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viktor_haagScheduling variances allowed a near-impromptu gathering at the redoubt to play the latest addition to the Treefrog collection, Age of Industry. Problematically, even though I thought I was doing quite well, I actually got smacked squarely in the face and ended up in last place by a fair stretch. This leads me to believe that I can't really give any kind of reasonable analysis of the game's mechanical aspects. But I can make some commentary on the game.
For physical components, Age of Industry is reasonably commensurate with the other games in the Treefrog line: the box cardboard feels perhaps a wee bit thinner, and the cards material also feels a wee bit thinner than top quality. On the other hand, the board is nicely produced, the cardboard counters are typically thick and clear. The player mats are clear and nicely printed (you may wish to laminate them); the rulebook is clearly written with the attractive layout common to the Treefrog releases.
I ordered my copy directly from the publisher, and so received wooden money pieces and wooden train pieces in addition to the "standard game" components. I'm very glad the was in addition to, and not in replacement of, as I found the wooden money reasonably nice (the plastic money tiddlywinks seem slightly smaller and slighter versions of the traditional "Warfrog" plastic money chips, from Age of Steam for example), but the wooden trains I found actually counterproductive. Some players used the trains and some used the cardboard track counters, and the counters (like the rail counters from Brass) show up very clearly on the board whereas the trains actually seem to fade a bit into the board. I'll almost certainly remove the wooden trains for the game and put them in general inventory.
Money is very fluid in this game, and as a result, this game is a prime candidate for using well produced physical tokens like poker chips. The plastic chips that come with the standard release of the game you may find annoying and not quite up to the handling requirements the game presents.
The player mats are on glossy, mid-weight cardstock: if you're hard on your games, or your guests are hard on your games, then you may want to laminate. Similarly, the cards are not high-quality linen playing cards: you may want to sleeve them. Game play is physically light on both these components, however: the player mats are used as reference sheets and counter assembly areas, and not meant to be held in the hand; the card deck is meant to be gone through only once, not constantly re-shuffled. Careful play groups can probably get by without further protection on these components.
The game ostensibly supports three to five players from the rulebook, but some existing reports suggest that two player games are quite possible, if you remove some of the cards from the deck first. The feel of the game is liable to be quite different across the player range because none of the shared resources are varied across the player range (cards, money, map board spots).
For game play (with four), the game seems to start a bit slow, race through the midgame, and then decelerate somewhat in the end game. Many of the game mechanisms are borrowed from Brass, and the general theme is borrowed from Brass, but I have the feeling that these games are more like close cousins than siblings. It's possible that if a mainline publisher like Hans Im Glück had handled this game, Brass would never have seen the light of day, as Age of Industry seems, in some way, like a smoothed out, more developed version, dropping out some of the more baroque elements of Brass.
On the other hand, some of those baroque qualities (like the loan/income band mechanics) also present interesting effects on gameplay, and these are lost in Age of Industry: gone is turn-over-turn income, the tricky loans mechanism, the two-phased game play (canals and rails), variable rewards for selling to distant markets, and outsized-victory rewards for later-tech developments. As I all too painfully discovered, using your Brass strategies as an approach to this game may lead to disaster. Brass seemed to reward the "gather and then spring" type of play where you played to reap reward in bunches at the expense of low or mid-range, incremental development: the outsized victory points for high-tech development meant that you could sacrifice early developments to put out the big ships and big mills. The successful strategies in the game we played seemed to concentrate on a smooth, even industrial development progression with lots of coal mine and iron work placements, and wasting tempo on development only in the end game.
Is the game fun? I think it is: for those who didn't like the corners and curli-cues in Brass, Age of Industry might be more palatable. For those who like those flourishes in Brass, Age of Industry may seem a bit blander. However, if you're a fan of Martin Wallace games, the two games seem sufficiently different to one another that it's worth getting both (I'm not sure the same can be said of Age of Steam and Steam, for example). Age of Industry's longevity may lie in how many additional expansion boards we see, with how many interesting additions and changes to the game's basic structure: this is, after all, where most of Age of Steam's legs come from. I trust that Treefrog will provide at least a few expansion maps all on their own, despite the fact that (apparently) Martin Wallace doesn't like producing expansions for games.
Is Age of Industry as compelling as Wallace's most compelling outings? Probably not. But it's a solid, dependable entry, or at least it feels like it is after this one playing. If you like business/economy games with some interesting indirect opportunities for player interaction, and reasonable playing times (90-120 minutes), then you might well like Age of Industry.
