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Era of Inventions

Invent, patent, produce, earn

Let’s take a journey back to the era of industrial revolution. The social changes to affluence and longer life spans for a broader selection of the populations were induced by economical changes under the banner of technical developments and improvements. Many inventions from those times, which then changed the way of life drastically, are in integral part of life today without which we could not do any more. 1876 Graham Bell patented the telephone and developed it to a ready-to-market stage, 1878 Karl Benz developed a combustion engine and in 1885 built the first car using petrol. Among those inventors there are also famous Austrians, for instance Josef Madersperger, who in 1839 invented the chain-stitch sewing machine. Era of Inventions take us back to those challenging times which were rife with ongoing changes.

3-5 players take on the role of inventors who strive to actually make inventions and develop them further, to take out patents for them and produce their inventions to achieve as big an influence as possible on the events of those times. All this happens on a game board where you can find – as is common in a worker placement game – different areas with different possibilities for actions.

For this purpose each player owns – depending on the number of players – up to three actions discs of his color, which he uses to mark his actions for a round on the board. In addition to the action discs each player receives – again in correlation to the number of players – a certain number of black bonus action discs for additional singular actions. Furthermore, each player receives 15 invention markers of his colors which he uses to mark the inventions he has made, 1 patent marker for the patent track on the game board and the usual mover for the track at the border of the board to mark the influence points he has collected, which decide win or lose in the game.

Well, these components alone are not sufficient for making inventions, For this we need additional components:

· At the beginning of an invention there is always an idea – regardless whether it stems from creativity, necessity or laziness – and in the game you collect such ideas in the shape of blue, octagonal development markers which “entitle” you to make one or more inventions. At the start of the game each player owns one such development marker.
Admittedly, with one idea alone an inventor is rather restricted in his possibilities – great inventions need more than one idea.

· Second on the list of necessities, not surprisingly, is money. We do not want to be stuck in the stage of an idea but want to do something about it or with it. To be able to do so each player starts the game with 2 pieces of money.

· Money in the game can be used to acquire materials, tools and Know How which all are necessary for the implementation of the idea: Grey metal cubes represent the most important material for inventions featured in the game, purple technique cubes which represent the Know How for processing the materials, and white tool cubes for directly processing the materials. Each player starts the game with one cube each.

· Unfortunately, normally, money resources are limited – why should this be different in this game? So, as an inventor, you take a shortcut and build yourself a factory where you can produce the necessities for your inventions yourself and need not buy them for money. To build a factory you need black coal cubes and beige wood cubes. Then you are the proud owner of a factory, that is, a factory card; building costs for the factory and the goods the factory produces are listed on the factory card.

Each player starts the game with three cubes of coal and one cube for wood and a factory card which produces one cube of wood.

The development on an invention is but only the start of „Product Life Cycles“. Admittedly, an inventor wants to produce and market his invention to acquire money and/or influence with the production of his inventions. In this game he can do so not only with his own invention but also with those of his fellow players.

You can only produce such inventions that are already active in the game in the shape of invention cards. For each of the 9 possible inventions there are 3 inventions cards. The cards name the invention and list the necessary components - cubes and money - to produce them as well as the revenues you can acquire from the production – money or influence. As at the start of the game none of the 9 inventions has been made, there are 12 starter invention cards which you can use to acquire a development marker.

As a finish-off of the list of game components I need to mention a black marker for the game rounds and a black piece for marking the starting players. Then there are the cubes of the different colors and the development markers, big and small, that is, of values 3 or 1.

Each game component, be it money, cubes or factories, that a player acquires during the game, is placed openly in front of players. There are no secrets from other players or surprises from them.

The game preparations on the board comprise filling the areas intended for the components: The respective cubes are placed on ships and storehouses – only those cubes placed there are available in the current round; 7 starter action cards – only those can be produced in this round – and finally 5 factory cards – they determine the factories that can be built in this round. The cards on offer change from round to round following a scheme given in the rules.

Now the time has come to transform your ideas into inventions! The course of the game is really very simple: The game is played in rounds, always starting with the starting player and then in clockwise direction. Then the game round marker is advanced one step and the starting player marker is handed to next player to the left. Each round comprises 2 phases. In the first phase you place action discs onto the board, and in the second phase you implement the actions chosen by placing the discs.

