Review 4: Stone Age

This game is the first worker placement review that I have done.  Admittedly there are better worker placement games out there but Stone Age is a less well known game of this type compared to some of the others.    Worker placement, for those who have not come across this term before, is where players are placing their playing pieces on the board in order to choose an action that will aid them in the game.  I like worker placement games but they’re not for everyone:

Name: Stone Age

Players: 2-4

Playing Time: 60 minutes

Suggested Ages: 10 and up

Awards: Numerous – most notably 2008 Spiel des Jahres Nominee

Game Setting:

The game is set (not unsurprisingly) in the Stone Age.  Each player takes a player board and places it in front of them.  The player board shows the player’s Stone Age village.  In the centre of the table is the games main board which shows all of the actions that the players Stone Age villagers (workers) can take.  The Play takes a number of Stone Age Meeples (pieces) and puts them in their village ready for sending out to carry out tasks.

Game Play:

Each player chooses a colour and takes the ‘meeples’ that match that colour.   On their turn the player players take it in turns to place of their meeples on one of a multitude of different actives.  For example a player can choose to collect wood, collect clay, collect stone or collect gold.  Alternative a player could gather food or do some early farming.  However they could choose to have a child or make tools.  If it’s extra points they want a player could choose to trade at the river or build more huts for their village. 

 

The winner of the game is the person who scores the most amount of points and this is achieved in a number of different ways based on the decisions that are made above. So a player could score 14 points by building a hut, but to build that hut he would need to pay 1 clay and 2 stone that the player would have collected from previous turns.

A player has to decide how many of their Stone Age Meeples they commit to the activities of collecting resources as this impacts on how much they can collect.  1 meeple collecting wood, would roll one dice and divided the result by three.  2 meeples would allow 2 dice to be rolled and the result of the roll is then added together and then the total is divided by three, thus increasing the amount of wood that could be collected.  By comparison collecting gold requires the dice roll result to be divided by six. 

Certain choices on the board are only available to a limited number of meeples and so on some turns players will not be able to choose the action that they really want and will have to wait for a later turn.

 

At the end of the game turn each player must feed the members of their village using the food that they had gathered. 

The game ends when one of the hut stacks is reduced to zero or the last trading card from the river is taken and can’t be replaced by another.  The scores are then worked out by looking at the current position on the score track of the player and then working out any bonus scores from the trading that has been done at the river. 

My Score:

Game Play:  3/4
Components: 2/2
Replayability: 2/2
Theme:  1/2

Total: 8/10

My Comments:

Stone Age is a really fun game for all the family to enjoy.  For me the artwork is amazing and reminds me of a game a played when I was younger (Forbidden Forrest) where the boards have some many details depicting Stone Age life.  I like this in a game, especially when it is other players turn; it gives you something to look at while you’re waiting for them to decide what they want to do for the turn. 

My favourite type of game is worker placement however I am very aware that for a number of people this style of game can be really frustrating.  For some people who set out a plan of exactly what they are going to do for a turn and then find they can’t do it because of players have chosen the actions that they wanted to do, it can become really challenging to rethink a plan.

In truth the scoring is hard to follow at times, there are a multitude of different was to make scores and it can sometimes become confusing on what is the best course of action to maximise your score. 

I gave it 8/10 as I think this game is really good and I enjoy it when I play it.  Is it the first game I go to if I’m going to play this type of game? No.  In my opinion there are better games (which I’ll review later).  The drop in two points comes from two main sticking points.  The first is the setting.  The Stone Age puts a lot of players off even though the artwork is really great.  The second is probably for me the biggest snag to the game.  The collection of resources requires a player to divide the totals on the dice that are rolled between 2,3,4,5 and 6.  If like me division is not a strong point it can become a sticking point to the game while you try and work it out.  I think it’s a shame because there are other ways that resource acquisition can be managed to make it fair for the players.   On the flip side, the more you play the better you’d get at dividing so maybe this should be an incentive to improve yourself.

Dice rolling in a game like this will be a big turn off for other players. In a bad rolling game, no matter how good the strategy or plan, you are unlikely to be able to make the progress that you’d like.

Overall I’d say if it’s your first delve into worker placement, I’d suggest you try other games like Agricola, the Village or Lords of Waterdeep that don’t rely on dice rolling.  However if you’re looking for something a bit different then this might be the game for you.  Actually, in a dice rolling game, if you’re playing someone who always wins because they can see a plan far better than you can, the added complication of luck, may still give you the edge over them.

This game has depth and replayability and can be played with older children as comfortably as adults.  It can be a little bit long to play but not unenjoyably.

Have fun!