Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

Games

Boardgame(s) – Pillars of the Earth

Moving back to board games today, and to one of the favourite games of my eldest child is Pillars of the Earth from Mayfair Games. The game is based on Ken Follet’s novel of the same name (see Pillars of the Earth (Novel) and also the TV series) based around the building of Kingsbridge Cathedral.

The game takes a bit of set up, and you have to concentrate for the whole game. Basically you need to acquire resources and workmen which help build the cathedral and in doing that you earn victory points. Along the way you need to make sure you have enough gold, avoid being taxed to much, dabble in some intrigue, and keep up with the other players – it’s hard to catch up at the end. The game takes a fixed number of turns – each turn adds a part of the cathedral – and is relatively complicated if you’re not a regular board gamer. New players struggle for the first few games and even non-newbies take a while to remember how to play, but if you played regularly it’d become more familiar.

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Here’s the game we were plaining the other day – pretty much at the start of the game as there are no tokens on the board at the various “stations” or a cathedral being built yet. The cubes represent resources: metal (blue); white (sand); grey (stone); and brown (wood). You can also trade resources at the market in some situations.

If you like medieval game settings, and something to stretch the brain, this is a good choice for a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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[Written with Ecto]