Windmill Valley - Learn While Playing

Here is my Windmill Valley tutorial, where I teach the game as it is being played. Paid sponsorship by Board & Dice.

Teaching Timestamps:
Introduction - 0:00
Game overview - 0:55
Game start - 4:32
Changing the floodgate - 4:52
Changing the water level - 5:56
Rotating action gears - 6:47
Performing actions - 7:54
Wheel enhancement action - 8:23
Performing multiple actions - 10:09
Gaining tulips - 10:53
Build windmill action - 12:55
Visit the market action - 15:50
Lower water level action - 21:59
Foreign trade action - 22:42
Farm enhancement action - 23:50
Plant tulip bulbs action - 28:07
Advancing the calendar - 31:26
How the game ends - 32:25
Queen's wish explanation - 43:33
Final scoring explanation - 52:26

[GettingGames]

CORRECTIONS:
22:38 - Clarification: You may perform the action to lower water when it is at zero in order to gain a reward, you just don't move the token to the left.

[DaniGarcia_BoardGames]

Brilliant tutorial, as usual!!!

Just a clarification, you can gain the rewards from the calendar or from your helpers at any point during your turn, so for instance, at 41:00, you could have planted first, and then gained the calendar rewards.

Also, I think it's not explained that you can only gain your helper rewards once per turn.

[megalodon]

Love the look and mechanisms with this one. Dani Garcia does it again! Barcelona is currently my favorite euro and this one COULD give it a run for it's money.

[tamiraloush]

Interesting game! I really like the theme and that it feels light although the mechanics are quite involved.

38:06 you placed your white tulip on the foreign trade card to gain 2 tulips and an enhancement. But both your starting farm enhancment card and advancing the calendar gave you tulips which you forgo, so placing your tulip so that you get an enhancement and 3 victory points, getting those tulips as bonuses, was a better option.

[bookaddict]

I am looking forward to getting my hands on this one. Thank you for the play through, Jon!

[ludwigmises]

I really like the tulip board scoring methods.

[artursruseckis]

At first glance it looks that this is a game that I might like a lot. But the more I think about it, the more I understand that it will be a frustrating experience. I know that I would love to play this game by carefully planning and executing a strategy that involves a lot of windmills and obviously lots of tulips. But it is obvious that there will be players who will race for the end of season benefits and the game most likely will end before I even start to reap benefits from my strategies and investments.

It seems that racing full steam for the end of game is a viable strategy if you manage to pick up the correct assistants or upgrades. Always open gates to max, go for level reduction when possible (both actions bringing points), get the first finishers benefits and finish the game before your opponents manage to earn any reasonable amount of points for tulips. If others play normally and do not take countermeasures (i.e. going for quick points instead of investing in long-term benefits), this might work most of the times. Imagine the frustrations of others if the game is over in just 9 turns...

[elqord.]

Thanks, great overview. I like almost everything about this! The only bit that seems off is the tulip tracks/scoring. Seems like there are definitive MUST have rows/columns. Some sort of variability on that front would have been nice. I don't see why you wouldn't go for the best path always or what would force you to do something differently except for maybe the cards you tucked. BUT so much of the tulip scoring seems to be based on fixed criteria on the player board that I fear there will only be one or two optimal paths to extract most points.

[monkeyunit]

Looks great but some things feel off.
Why does the order of your tulips in storage matter? When you use them you apparently don't take them in order.

Also don't like the fact end game and in game scoring have the same icon. Same with /. On the market you can't mix them up but when lowering water level you can. (The bonus for lowering water level could also be a bit more clear. Could also mean it happens when you raise it)

Lastly the cube blocking the number that determines the speed of the wheel irks me. The board feels quite large for the information it holds so could be a number besides it.

[joukenienhuis]

Great to follow these turns, but I see a few mistakes. You forget that if you do nothing, you still have to adapt the waterflow. And when changing the waterflow you gain the rewards above the flow.

[ViscountCharles]

At 22.33 you say that the water level cannot go below zero, and any excess benefits from the lower water action are lost.

The first part of that is correct, but the rule book says on page 9 "The arrow to the left shows that any movement below the “0” space is still valid for the reward, but the marker stays in place." So as I read it, you DO get the reward if you push the water level below zero but the token itself immediately "resets" to 0.

[georgeresso]

if a coin engine is possible you can spend the entire game raising and lowering the flood gates/water level and gain vp every time...i wonder if thats a high enuff score to

[stevevitka]

Wind-e-mill, is that your dutch accent?

[boscoszeto]

at @47:47 could yo have planted all 3 yellow blubs first, get the 1 coin then take the 2 wheel enhancement? or have to do one by one?