But because of that, the game has this weird flow and to it where you are literally taking six actions before the next person goes.
Yeah.
And and it's it's even done in like take three actions, do that, now do it again. Mhm.
And then and that's that brings about some considerable downtime especially those last two turns. The last two turns you are really thinking because you don't want to miss any point at all
and what you're doing on your turn barely affects me.
Mhm.
But it affects me enough that we can't do it simultaneous because you might go to a spot on the board and because of that I would not play this game with more than three. I think the downtime is too much and it actually brings down my ranking of the game a little bit because I think it's just too much drag between turns. I think with a two-player that's a it's almost a non-issue because you're going back and forth often enough. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. Honestly, I I do think that the the the downtime is an issue. Uh a lot of times these things you're doing are literally moving a cube on a track. Those aren't the ones you're worried about. It's going to be the ones where you are like picking a a mana forge. Okay, which mana forge am I buying, you know, oh, there's a little bit of, you know, consideration there of like, okay, well, this one's going to cost me more because there's cubes on it and but I also need to be thinking about the main board. That's probably have the most interaction,
right? But you're not buying one to put a cube on it. No,
which by the way is most forgotten rule in the game.
Putting those cubes on those
is very important. it is important because that is basically making it more expensive for everyone including uh yourself if you were to try to get it again. So, um yeah, it it can it can drag especially like you said towards the end of the game as you are really figuring out how best to make use of what you've got, how to max out that mana track. Um, I do find it interesting that the mana uh track there are sometimes I I and I don't understand the math of this. Maybe you would better than I do, but there are some places where it's like you're getting a boatload of points, but if you're at 26, you only get one coin, but if you're at 27, you get the same amount of points, but nine coins.
Oh, I couldn't figure that out. But I will say at the end of the game,
yeah,
I was counting out the spaces so that I wouldn't mess that up. Me, too. And I wished they explained that a little better. Like why am I getting so few coins here, but more it it
it it wasn't like exponential paths passing each other. It was like an up and down.
And that was that was one thing that I just couldn't work out, you know, in my brain.
I assume this has to be someone smarter than me. Now they do make it so that you don't have to activate all your mana forges, but that's a little bit too much of like me having to map out,
right? And that but that was my problem. I wasn't activating my mana forges because
Okay, but I need to score two less mana because I won't get enough victory points or I need money to do this.
Sure. Sure. That that's probably my least favorite part of the game is is that little element and it is a little bit long. But uh yeah, there's a lot I like about it as well.
Yeah. So I I don't ding games too much if you can't play with Max. I just try to say that in the review itself. So I for me it's a max of three, but some of my favorite games are that same way. I think the theme is barely there. Yeah,
there's an interesting sort of subplot of green versus purple and a track on the bottom that moves which
might not be a issue if everyone decides to do the same color which could happen.
Um, so but other than that, you are running an engine of stuff. Yes, it's mana. whatever. I'm controlling this. And there's also a lot of endgame scoring, which I think it's one of those games where one person can look like they're crushing everybody until the endame scoring. So, I think it all comes together in a nice package. Um, it is a Eurogame machine. It is running stuff. I'll give it a seven out of 10. I like it. Just keep in mind about the downtime. I wish there was a little bit smoother way to run that, but at the same time, I like a lot of the engine systems here.
Yeah, I'm I'm a bit higher. I'm at an eight. Um, but I do have some issues. I, you know, I think it could have been excellent. I think that there are some things about it that maybe some, you know, edges could have been smoothed off a little bit and and maybe a little bit of a tighter, you know, action loop going on. But I think it's really I really do like that system of having to manage your action tokens, which you know, you're you're choosing spots on the board because they may be important for you in an area majority sense, but they're probably more important for you is which action tile do I really want to give to my engine. So, some neat kind of like, you know, those tough decisions. Enough of those uh to to make it compelling. I wish the theme was a little bit more interesting um because it's hard to sell it thematically, but it looks nice on the table. It has some very solid um engine building mechanisms driving it. So, an eight out of 10.
There you go. That's Elementica. I'm Tom.
I'm Mike.
See you next time. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this video. So, if you like this review or whatever you just watched, wasn't it amazing? Uh, check out our channel, Dice Tower. We have all kinds of things. We review games, we do top 10s, we play games live. It's all about board games, but especially the people who play them. Check out Dice Tower YouTube channel.