Endless Bag of Games

Stone Age, designed by Bernd Brunnhofer (Michael Tummelhofer) is another game of resource gathering and managing workers just like in games such as Caylus or Agricola. Players control prehistoric communities who are competing for resources. They develop them by growing their societies larger, discovering tools and growing food supply. Winning player has most efficiently developed his/hers society. Simply put the goal is to gather the most victory points around the table and you get them by increasing population, gathering resources to build huts and establishing richer culture. This means you’ll be having multiple paths to victory, which always is a nice addition to the game. In Stone Age, the balance between luck and strategy is just right and makes it fun game to play.

The visuals and material used in the game are very good looking and well made. The art by Michael Mendez is delightful. We could say that the strong theme of the game is in synergy with interesting game mechanics. The pieces included are just fun to play with. The game supports two to four players and the game takes about 60-90 minutes to complete. Of course, the first game is a bit longer cause you learn the rules. One round includes three stages: 1) Place your cavemen to the board, 2) Use actions where the cavemen do the actions according their place at the board and finally 3) Feed your people.

Placing your cavemen
The first phase in the round is placing your people the board. In the beginning you’ll have five people and according the places at the board they’ll breed, do hunting, gather resources or create tools. The tick is to understand the value of the cavemen and the resources you have. Having too many cavemen too soon can end up in disaster when it is time to feed your people. So you’ll be wanting to send cavemen to places where they benefit your society the most.

Actions
Depending where your cavemen are on the board, you’ll gather resources (such as wood, stone, gold, brick) or do actions according to it. You may build tools which will add modifiers when you go gathering resources. Resource gathering happens with the help of dice thus modifiers can be a nice addition. First you count how many cavemen are i.e hunting and according to their number, you get that many dice to use, then you add the modifiers and make your roll. You can also build huts or acquire civilization cards (and gain victory points) if you have enough resources to pay for them. There are three different ways to gain points. You can build huts to instantly gain victory points according the value shown in the hut or you can gain points at the games end by certain combination of cards. One option to gain victory points is by multiplying particular area of the game (let’s say you have constructed lots of huts) with the amount specific civilization cards (which show the amount of workers). The juicy bit is to choose strategy according your gaming style.

Feed your people
No community survives without food and in Stone Age it has only one purpose.:Feeding your cavemen. If you cannot feed them, you’ll lose resources or worse; victory points. Once again,according to your strategy, there are different ways keeping your people fed. You may want to build sustainable platform by increasing your food production OR you can go hunting when you need. The choice of feeding your people will affect other aspects of the game and can make big difference!

The feeling of the game is actually light strategy, but the reality is rather different and shows that the game has depth. One nice addition is that there is just enough chance to give little surprises during the gameplay. Just enough, but not too much. Let’s say it is in delicate balance for my liking. It would be unfair to say that the winner in Stone Age is chosen randomly since this IS a strategy game. One which requires focus. I enjoy the fact that players are active almost all the time and there isn’t big delays waiting for other players. It creates a captivating feeling  so you won’t feel bored and the game steadily moves forward. The thing is, I cannot imagine anyone who could not play this game. It is simple, it is deep enough, you can play it with two players and it is not too serious. As a whole, I like the game very much and I recommend it to everyone. 4/5

PRO’s
Quality
Strategic
Engaging

CON’s
Lack of five player support

Days of Wonder’s Small World (designed by Philippe Keyaerts) is a two to five players game based on the older game Vinci. In both games players take control of a civilization and spread across the landscape which varies from lakes to mountains. Small World is a fantasy themed game unlike its predecessor. Players take the roles of Giants, Trolls, Humans, Orcs to conquer regions and to survive until it is time when their civilization eventually passes. This means you’ll be most likely using more than one race before the game ends. In short, like the game title says it, you’ll fight for the control of a fantasy based terrain that is just too small for everyone.

The visuals of the game are fantastic and looks great. Days of Wonder has really hit the spot with the quality of the included material. Although not all will enjoy the somewhat humorous fantasy theme, I just cannot hate a game where elves are just so… gay. All in all, when I look at the board, the images, the useful detachable boxes etc. it makes me smile and I know that Days of Wonder has at least done something right.