The number of rounds that are played, 8-10, depends on the number of players.

As already mentioned, the game board comprises several (6) areas, which are assigned to one or more distinctive possibilities for actions. At the start of a round in each region 2 spaces are available for the deposition of an action disc. As you can only place one action disc inch position, one area can only be used by 2 players in each round – note that you cannot occupy both spaces in a region with one of your action disc! There is not must for implementing an action when a disc has been placed for an action – you can waive the action.

So, in phase 1 each player, beginning with the starting player, in clockwise order places one of his action discs on a free space on the board, continuing in this way until all 3 (in a game of 3 players) or 2 discs have been placed. Contrary to the action discs the bonus action discs are not placed in Phase 1 – the precise time when you can or must use them is unfortunately not stated in the rules. According to the designer’s FAQ they are only used in Phase 2. You implement one of your regular actions and can then use one of your bonus actions discs to implement any additional action for a bonus action. This you can do for each action disc.

Thus, we have reached Phase 2 when the chosen actions are implemented, again beginning with the starting player, who implements one action. Then all other players in turn do the same until all actions have been implemented. When this is the case, the round ends. If you receive influence points while implementing an action you immediately mark them on the influence track. It must be noted that at some positions on the track a bonus can be acquired, money or cubes, which you only receive then your marker stops in that position. The bonus can be activated/used immediately,

BY using the available action you can implement chains of actions which in the end result in the acquisition of influence points:

· Buy material (cubes) from ships and storehouses and use them to produce inventions that are already made. This enables you to collect money, influence or development markers. The money can be used to buy material for additional production, the development markers are used for your own inventions.

· Or you buy material to set up your own factories which you can use for production to acquire additional material or money or influence and thus produce inventions.

· Your own inventions give you influence, too. Furthermore, when made your invention can be produced and you acquire additional influence points when other players produce your invention. You should not neglect the possibility to take out patents for your inventions, because this ensures you even more influence points.

· And finally you should keep in mind that majorities in certain spheres, that is, in patents, factories or inventions, score additional influence at the end of the game.

· To get rid of an eventual surplus or to replenish your own stock it is recommended that sometimes you visit the exchange market. There you can nearly swap everything, cubes, money, influence or development markers, incurring more or less heavy markdowns.

A deciding influence on the success of such chains of action is the choice of the right time to try them, for the placement of the action disc as well as for the implementation of the action. The drawbacks of this fact can be partly mitigated by using the bonus actions discs.

Let’s take a look at the various actions:

Ships and storehouses: At the start of the game the only way to enhance your stock of cubes is to spend your money at the ships or storehouses. You can spend up to three coins, for a coin you receive all cubes on a ship or in a storehouse. The first player has the choice of all available locations, the others in turn must make their choice from the remains. There are no further restrictions for buying stated in the rules, so if you want you can buy all available cubes of a kind, all wood or all coal, in each of the 2 storehouses. The bonus action discs only give you 1 coin for that action. At the end of the round ships and storehouses are filled again; empty ones with the number of cubes as stated on the board, full ones receive one more cube!

Building factories: Your own factories are important during the course of the game. For one, they represent one of two ways to acquire development markers, besides the starting development cards. But factories are only useful if you can use them for production. It is allowed to buy up to 3 of 5 available factories provided you own the corresponding amount of coal and wood. The factory cards you lay out openly. When the card depicts an influence point, you receive this once when building the factory. The bonus action discs allow you to build one factory. At the of the round up to 3 factories are discarded and the number of cards replenished to 5.

Production in factories: All your own factories produce the cubes shown on the respective cards. You take the cubes and place them into your personal stock. A bonus action disc enables you to let one factory produce.

