Stone Age

Stone Age is a classic worker placement game and a great way to introduce people to the genre and indeed the hobby. Players are attempting to flourish as cave men and women, by collecting resources, plowing fields, making tools, and making babies.

Yes, you read that right. One of the things Stone Age is known for is the love shack which you can send two workers too, when you retrieve them you get an extra worker for the rest of the game, because that’s how love works! You really have to decide when to do this though as adding another worker means another mouth to feed. Which is why you’ll also want fields, that automatically feed a worker for you. This saves you having to savage for food too.

The worker placement element is stone age also works with a little bit of risk. For each worker placed you will roll a die. Each resource has a value attached to it dependant on rarity. Food is value 2 and gold value 6. You roll your dice and divide the total shown by the value and that’s how much of the resource you get. So if you send two workers for food and roll 3 and a 2 you will get two food. To help you earn the rarer resources you can also develop tools which can be added to dice results.

All these resources go towards point scoring huts and effect giving cards. Cards cost one to four resources and get cheaper if they aren’t picked in a round. They will give you an instant reward and some sort of potential end game scoring bonus. At the end of the game the player with the most points wins.

Stone Age feels like a classic. The rules are straightforward enough and the game plays out with decisions to be made but nothing too taxing. It’s a great worker placement game for game groups and for those who have tasted a Ticket to Ride and now want more!