The game usually takes 50 to 90 minutes and during that time, players will go through about 2-5 races, depending on the choices and strategies you use. You enter the board through the border regions, conquer territories and gain victory points for each territory you occupy. Sooner or later you have stretched or taken casualties with your race that you’ll put it in decline and get prepared for a new race. Knowing when the golden age of your race has gone, is one of the ticks of the game.

You’ll start the game with 5 victory coins and you have six race/power combos available to choose from. The races are in a column and the first race is always cheaper than the ones further in the column. Every time you choose a race, you pay one victory coin until you reach your chosen race. This way, the other races also become more interesting to others to take. When a race is chosen, one additional race enters the scene thus there are always six available. Once you have chosen your race, you’ll get race tokens according to the numbers according the race/power combo you have chosen. After that, you’ll enter the world.

You have four different maps in the box. The map size varies according the number of players you have. This way, the world stays small and the game still has appeal even with two players. The map is set up with some lost tribes tokens which are neutral race tokens in several predetermined regions. Normally when you conquer empty regions, it’ll cost you two race tokens, but if you conquer what that is already occupied i.e. with lost tribe token, it costs additional race token. Thus the difficulty of conquering the regions increases according to tokens already on the board.

Once you have conquered your regions, you can rearrange your tokens to prepare your defenses against another players. When you have done that, you’ll end your turn and gain victory points according to regions you occupy. When your turn comes again, you’ll take as much tokens you want into your hand and keep conquering. This goes on, until your race has grown thin, or you think you would benefit more from another race and thus want to start with a new race. When you have decided, you’ll put your race to decline; leave one race token to the regions that are yours and when the next turn comes, you can choose a new race just like in the beginning. The races put to decline are no longer playable.

There are fixed amount of turns according to the number of players and during the games you gather victory points as much as you can, and the player with most points wins.

One could think that the game is the same every time you play it, but there is little more to that. Every race has a special ability which affects the game in some manner. i.e there might be a lot bigger number race token one race has than another or with certain race it is easier to conquer certain regions. If the race tokens aren’t enough, there are also the power tokens which together form the race combo, which you’re using while playing.

All in all Small World is a nice way to spend a hour or two. The theme is funny (though it will not appeal all) the design is very good and the game is kept rather simple. Since there are lot of race/power combinations, it seems a bit confusing at first, but like with many games, the second time is already way better. The game scales well and every game is a new experience. If you like good games, try Small World. 4/5

PRO’s

• New experience every time
• Strategic thinking
• Visuals and quality

CON’s

• I have too big fingers for small tokens

Holidays come and go and while pen and paper role-playing games are somewhat harder to arrange quickly, board games can be picked when the opportunity raises. This has recently given me opportunities to play some Dominion from Rio Grande Games. The game is ranked 6th at BoardgameGeeks with 10696 votes and after you have read this review, you know why I think it has earned its place there. The box looks nice, it feels sturdy and has all it needs to be an excellent board game, but is it a board game or something else?

Dominion is a game of developing your feudal provinces by building a deck of cards. You can expand your kingdom by drafting the best cards for your deck out of a selection of 17 cards until you have the biggest lands. The biggest lands here mean the highest point value. Other families like your friends, no doubt try to do the same. In each Dominion game there are ten Kingdom card-piles chosen from a set of 25 plus there are seven card types that are always the same which consists from Victory, Treasure and Curse cards

The game begins each player with an identical deck of cards. Few estate cards which account for victory points and seven copper coin cards. Then the deck is shuffled and takes a hand of five cards. This happens at the start of every turn so you’ll always have hand of five in the beginning of your turn. If you run out of cards – and you will – you shuffle your discard pile and now you have a new pile to draw. 17 stacks of cards are at the table where players can buy cards to make their own decks.

The game is incredibly easy to learn since the main purpose is kept simple: The sole purpose of the game is to build the biggest kingdom, in this case, gather most estate cards which give you victory points.

