Game Night 9/16/11

Attendees: the Mrs., Ana, Tim, and myself

Game: Stone Age

Tim's first play of the game, Ana's second. I was the pretty clear victor by mid-game, though the Mrs. wasn't feeling well and thus played to speed up game's end when she could. I focused early on agriculture, love shack, and end game population multipliers on the civ cards (5x10 bonus just on those).

Tim mentioned several times during explanation that the game seemed really complicated, but relaxed considerably after the first round when it became clear that the basic system was really pretty simple. As I mentioned recently with Memoir '44, even fairly basic designer games seem overwhelming at first simply because so much information needs to be imparted during rules explanation. Usually (this is the case for both of these games) all the mechanics fit nicely together and the game as a whole jells over the first few rounds of play.

Both Tim and Ana seemed to like Stone Age, and the Mrs. and I, who have played it quite a bit, still enjoy it considerably (well, I do anyway, I never know quite what she thinks of games, as she generally grows weary of them more quickly than myself!). Amongst strategy games that I own, Stone Age has been the most commonly played by our group, and I must admit I've been considering the possibility of having a Stone Age tournament staged over the course of a few days. There are certainly more than eight people who could participate which would lead to two qualifying games of four players with the top two finishers from each game advancing to a final match. I'd like to think I came up with this idea simply because so many people have been playing Stone Age, but I'm sure it will be suggested that it is due to my recent improvement at the game--I've actually been winning a fair amount after losing the vast majority of my early plays...