This is a lot of game stacked on top of itself, faction asymmetry plus exploration plus area control plus roaming monsters that wreck whatever plan you had plus a real resource-and-engine layer underneath, and somehow it doesn’t collapse under its own ambition. Summoning dragons, dominating monster tokens, converting potions and gems and elemental power into an actual scoring engine, it shouldn’t hold together this well and it does. The table presence alone, once it’s set up, gets a reaction from anyone walking by.
It’s a bit tough to parse at first, I’ll admit that took me longer than most games in this weight class, and my one lasting complaint tracks with what I’ve read elsewhere, the player aid could be more complete and the rulebook organization leaves you flipping back more than it should for a game this component-heavy. A better rules reference would fix most of my hesitation here. The storage system deserves real praise though, genuinely well thought insert-adjacent organization that made me forgive the rulebook gaps somewhat.
What kept me coming back is the solo mode, which is unusually good, no extra rules overhead bolted on top, it just works the way the multiplayer game does with an AI opponent standing in cleanly. I’ve run my own solo sessions more than I expected to for a game this heavy. The combo click moment lives in the engine-building side, when your dwelling upgrades and elemental resources suddenly let you chain two actions that used to cost you a full turn each, and after a few plays that click starts arriving reliably instead of by accident, which is exactly when a game like this earns a permanent shelf spot.