Virre Linwendil Annergård
Sweden
Stockholm
Forza Bajen!
... and still sober
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I come over this game as an surprise during Essen, I generally am not a fan of Worker placement games (I detest Caylus for an example), but testing it out during the fair I was drawn into it and hooked so it was bought and brought home. It seen a lot of play with different type of gamegroups after this.
Components
The game is filled with euro-style components. A lot of wooden cubes and discs, but here is also a weakness in the game. Some of the cubes are not different enough in coloring (Wood and white is very close in color), as is the Black bonus action discs and the purple player discs. The game also contains a good amount of nice cards and a nice beautiful gameboard with printing on both sides (however only one can be used for games). The fact that big cubes and Cogs are counted as 3 also comes as illogical to many people I play with as people somehow thing big 5 (and bigger 10, but there is only one bigger size than small so this is unnecessary)
Rules
The rulebook have a few weaknesses, as for the first part the setup explanation is rather hard to follow as it says what type of cube to give each player and not what color. There is a illustration describing it, but it is easy to miss. There also been some other trouble with interepting the rules, but they should be addressed by the FAQ. The game also feels much more complex than it is when describing it to people.
Gameplay
The basics of play is simple, place your 2 or 3 action tokens (depending on player total) and then do actions, interrupting with an bonus action after your standard action. The total number of bonus action varies between player in a way which seems illogical but are for balance reasons as I understand it. The object of the actions is to earn development cogs to use to make innovations, gain money to buy patents and to get resources to buy factories. All of these can make you victory points, and bonus points in the end. This makes this for a game with a lot of strategy options and different ways to win. The points you gain during gameplay also give you cubes if you land right on the scoretrack, which leads to when to score having a strategic element.
Conclusion
Era of Innovations is a good game overall, it's playable with most kind of gamers, from the "I just got into games other than monopoly and trivial pursuit" to the hardcore "I play games 4 times a week" group. I have had one bad experience with somebody that only played Ticket to Ride before though, but overall open for all. I would however not recommend it to be played with 4 players as it feels extremely unbalanced and extra AP-prone in that situation. (This might have todo with the players of my 4 player session, they are hard to come bye in my gamegroups so I only give it one go). It does offers some variation from other worker placement games and is a nice new alternative on the market. In my eyes it's much better than games such as Caylus, probably because I find it more clear when and how you are getting blocked (it will happen). If you enjoy backstabbing and being backstabbed games with a bit of possibilities for answers this is a game for you.
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Rafaël Theunis
Belgium
Antwerpen
Antwerpen
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I plyed this last night with 4 people and the game flowed remarkably well... it took us 90 minutes to play, and this was our first play! since everybody has only two actions each turn it all flows very fast. I really didn't feel there was a lot of backstabbing, as you would suggest. it's worker placement, so first come, first serve, but apart form that... A nice game, that's for sure :)
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J M Duran
United States
El Paso
Texas
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I recently played this at BGG.Con
I agree that the components were fantastic, I was very impressed with the box alone. Natural wood and white were hard to distinguish. I am a Euroist at heart. I love Caylus, Stone Age, Keythedral etc exchanging cubes for other cubes and resources or cards.
While this game was pretty, the theme was there, but this is the first game that I felt that I agreed with that horrible term "Cube Pusher"
Like many at the game table said, I would play this if asked, but I would not buy it or offer it for play.
As a hard core parakeet, I loved this game. Like Tigris and Euphrates, I'll avoid it if at all possible.
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Virre Linwendil Annergård
Sweden
Stockholm
Forza Bajen!
... and still sober
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regulus wrote: I plyed this last night with 4 people and the game flowed remarkably well... it took us 90 minutes to play, and this was our first play! since everybody has only two actions each turn it all flows very fast. I really didn't feel there was a lot of backstabbing, as you would suggest. it's worker placement, so first come, first serve, but apart form that... A nice game, that's for sure 
I think you had another kind of group than I played it with on four, as for the backstabbing to take place, play with 5 or 3, it's much more tight.
jmduran wrote:
I love Caylus, Stone Age, Keythedral etc exchanging cubes for other cubes and resources or cards.
But as I pointed out this game is nothing like Caylus (or the others I guess, I haven't played them, people say they are like Caylus). For a start there is perfectly viable strategies that do not focus on gathering cubes (You don't earn many points on factories, except the 5 bonus points at the end.) Although I guess you would need about 2 or 3 factories to have an economic and cog wheel motor.
But the basic point is, you tried to play a game as something it isn't.
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J M Duran
United States
El Paso
Texas
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virre wrote: But the basic point is, you tried to play a game as something it isn't.
I mentioned eurogames that I liked, to clearly state that I went into this game with and open mind and wanting to give it a chance. The bits lured me in, the game play was ok. "cube pusher" it was. Cogs, money, steel wood, tools, technology, represented by cubes, cylinders, and chits to exchange for cards representing factories or inventions, placing my colored cylinders and disks claiming area control and worker placement.
Yeah I guess you're right, I was playing something it wasn't.
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