Stone Age

Stone Age is a game of worker placement and resource collection. Each player begins with 5 workers, and at the end of each turn must feed them or suffer a 10 victory point loss. Workers can be placed at five production sites (food, wood, clay, stone, and gold), and at three special locations: the love shack (two workers create a new one), the tool shed (gain a tool that can be used to increase a dieroll by one), or the fields (a permanent bump in default food production by one). Each of the special locations can only be used by one player a turn; each resource oollection can be used by up to 7 workers from a mix of players. The starting player places workers at one location, then play passes around the board, until all players have placed.

In addition, there are four civilization cards and five "huts" that can be built; each requires one worker placement. Huts cost resources as shown on the card to build, and provide immediate victory points; civ cards cost one to four resources, and provide victory points at the end of the game. Most civ cards have a multiplier (one or two) and either a worker, tool, or hut symbol; if, say, you have a one x tool and two x tool card at game end, you earn three victory points for each tool. Others bear an "invention" which has no game utility; instead, you earn as many victory points as inventions squared.

Resource collection is highly luck-dependent; you roll as many dice as workers at a site, and then divide by a number -- 2 for food, 3 for wood, 4 for clay, etc. You can then use tools to modify any roll; since fractions are rounded down, this may give you an extra resource.

This strikes me as a little odd; in so many ways, Stone Age is a typical Eurostyle game, with players interacting only by denying each other access to resources while attempting to get what they need to maximize victory points. Randomness is usually used in this style of game to break symmetry, or to prevent perfect information by bringing out different opportunities on different turns; it's uncommon for luck to directly influence individual success or failure, as it can in this game. Yet it's a serviceable system.

Another aspect I dislike, though I see why the designers found it necessary, is that as you buy civilization cards, you turn them over. If cards remained public, then play would slow on the last few turns, with players trying to calculate everyone's victory points and the optimal response -- an invitation to analysis paralysis, in other words.

While inverting the cards avoids this, rehiding formerly public information, so that only those who have good memories (or take notes, something the rules do not prohibit) can benefit -- is an aspect of many games I find jejune. It's not strategy, it's not skill, it's mere memorization.

These points aside, there is much to recommend the game; strategies are non-trivial, but not as mind-bendingly hard to follow, and the rules are simple enough for light gamers to grasp. Play time is a little long, but it's a good game for a party setting, and something you can probably induce people who play only on occasion to enjoy.