Stone Age

Customer Reviews

Guy with a Girlfriend: Stone Age Review Review by Stephen

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Stone Age was one of the first games I bought when I dove into this hobby. It was just after successfully showing off Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride to some friends and family that I went into a game buying frenzy. Stone Age ended up in my first order of six games after some rushed online research of "good" games to get. Oddly, it didn't hit my gaming table for about a month due to disinterest from anyone I showed this to. Finally I wore down people's resistance and eventually got to play.

First Impression:

The main thing that emanated from the game's box was the lavish quality of all the components. Everything was just superb and simply asked to be played. From each of the 5 game boards to the wooden resource pieces to all the thick cardboard tokens, everything was top notch. Learning the game cold was a different story. I'd say that it took about 1 hour for me to get a good grip on how to play. I wasn't 100% on everything but felt I had enough information to play with others.

One of my big question marks was scoring. There seemed to be alot of ways to get points but it wasn't clear on how you'd decide what to go for. I played my first game just hoping everything would make sense.

The Game:

Stone Age is about using your tribe of 5 villagers to gather building resources, gather food, collect bonuses, and build huts. This is a worker placement game that has you placing your villagers on different spots on the board so that only you can get their benefits that turn. These spots include a field to increase food production, a building hut to acquire hammers (dice modifiers), four places to buy huts, four places to buy cards, various spots to roll for resources, and a "special" hut where two villagers enter and three come out.

After everyone has placed their villagers each player carries out the various actions for each spot that they reserved, taking back their villagers as they do each task. Finally, everyone has to pay food and/or resources to feed their tribe. Failing to do so results in a loss of points. The game continues in this fashion until either a stack of huts has been bought out or if there aren't enough cards to fill the four card spaces at the beginning of a round. Thus, the length of the game is affected by how much the players focus on emptying these.

The GF Factor:

Although this game is recommended with a full compliment of four people I got to play my first few games with just my girlfriend, Sarah. I was able to explain the gist of the game fairly quickly and we were up and running in five minutes. She, as I, was confused about how to select the bonus point cards and how they'd affect the end game. I suggested that we just play it out and see what happens at the end.

By mid-game we both were enjoying the experience. Sarah quite liked the aspect of collecting the little wooden resources and later using them to buy stuff. She's a collector a heart and this game is all about collecting. When we got to the end of the game we tallied up all of our points. We were surprised at how important some of the scoring was at game's end but just chalked it up to an experience thing. We played two more times that night, probably at about 45 minutes a game and thoroughly enjoyed it.

With Others:

We later got to present this to another couple. Again, explaining the concept of the game was pretty quick but the issue of scoring caused some confusion. Armed with our knowledge of 7+ games together, Sarah and I tried explaining the basics of the scoring but it still wasn't getting through. We finally decided to just play it. One game down and everyone had enjoyed it. Scoring was a lot clearer and we were able to play two more times. The average time for four players was about 1.5 hours.

Conclusion:

Stone Age is a magnificent game. It's something that I've enjoyed every time I've played it. Whether it's with two people or four, I always look forward to trying different strategies or tweaking an old one. It's relatively easy to explain to new players however it seems to require at least one full play through for people to be able to be competitive. I played this game before I really knew what a "worker placement" game was but I now recognize it as one of the better and more accessible ones I've played. If I were to choose any worker placement game to show to non-gamers then this would be it. (Posted on 5/5/10)

A more accessable and entertaining "hardcore" game Review by Jasmine

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Stone Age takes a lot of the mechanisms that are prevalent in more "hardcore" games like Agricola and Le Havre and simplifies it so that more people can enjoy it, without losing its essence.

The game features beautiful artwork and fantastic components for each of the resources and the meeples. The rules are relatively easy to learn and most people should be able to pick up on the flow of the game within a few rounds.

