Stone Age

The most authentic thing about Stone Age is the dice rolling cup, but you can't quite appreciate it without smell-o-vision

Stone Age is a pleasurable introduction to worker placement games, one of the hallmarks of modern Euro games.  As an owner of an MBA, I heartily endorse the concept of getting others to do your work for you.

  
Publisher:

Z-Man

Designer:

Bernd Brunhofer

Elevator Pitch:

Build up a civilization by using workers to gather resources, food, and tools, build huts, collect cards, and of course making babies in the “love shack”

Personal Impression:

I enjoy Stone Age, rolling lots of dice is always fun.  The game flows well and offer a number of viable strategic options.  I particularly like the everyone gets something cards. Compared to other worker placement games, Stone Age can come off as a little dull though.  I wish there was more to distinguish the different resources and buildings beyond how many points you get.

Good for People who Grew up Playing Smelling 

Weird things on the ground

  

Ease of Learning:

Players have a lot of options on their turn, but most are basic and similar to each other, so they don’t take long to explain.  New players should be able to develop a basic strategy almost immediately, though the timing and more focused strategies take more experience.

     

Fidgety Index

A few meeples and dice to play with.  Components are too few and general to be much fun.

Universal Theme:

You are building up your civilization in the Stone Age.  That sounds exciting, but the game-play and components are too generic to feel like you are doing much more than acquiring cubes to turn them into points.

Player Count and Length:

2 to 4.  Works fine for all counts, but more cutthroat with two.  Takes 1 - 1:30 hours to play. Expansion adds pieces for a fifth player, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Expansions:

Style is the New Goal is a dumb expansion with a dumb name (So bad that the newest edition is just called Stone Age: The Expansion), which is unfortunate as Stone Age could use a quality expansion. The main addition, jewelry, removes one the main tensions of the game, getting the right resources you need.  The new huts are interesting, but can be overpowered if they come up early.    And adding a fifth player to game not designed for 5 players is usually not a good idea.

Spin Offs:

None. Settlers of the Stone Age is a Settlers game and not a Stone Age one.   

Introducing the Game to New Gamers: 

Encourage other players to take the farm/babies/tool actions early and focus on buildings/cards late.  Don't use the "starvation" or a rush strategy.  Don't take spaces that you know your opponent needs, but you do not.

Apps:

There is universal app, which is amongst the better ones.  It offer solo, online, and pass-n-play modes.  The interface is different from the board game, and can take a little getting used to, but it makes sense once you pick it up. 

Links:

Gateway Game Index

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