Lost Gods And Pyramids 

Yesterday morning I had to visit the local post office collection point to pay import duty of £12.88 on my Kickstarter copy of AGES. I don’t mind paying the duty. I do mind that £8 of that fee is the criminal “handling fee” paid to the post office. But I had the final production copy of the game I was excited to open it up. More on this later in the post.

So lunchtime yesterday Jonathan and I met up to play Kemet and Last Will.

We were going to start off with Kemet. Sadly as we were setting up it was discovered that there were no pyramids (and later it clicked no creature miniatures). This was the source of a little amusement to Jonathan. It’s fair to say I was not exactly happy with this poor quality control by the publisher. 

But I’ve logged a support call with the publisher. So another test of a publisher has started.

So with the bits of Kemet I did have packed away, we setup and learnt Brewsters Millions. Oops no we didn’t, it was called Last Will, which is really the board game of the movie without the license. 

Although not nearly as bad as say Guilds of London the iconography of the cards does take a little decoding. Having individual player reference sheets would help with this. Sadly none are included with the game. 

I liked that seeing as we were playing a two player game it made adjustments and gave us both an extra counter to block off one of the card/worker/action selection spaces. That blocking took place before selecting of a space you wanted took place. But that selecting of the space you wanted also acted as player order for the later phases. 

I felt the “worker placement” phase limited, and frustrating. You have a max of two “workers” you can place, although it could be just one depending on the previous phase and the card/worker/action space you selected. I would have liked a way to get an extra “worker” to use here. 

I did like the changing card market place, that adjusted the card types populating it depending on round. So no “I’ll get that card next turn”, you won’t because it goes and gets replaced by something new.

You are building a “engine” in front of you on your tableau for spending money. But it’s also possible to get bonus actions. So for example my “engine” was giving me two extra actions each turn. Your starting tableau has a fixed capacity to start with, but it can be expanded using one of the options available in the worker placement phase.

The instructions could be written more clearly. But isn’t that a common complaint about games? We found bits confusing or just not clear.

I enjoyed Last Will. It was fun. I’d definitely play again if it was bought to the table. And that’s despite Jonathan winning!

Our second game was AGES. Now I know Jonathan doesn’t like deck builders! In fact it’s one of his least liked mechanics, sitting just above his least liked of roll and move. 

But still Jonathan played AGES.

I really do like the final production of AGES. The cards look stunning and they are good quality. The box is beautiful, and enough space to store all the cards sleeved. A little thing, but there are two foam blocks to keep the cards in place inside the box. I like that, attention to detail. The rule book is a big improvement over the original one. Overall this is a very good, no that’s wrong it’s a high quality produced game. 

There wasn’t much take that going on in our game. Maybe that’s due to the cards that came out. I think I was the only one playing locations and using their abilities. But that’s just the luck of the draw and trade row!

Jonathan struggled with the text size on the cards at times. But we are old, and eye sight at times can let us down. On a serious note though, although an issue for Jonathan it’s not unique to AGES. Imperial Settlers, War of the Ring to name one or two others that have the same issue. 

The elite phase of the game is one of my favourite mechanics of the game. I ended up buying one elite character just to stop its elite phase ability. It had hurt me that turn costing me points, because I had no starter cards left to get rid of, and had only good cards in my hand.

It was interesting watching Jonathan playing. He was scrapping a lot less than me, and buying more of the 2 gold value cards. So his deck was way more “bloated” than my lean and mean deck. That may in part due to Jonathan having less opportunities to scrap. He was aware of the value of getting rid of the starting cards. 

I have to admit I thought Jonathan was going to win with lots of little points. But in the end my convincing victory would have been a lot closer, if not a loss due to a misplay by Jonathan. If Jonathan had managed to buy the elite character I bought triggering the end game, that would have stopped me buying it, and would have ended the game. Plus those points I lost because of that elite phase would have come back and haunted me and cost me the win. 

Jonathan liked the Splendor like aspect of collecting the icons and having them out in front of you, and their dual use to trigger abilities and reduce the cost of elite characters.

As I said Jonathan doesn’t like deckbuilders. He’s also not a fan of sci-fi, and fantasy themes. Which just about covers most deckbuilders. So having one that uses a historical theme means at least the theme was more likely to appeal to Jonathan. 

So when Jonathan said he didn’t dislike the game that’s a big deal. Especially when you consider how he feels about the mechanic.

Me? I really like the game. I love the deckbuilder mechanic. I love looking for those combos, and pulling them off. 

It’s easy to screw up a deckbuilder, just look at the World of Tanks deckbuilder. It’s disappointing that folks can easily get hold of that travesty of a deckbuilder, whilst AGES that really deserves a wider audience isn’t as easily available or known about. 

I really do hope a bigger publisher having seen the final version picks this up, and gives it the marketing love it deserves.

Oh and I love the playmat. 

So despite the shock of the missing bits from Kemet, I had a great afternoon playing games with Jonathan. 

5 thoughts on “Lost Gods And Pyramids 

  1. I’m noticing a pattern with worker placement with you – you don’t seem to like worker placement games that limit your options (I.e. not being able to increase your worker pool) even though the limiting aspect is how the game is designed. If you could get more workers, wouldn’t that break the design? Last Will is designed to give to that tough limited choice. I think you mentioned this regarding Caverna or Agricola to some degree, even though by design those game s are meant to work like that. I’m not saying you didn’t like the actual game, just the idea that you are purposely limited in your options each turn. However, to overcome that issue a little, I have picked up the Messenger promo for Last Will that gives you an extra worker placement if you can grab the card with your limited workers :) I quite like the limited placement options that force you to make tough decisions.

    AGES, as far as deck-building goes (which isn’t very far in my opinion) was an interesting game. It reminded me of Dominion and Splendor rolled into one. I liked the artwork on the cards and the historical flavour and it passed the test of not getting facts wrong when I checked out the ‘Thomas Eddison’ card. Suffice to say that I am very pleased that it did not say Eddison invented the lightbulb. Yes, the text was a little small for me, but that is inherent of the textual nature of the cards and it is my only ‘complaint’ (other that the main one, which is that it’s a deck-builder) which is quite a minor one at that. I enjoyed the game, but I still do not like the ‘rinse and repeat’ nature of deck-builders, but at least the theme is right for this one. Amazing and beautiful production quality.

    1. I disagree on the extra worker front, Smurgh, Manhattan Project, Viticulture, to name a few allow you to gain extra workers.

      1. You haven’t correctly read my reply. You’re actually not disagreeing with me at all; instead you’re agreeing with me.

  2. No. I said, if you read closely, that you don’t seem to like being limited by not being able to get workers, not that you disliked the game. In fact, I mentioned specifically that I wasn’t saying that you didn’t like the game, just being limited by so few workers.

    This was an observation because of a comment you made to me after you had played the game, and one you’ve made about other games, such as Caverna, that you expanded upon in this blog post where you “felt the “worker placement” phase limited, and frustrating. You have a max of two “workers” you can place, although it could be just one depending on the previous phase and the card/worker/action space you selected. I would have liked a way to get an extra “worker” to use here.” That suggests you don’t like being limited by lack of workers to place in worker-placement games, even if they’re designed that way. However, at no point did I say that you didn’t actually like the game!

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