In every turn, there are three phases: (1) Play an action. You may have bought action card which allows you to do various things. (2) Buy one card. You can buy Kingdom cards, Treasure cards of Victory cards to build your deck. Kingdom cards give you possibility to do actions such as have extra coins to in your buying stage etc. Cards you have bought go to your discard pile. The last stage is (3) Clean up your play area so you’ll put what is left in your hand to your discard pile and draw five new for the next turn.

Buying victory cards seems like a natural choice that you would go for, but there is a catch. Victory cards are worthless while they are in your hand. While in play, you cannot do anything with that so it will be just a dead load while Treasure cards allow you to buy more cards and Kingdom cards allow you perform actions. If you have hand of five Victory cards, your turn is completely wasted since you cannot do anything during your turn. That is the reason Kingdom cards are the true essence of this game. By buying Kingdom cards you can manipulate your deck so that when you think that the time is right, you can set your goal to buy those Victory cards. And with a 10 different Kingdom Cards-piles during each Dominion game, this really gets exiting with every player trying to do their best.

The game ends when three deck-piles on the table are empty so because of this, each player has the possibility to affect when the game is going to end. If you have a feeling that your friend has bought few more of those victory cards than you, you better continue the game and do your best. But when the game eventually ends, you add up the points in your created deck and the highest amount of points wins. Yes and it is simple as that, the entire game.

Once you have quickly figured what is going on, the game goes really fast and you’ll notice that you are suggesting already another round. Considering that there 25 Kingdom card decks and 10 of them are in each game, you have a lot of variety in your games. This gives you many approaches to the game and interest to play great many games. Dominion is not a CCG, but the play of the game is similar to the construction and play of a CCG deck. Dominion is fun and fast. You can include about two games in an hour easily. The rules are clear and the actual game is simple and the final outcome with various cards and subtle strategies are just.. juicy!! After few games, I’m now ready to buy the expansion. 4/5

PROs

• Fast to learn
• Simple mechanic
• Light
• Strategic thinking

CONs

• (Repetetive)

After delaying the post for too long, I’ve now decided that I should write few words about Battlestar Galactica The Board Game published by the Fantasy Flight Games. The game altogether was a pleasant surprise, it catches the mood of the series and I believe that you’ll enjoy the board game even if you haven’t seen a single episode.

“You can’t trust me and I will not definitely trust you and yes, we are all honest here… are we not?” That is Battlestar Galactica in a nutshell. Almost at least. Battlestar Galactica is a cooperative game where all the players are doing their best to reach Earth while Cylon fleets are harassing them whenever they get the opportunity to do so. In games such as Arkham Horror etc. players pull the same rope. In Battlestar Galactica however one or more players do not. They’re Cylons and have no intention of reaching Earth. The problem is that players don’t know who the Cylons are until their actions prove otherwise.

A player chooses a character from the series and every one of them has different skills and special abilities. Others can fly Vipers while others are specialized in politics or tactics. You get cards based on your skills, five colors in all, but according you character you’ll most likely be using about two of them. When every turn draws to an end a crisis emerges and something bad happens. If you play your cards right, you can usually avoid the disaster, but there are people aboard who doesn’t wish that to happen.

This is exactly where the game gets it kicks. People around the table accuse each other of every mishap what happens. And if you are a skillful player, it is almost impossible to notice that you’re a cylon. If you are noticed, players do whatever they can to restrict your actions and that is usually the time to actually reveal that you in fact are a Cylon and start acting accordingly. Cylons win through various ways, but humans only if they reach their destination.

I’m not going to go more on the details of the game, I believe by now you have the idea. As a board game it is successful indeed, one of the gold nuggets of board games. The mind bending action to find out who is a cylon is act of FUN indeed and I can recommend the game to everyone. 4/5

PROS:

• Intense
• Great components
• Paranoia and accusations made fun
• Strategic thinking

CONS

• After the Cylons are revealed, the biggest tick disappears and every player head towards their goals.