The more I play boardgames, the more I think, if you forced me to gut my collection as much as possible, it would end up looking like this:
• All the games I own by Francis Tresham
• All the games I own by Martin Wallace, that he published through Warfrog/Treefrog
• All the Splotter games I own
• A very small handful of others (Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride)
For physical components, Age of Industry is reasonably commensurate with the other games in the Treefrog line: the box cardboard feels perhaps a wee bit thinner, and the cards material also feels a wee bit thinner than top quality. On the other hand, the board is nicely produced, the cardboard counters are typically thick and clear. The player mats are clear and nicely printed (you may wish to laminate them); the rulebook is clearly written with the attractive layout common to the Treefrog releases.
I ordered my copy directly from the publisher, and so received wooden money pieces and wooden train pieces in addition to the "standard game" components. I'm very glad the was in addition to, and not in replacement of, as I found the wooden money reasonably nice (the plastic money tiddlywinks seem slightly smaller and slighter versions of the traditional "Warfrog" plastic money chips, from Age of Steam for example), but the wooden trains I found actually counterproductive. Some players used the trains and some used the cardboard track counters, and the counters (like the rail counters from Brass) show up very clearly on the board whereas the trains actually seem to fade a bit into the board. I'll almost certainly remove the wooden trains for the game and put them in general inventory.
Money is very fluid in this game, and as a result, this game is a prime candidate for using well produced physical tokens like poker chips. The plastic chips that come with the standard release of the game you may find annoying and not quite up to the handling requirements the game presents.
The player mats are on glossy, mid-weight cardstock: if you're hard on your games, or your guests are hard on your games, then you may want to laminate. Similarly, the cards are not high-quality linen playing cards: you may want to sleeve them. Game play is physically light on both these components, however: the player mats are used as reference sheets and counter assembly areas, and not meant to be held in the hand; the card deck is meant to be gone through only once, not constantly re-shuffled. Careful play groups can probably get by without further protection on these components.
The game ostensibly supports three to five players from the rulebook, but some existing reports suggest that two player games are quite possible, if you remove some of the cards from the deck first. The feel of the game is liable to be quite different across the player range because none of the shared resources are varied across the player range (cards, money, map board spots).
For game play (with four), the game seems to start a bit slow, race through the midgame, and then decelerate somewhat in the end game. Many of the game mechanisms are borrowed from Brass, and the general theme is borrowed from Brass, but I have the feeling that these games are more like close cousins than siblings. It's possible that if a mainline publisher like Hans Im Glück had handled this game, Brass would never have seen the light of day, as Age of Industry seems, in some way, like a smoothed out, more developed version, dropping out some of the more baroque elements of Brass.
On the other hand, some of those baroque qualities (like the loan/income band mechanics) also present interesting effects on gameplay, and these are lost in Age of Industry: gone is turn-over-turn income, the tricky loans mechanism, the two-phased game play (canals and rails), variable rewards for selling to distant markets, and outsized-victory rewards for later-tech developments. As I all too painfully discovered, using your Brass strategies as an approach to this game may lead to disaster. Brass seemed to reward the "gather and then spring" type of play where you played to reap reward in bunches at the expense of low or mid-range, incremental development: the outsized victory points for high-tech development meant that you could sacrifice early developments to put out the big ships and big mills. The successful strategies in the game we played seemed to concentrate on a smooth, even industrial development progression with lots of coal mine and iron work placements, and wasting tempo on development only in the end game.
Is the game fun? I think it is: for those who didn't like the corners and curli-cues in Brass, Age of Industry might be more palatable. For those who like those flourishes in Brass, Age of Industry may seem a bit blander. However, if you're a fan of Martin Wallace games, the two games seem sufficiently different to one another that it's worth getting both (I'm not sure the same can be said of Age of Steam and Steam, for example). Age of Industry's longevity may lie in how many additional expansion boards we see, with how many interesting additions and changes to the game's basic structure: this is, after all, where most of Age of Steam's legs come from. I trust that Treefrog will provide at least a few expansion maps all on their own, despite the fact that (apparently) Martin Wallace doesn't like producing expansions for games.
Is Age of Industry as compelling as Wallace's most compelling outings? Probably not. But it's a solid, dependable entry, or at least it feels like it is after this one playing. If you like business/economy games with some interesting indirect opportunities for player interaction, and reasonable playing times (90-120 minutes), then you might well like Age of Industry.
The more I play boardgames, the more I think, if you forced me to gut my collection as much as possible, it would end up looking like this:
• All the games I own by Francis Tresham
• All the games I own by Martin Wallace, that he published through Warfrog/Treefrog
• All the Splotter games I own
• A very small handful of others (Power Grid, Puerto Rico, Ticket To Ride)