Exchange market: At the exchange market you can exchange money, cubes and development markers for money, cubes or development markers or for influence points or bonus action discs. The available choices are depicted on the board and arranged in groups. A limit is operative at the market: You can swap a total of five times and up to a maximum of three exchanges in one group. As an alternative you can waive the right to exchange and take one development marker for free. The bonus action disc gives you one exchange-

Make inventions / take out patents: Two actions are available here. If you decide on making an invention, you can do so with one of the nine inventions not yet made or further develop an invention already made. The number of development markers that are necessary for an invention is stated with the invention. Within one action you may spend up to 7 development markers. For each invention you place one of your own development markers on this invention and immediately score the number of influence points; the 3 invention cards for this invention are shuffled into the draw pile of invention cards so that they can be produced in the next round. The other choice is to take out a patent. You can move your marker up to two steps on the patent track upon payment of the sum of money recorded there. For each step on the patent track you may protect one of your inventions against plagiarism by placing one additional development marker on the invention you want to protect. The bonus disc allows you to make one invention or to take out one patent.

Produce inventions: Out of 7 invention cards on display you can produce up to three, one time each. The first player has the full choice, the second one makes do with the rest. When a starting invention card is produced, it is taken out of the game afterwards, other cards are placed on a discard pile. At the end of the round up to 3 cards are discarded and the display is replenished to show 7 cards. If you produce an invention of another player this player receives influence for the invention or money for further development according to the markings on the board. Take care! One of the three cards for each invention is a plagiarism card. It is easier to produce than the official ones, using any combination of metal, tool and technique cubes and does not earn the owner of the invention neither influence nor money, unless he has taken out a patent for that invention. In this case he receives the full revenue. A bonus disc enables you to produce one invention.

When all rounds have been played, each player is allowed one complete action on the exchange market to the rules applicable there, that is, you can acquire up to 3 additional influence points there. Then, finally, influence points are awarded for majorities: 5 points for the majority in spent development markers, 5 points for the majorities in patents and 5 points for the biggest factory production. If you now are first on the influence track you did influence history most and are winner of the game.

‚Era of Inventions‘ is a typical Worker Placement game. The game challenges the tactical abilities of the players, as – due to the high interaction – very often the action that you would most need just now is already taken by other players and you therefore you continuously need to rearrange your plans. Especially a clever use of the 5 bonus discs is a real challenge for the players. The strategic component of the game must be rated negligible. The mechanism of how to handle the invention cards is very felicitous. One the one hand the game gets more diversified because cards of inventions only enter the game when an invention has been made and on the other hand one more tactical consideration comes into play: Is it at the moment better to produce a plagiarism card for your sole personal advantage or better a more valuable official card, which also benefits the owner of the invention? And in addition to that there is the scoring of majorities at the end of the game that forces a player to continuously pay attention to the actions of his fellow players.

The game is intended for 3-5 players. From our plays we find that the game works best when three are playing. In game with 4 and 5 players the interaction element is too dominant. Very often in such a game it is really difficult to find something useful to do with the second action disc which in the long run makes for a lot of frustration. On top that comes the fact, which is common in worker placement games, namely one action or another gaining or losing importance during the game.

A critical mention is due to the game components and the rules. It is nearly impossible to differentiate between black bonus actions disc and the purple player components and nearly as impossible to keep white and beige cubes apart. Good lighting is essential when playing this game. For the rules I need to say that the leave same questions unanswered and that I recommend to read the FAW pages on the net before starting to play.

All in all ‚Era of Inventions‘ is a well-working game that is fun due to the topic, but that does not differ much from the mass of other worker placement games. Especially experienced players will look in vain for new game mechanisms.

Bernhard Czermak

Spieler         : 3-5

Alter            : ages 12+

Dauer           : ca. 90 min

Autor           : Anthony Daamen

Grafik          : Hans Janssen

Titel             : ident

Preis            : ca. 40 Euro

Verlag          : Huch & friends 2010

www.huchandfriends.de

Genre                    : Worker Placement

Zielgruppe             : With friends

Sprache        : de en fr nl

Regeln         : de en fr nl

Text im Spiel : no

Kommentar:

Worker Placement

High interaction element

Good implementation of the topic

Components and rules could be better

Vergleichbar:

Diamonds Club, Caylus, Agricola

Meine Bewertung: 4

Bernhard Czermak:

Era of Inventions is a game with a proportion of tactic and interaction that ideally plays with 3 players. An interesting topic, nice setting and simple rules combine with well-tested and well-working mechanisms.

Zufall                            1

Taktik                  3

Strategie__                  1

Kreativität          

Wissen_

Gedächtnis         

Kommunikation  

Interaktion                   3

Geschicklichkeit 

Action