Everdell Events: How to Claim Them First

Every new Everdell player builds a city. Fewer build toward Events, and that is where a lot of games are won. An Event is points beside your city, not in it, so it never takes one of your 15 spaces. And only one player gets each one, so the timing is a race.

What an Event is

There are two kinds, and both sit on the board from the start.

• Basic Events: 4 tiles along the river, the same 4 every game.
• Special Events: the box holds 16; each game, 4 are shuffled out onto the Ever Tree’s lower branches, and the rest go back in the box.

To claim one, place a worker on it. Your city must meet all its requirements at that moment, and you pay any listed cost then. The worker stays there like any other placement and comes home when you next prepare for season. The Event tile or card then sits beside your city for scoring.

Two rules from the rulebook protect you. Only one player can achieve each Event. And once it is yours, it stays yours, even if the cards that earned it later leave your city.

The four basic Events

Each is worth 3 points and asks for a set of one color in your city:

Three points may look small next to a big purple card. But it costs one worker, no city space, and usually no resources. In the rulebook’s scoring example, Events made 12 of the 62 points.

Which basic Event fits which opening

• Harvest Festival fits the green-heavy opening from the openings lesson. If you play Production early, you are already on your way.
• Grand Tour fits a city built around Destinations, which also gives you worker spaces nobody else can block.
• City Monument fits a summer engine of reward and discount cards.
• Cartographers’ Expedition asks for tan cards, which do their work once. Three of them is a real commitment of city space, so it tends to suit a city that is already full of one-shot plays.

You do not choose one in advance and stick to it. You notice which color your hand and the Meadow are giving you, and lean in.

Special Events

Special Events each name specific cards, usually a pair, that your city must hold. The rulebook’s example is Pristine Chapel Ceiling, which needs a Woodcarver and a Chapel. Special Events score what the card says. Some count something in your city, like the 3 points the rulebook’s Ministering to Miscreants gives for each prisoner in a Dungeon, and some also pay a reward the moment you claim them.

Because they ask for exact cards, special Events reward attention more than luck:

1. At setup, read all four. Note any that name a card already in your hand.
2. Watch the Meadow for the other half. If one card of a pair is in your hand and the other turns up face up, that is a strong reason to buy it.
3. Count the deck. Each card prints how many copies are in the deck. A special Event that needs two single-copy cards is a long shot; one built from common cards is far more reachable.

Winning the race

Since only one player gets each Event, the question is never just “can I get it?” It is “can I get it before anyone else?”

Count colors in every city. A player with three green cards is one card from Harvest Festival. If you are also at three, the next green card in the Meadow just became urgent for both of you.

Claim it the turn you qualify. A common slip is meeting an Event’s requirements, then playing one more card first. An opponent with the same idea can claim it in between. If the Event is contested, place the worker now.

Keep a worker for it. Events need a worker. If all of yours are out when you finally qualify, you must wait until after your next prepare, and someone may get there first. When you are one card away from an Event, think about holding a worker back.

Remember the King. The King, a purple Critter, scores 1 point for each basic Event and 2 for each special Event you achieved. If you are chasing Events, the King turns each one into a bigger number.

Events and the tiebreaker

If players tie on points, the player who achieved the most Events wins. One extra Event can decide a close game twice: once in points, and once in the tiebreak.

Where this goes next

At Level 2 you will see how Events fit a summer engine, and at Level 3 how a whole game can be planned around them. For now, one habit is enough: name an Event at the start of each game, and look up at the board every time you add a card to your city.