Everdell Card Evaluation: What a City Space Is Worth

The card evaluation question in Everdell is never “is this a good card?” It is “is this the best use of one of my 15 spaces and one of my turns?” This lesson gives you a way to answer that with plain numbers.

Start with the average space

Take a typical winning score at your table and divide by 15. If winners at your table usually score around 75, each space averages 5 points of total value, counting everything that space brought in. The rulebook’s 62-point example works out to about 4.

That number is your bar. A card that will add less than the average to your final score, all in, is taking a space a better card wanted, unless it does something the city needs, like paying for the next three cards.

Count all the value a card adds

For each card, add up:

1. Printed points.
2. What it produces or saves. Resources you would otherwise spend a worker on. A rough exchange: one worker placement buys about 2 or 3 basic resources, so a card that produces 2 resources twice has saved you about a worker or two.
3. What it enables. A free Critter later, an Event, a purple bonus it counts toward.
4. What it scores at the end through other cards. A Farm under a Castle is worth 1 more.

Then compare that total with what the card costs: its resources, the turn you spend playing it, and the space.

Worked example: an early Farm

Say you play a Farm in winter, using the rulebook’s cost of 2 twigs and 1 resin.

• Printed points: 1.
• Production: 1 berry when played, 1 in spring, 1 in autumn. That is 3 berries.
• Enables: counts toward Harvest Festival, toward a Barge Toad’s twigs, toward a General Store’s bonus berry, and toward a Castle if you play one.

If the Farm ends up under a Castle, next to a Barge Toad, in a city that claims Harvest Festival, it has paid for itself many times over. The same Farm played in autumn produces once, enables little, and scores 1 point in a space. Same card, very different value. Timing is part of every evaluation.

Free spaces change the math

Three things take less room than a normal card:

• Events, which sit beside your city and use no space.
• The Wanderer, a tan Critter that draws 3 cards and takes no space.
• A Harvester and Gatherer pair, two cards that share one space.

A card that takes no space only has to beat its cost and its turn, not a space. That is why the Wanderer is rarely a bad play, and why a paired Harvester and Gatherer, with the Gatherer’s 3-point pairing bonus, is efficient for the room it uses.

Clearing a space

When your city is full of low-value cards, you can trade one away:

• University: discard a card from your city, get its cost back, plus 1 resource of your choice and 1 point.
• Ruins: discard a Construction, get its cost back, draw 2 cards, and the Ruins takes its place.

Clearing makes sense when the card you remove earned little and the card you bring in will earn more than the average space. Remember the rulebook’s warning: if you remove a card with point tokens on it, those tokens are lost.

Deck odds: will the card come back?

Each card prints how many copies are in the deck. That tells you whether to grab a card now or wait.

The deck holds 128 cards and the Meadow shows 8. As a rough guide, the chance that at least one copy of a given card is in a freshly dealt Meadow:

These figures are our own calculation from the 128-card deck and 8 Meadow cards, before any hands are dealt. The Meadow turns over all game, so the real chance of seeing a card at some point is higher. The lesson holds anyway: if a card you need has one copy and it is in the Meadow now, this may be your only chance.

Three common misjudgments

Overvaluing printed points early. A 3-point tan card in winter does nothing more for you. A 1-point green card in winter keeps producing.

Undervaluing cards. A space that draws 2 cards and gives a point feels weak next to 3 twigs. But cards are what your resources turn into. With a thin hand, cards are worth more than resources.

Ignoring the turn cost. Every card play is a turn you did not place a worker. In autumn, when you have 6 workers to place and only so many turns before others pass, turns get tight.

A quick rule for the Meadow

Before buying, ask: will this card add more to my final score than an average space, counting what it produces and what it helps score? If yes, and you can afford it, it is a strong play. If no, it needs a special reason: an Event, a free Critter, or a card nobody else should have.