New players will almost always be at a disadvantage, however, as they will not fully comprehend the scoring system and will not have an idea as to what cards, utilities, or resources to go for. I recommend sharing strategies as you play with new players so that they will not feel like they are just randomly placing down workers, which will make the game more fun for them.

Stone Age plays relatively quickly and some good math skills are needed for score keeping. There isn't much in terms of interactivity but at the same time, there is little conflict involved other than taking something that another player wanted. Overall, it is a good friendly casual game that is still appealing to serious gamers due to its core mechanics. (Posted on 11/6/09)

An excellent foray into the genre Review by G

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Stone Age provides an excellent gateway into the resource management/worker placement genre of board games. It's not as complex as Agricola, but still has enough things going on to make moderate and serious gamers think. The strategies are diverse and the replay value is high.

The game components are nothing short of amazing. The quality of the pieces, cards and resources is exceptional. The board design is excellent. It takes about 15-20 minutes to teach the game, and which point playing provides the best understanding. We bought this game as a present for my in-laws and they had no problem picking it up quickly.

The only factor that I don't like about the game is the dice. While I recognise that a random element is needed, getting poor dice rolls can really have a negative impact on your experience. Moreover, if you don't get the rolls, no amount of strategy is going to save you. That said, the dice aren't a deal breaker, and this game should really be a stalwart in most collections. (Posted on 11/4/09)

Excellent Entry into Resource Managment Games Review by David

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Stone Age is a great game for people who are interested in starting to play slightly more complex, slightly more advanced board games. It has an excellent mix of simplicity with the fun of balancing your options.

This was my and my girlfriend's first foray into resource games, and we played with a few friends who were more familiar. Stone Age was relatively easy to learn - took about fifteen minutes to explain the basic rules - and even easier to play. AS is my habit with new games, I decided early on a strategy I thought might work, and stuck with it, and surprisingly enough, I won!

The point scoring mechanism adds to the excitement of the game, because with the cards face down in each player's hand, it is very unlikely that anyone has a good idea of who is going to win until the cards are flipped at the end of the game. The variety of ways to gain resources and people is also highly enjoyable, and led to a very relaxed playing atmosphere.

I would definitely recommend this as a great game to get people excited about the idea of playing progressively more complicated games. (Posted on 10/7/09)

Great game for all levels of gamers and something that will please a mixed group of gamers Review by Austen

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Rather than explaining the in's and out's of the rules I am going to focus on what I liked about the game and why I think it is worthy of being in your collection.

I picked up this game on the weekend at VCON along with 4 other games. When we got back this was the one I was most eager to try as it has been on my radar for a long time. The first thing that strikes you is the quality of the pieces in the game, well except for the one die we had that was missing the 3. I love games with nice thick cardboard stock. The components of this game really make the price worthy as there are a lot of components to this game and they are all of high quality.

As for the game....I really liked the game play and the way the turns work. We played a 3 player game and the other two players were my wife and a friend. I had watched a few reviews on the game so I got the basic gist of the game, but as I was explaining the rules I could see both my wife and friend glazing over and feeling a little overwhelmed by all the rules. I will have to admit at first glance the rules and scoring seem daunting as there is a lot to take in. After a turn or two both my wife and friend had gotten it all figured out and by the end were both wanting to play again. Once the game was over they both were raving about the game and were eager to play it again.

This is one of those games where it is almost easier to explain the rules as you go as it makes more sense. In the first few rounds your worker placement is fairly straightforward so making suggestions as to where the best place to go can really help speed up the learning curve. Farms and tools prove to be very important as they will help you advance faster in the later rounds.

Probably the most confusing part for first timers will be the scoring. You score during the game as well as after the game. You can be "losing" and then storm ahead of everyone in the final count. After the final scoring was done both my wife and friend had ah ha moments were everything made sense and they started to formulate strategy for the next game. There are a lot of multipliers in the game and you will soon find out that the civilization cards play a huge role in winning or losing the game.

This is a light to medium strategy game and even though there are dice involved the luck factor is fairly limited and doesn't detract from the game on a whole. I actually found the dice rolling component of the game made this game for me as it combined luck with strategy. The most important factor for me was that both my wife and our friend enjoyed the game. Finding light to medium strategy/worker placement games that you can play with your girlfriend or wife that you can enjoy too can be far and few between.

All in all this was one of the better purchases I have made recently and can't wait to play it again. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is a hard core gamers to someone looking to get into gaming. (Posted on 10/6/09)

More enjoyable than Agricola Review by Murray

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Like Agricola, Stone Age is a worker placement game. You take turns placing your workers and fight with the other players for the last space of certain areas/activities. The difference is that Stone Age offers more options right from the get go and the game progresses more fluidly towards the end with less stress.

Perhaps I'm a terrible Agricola player, but the limited number of rounds and the constant need to feed your family has barred me from really enjoying the game. In Stone Age, there are many more ways to progress through the game and almost every strategy is valid. Additionally, the game is beautiful, the artwork on the game board is beyond gorgeous and the wooden pieces are awesome, being shaped like gold bars, bricks, and people.

Around the edge of the board is a score tracker and the point of the game is to earn the most points. The primary way of accomplishing this is to gather material to build huts. The materials required to build a hut and its point worth varies.

Players can send their workers to different areas to gather the materials. Each area can only hold seven workers, meaning players can block each other off. The number of material gathered by the workers is determined by dice roll. The player rolls a die for each worker at an area and divide the total by that area's number. For example, lumber's number is 3, so a roll of 13 will earn 4 wood and the remainder is wasted. Players can opt to get tools that can help them increase their roll by a few more numbers.

The available huts are stacked into several piles and when any one of the piles run out, the game is over. The other way the game ends is if all the bonus cards have been dealt. Throughout the game, players can buy the cards for various amounts of resources to gain an immediate effect, such as earning points or other material, and to get a bonus at the end of the game. Some bonuses are additive, such as a tool multiplier that gives you a bonus based on the number of tools you have. These cards can make a big impact at the end of the game as well.

Overall, Stone Age is great fun and plays relatively quickly. It is easy to learn and very enjoyable. The only thing that might deter core players is the luck involved with the dice rolls, but there are variants available online to reduce or remove that luck. Definitely a great light and friendly game that is good for almost any group. Highly recommended. (Posted on 9/15/09)

Stone Age is definitely a great light to medium strategy game - it could potentially be introduced to advanced beginners and will scratch the vast majority of strategy player’s itches. While not as ‘heavy’ as other more intense resource management game Review by TR

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Stone Age is an award nominated resource management game set in pre-historic times. Stone Age focuses on the use of worker placement to develop a player’s resource base and the addition of dice to increase unpredictability in the game. An elegant board game, Stone Age is certainly one of the best light to medium strategy games recently released.

Appearance: Stone Age comes in a large box that might be slightly over-packaged but not significantly so. In the box is the main game board, a series of building tiles and civilisation cards, tokens for players and resources and lastly, dice and the dice cup. Artwork on all tiles and cards conjure the same ‘pre-historic’ feel of the game, adding to the overall theme while the most important addition to this is the addition of the leather (pleather?) dice cup. It definitely adds to the feel and is the best part of the game’s presentation. Oh, and they are good enough to add a few small plastic bags to the game - a nice touch and one that Fantasy Flight should keep in mind. Also available is an insert that works well, though it seems geared for the inevitable expansion.

Rules / Ease of Learning: The rule book for Stone Age is well laid-out with the flow of rules seemingly logical and well thought out. It provides a great introduction and the rules themselves are easy enough to learn. The problems arise when the game is actually played - minor rule clarifications (how do you determine first player? How does the first player change from turn to turn?) are buried in text. The simple addition of bolds to the text would have helped answer these questions. Additionally, the fact that the civilisaton cards were placed in a secondary pull-out sheet was annoying for the group - we had to locate the sheet to go over those rules when it could have been as simply dealt with in the main rule book. These are all however quite minor complaints, with the overall rules and explanation quite well set-out.

Each round in Stone Age goes through three phases - worker placement, resolution of workers and thirdly feeding of your tribe. During worker placement, players take turns choosing which location on the board to allocate their initial 5 workers to. They may only choose to allocate workers to one location per turn - though the number of workers that may be allocated is variable (though most locations have a minimum/maximum number of workers). Once a player has allocated the workers, the turn passes to the player on his left and the phase continues till all players are done.

The major sections on the board can be divided into four parts - the village, resource gathering locatinos, civilisation cards and building tiles. The village consists of farms that provide permanent increases in food production, huts that provide an increase to your worker population (minimum allocation of 2 workers to create 1 additional worker who is sent into play the very next round, the slave drivers) and the tool maker who increases the number of tools owned by players. Resources must also be gathered to pay for civilisation, building and to feed your people from the hunt, the forest, the plains, the mountains and the river. Lastly, civilisaotin cards provide a direct bonus to players when acquired and in addition, add points during the final scoring. Building tiles however provide large increases in victory points during the game and can also, with the right civilisation cards, provide a large multiplier at end game.

In phase two, all workers are resolved by their own player in one round. As the order of resolution is up to the main player, it is possible to attempt to acquire building or civilisation cards tha at player may not have resources for at the present moment by resolving resource gathering workers first. The amount of resources gained is dependent upon dice rolls with a variable divisor - 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 for food, wood, clay, stone and gold respectively. Players may roll 1 die per worker allocated to the location on the board, with the final numbers adjustable by tools.

Lastly, during phase three players must feed their population. Food production occurs from farms in the village in the beginning, after which players must either feed their villagers or trade resources on a 1 food/resource per worker basis. At this point, the round ends and the first player moves to the left.

Stone Age has a variable end game with play ending either because all building tiles in a stack have been purchased or insufficient resource cards are available to fill the 4 spaces.

Gameplay: Stone Age plays extremely well, with each turn moving quickly and each round relatively fast. With variable ending conditions, it is possible to ‘slow’ a game down if necessary for players by increasing the number of rounds, but this is unlikely to occur on a significant basis.

As a light - medium strategy game, the number of potential routes to victory begin to appear very quickly with each particular space on the board particularly important. In addition, with only a limited number of spaces for each location (except the hunt) and players only able to allocate workers to one location at a time, it is often likely that players will have their ‘favoured’ option taken from them.

The village is particularly important for players and is often the first spots to be taken. The addition of workers to a players pool is particularly useful, with the concurrent increases in permanent food production from farms a close second in may games. In addition, through the use tools, players with bad luck can often adjust their rolls to provide them more resources - and can be used to play to certain worker allocation strategies for food production. A single worker with a large number of tools at his disposal could potentially feed his entire tribe, no matter the roll.

Both building tiles and civilisation cards call to different play styles - one providing an immediate increase in victory points, the other a longer-term but chancier increase in the final score. However, with only one worker required to each civilisation card or building tile, ‘blocking’ tactics are easy to use, forcing most players into a more balanced (or at least dual pronged) strategy.

Overall, Stone Age plays extremely well with numerous potential strategies available. With the randomised distribution of tiles and civilisation cards as well as the use of dice for resource production, each game is going to be different requiring initial plans to be changed. This provides for a refreshing and tense game, especially with the ‘unknown’ number of victory points available to a player through civilisation cards during final scoring.

Conclusion: Stone Age is definitely a great light to medium strategy game - it could potentially be introduced to advanced beginners and will scratch the vast majority of strategy player’s itches. While not as ‘heavy’ as other more intense resource management games like Princes of Florence or Puerto Rico, Stone Age’s elegant mechanics and great theme will mean it hit’s the table quite often. A definite ‘buy’ strategy game. (Posted on 12/8/08)