ABG All Board Games
Epoch: Early Inventors box art
Rich game profile

Epoch: Early Inventors

Award winning game author Martyn F takes you back to the start of civilization. You take on the role of a clan leader and explore the landscape, discover new tools and offer to holy places. All this to gather as much status as possible. Epoch: Early Inventors is very thematic and...

Players

1-4

Time

90-150

Age

12+

Weight

3.43

Rating

6.34

Should this hit the table?

Quick read before the metadata.

Moderate level of interaction with a good balance between direct and strategic confrontation. Players need to pay attention to others' strategies and turns frequently, but there is not a strong emphasis on cooperation.

Teach 2.4

Teaching signal

Replay 3.9

High replayability

Interaction 3.8

Highly interactive

Scaling 4.0

Scales well

Strategy 4.5

Deep strategy

Control 3.2

Luck-sensitive

Table feel

Moderate level of interaction with a good balance between direct and strategic confrontation. Players need to pay attention to others' strategies and turns frequently, but there is not a strong emphasis on cooperation.

Replay value

Epoch: Early Inventors has a high replayability score due to its strong variability in the gameboard, availability of expansions, deep strategic possibilities, and good scalability. While it may take some time to learn, the game offers fresh experiences each playthrough and allows players to improve their strategies over time.

Luck profile

Epoch: Early Inventors has a moderate influence of luck. Random elements have a notable but not exclusive impact on the game outcome. Players have some ability to mitigate randomness through strategic decisions and planning. The game outcome is a balanced mix of luck and strategy.

Overview

What ABG knows about this game

Award winning game author Martyn F takes you back to the start of civilization. You take on the role of a clan leader and explore the landscape, discover new tools and offer to holy places. All this to gather as much status as possible. Epoch: Early Inventors is very thematic and tries to stay as close to reality as possible. Before starting the game you build a landscape of hexagonal playing cards and holy places. In your turn you can carry out 1 action and/or develop 1 card and/or offer to 1 holy place. You can choose between the following actions: gather food, fish (for food), hunt for deer, butcher deer, explore adjacent cards or work to get raw material. You need food to move around the game board and develop cards. Gathering food and fishing are basically the same actions, but depending on the tools you have, the one action might give you more food than the other. You need raw materials to develop cards and offer to the holy places. Sometimes raw materials can help you to heighten the proceeds of actions. The action "Work" can get you raw materials. The type of landscape you are currently standing on determines how much work it is to get hold of a certain raw material. Raw materials used in the game are: wood, flax, stone, flint, clay and iron ore. Butchering animals can not only get you food, but also skins, bones and tendons. Exploring cards adds to your status. It also opens up more cards to be developed. To develop a card, you need to "pay" the food and materials depicted on the card. Once you have developed a card, you can use the tool, equipment or knowledge of this card to your advantage. E.g. Rope Making allows you to turn 2 flax into 3 ropes. Sowing gives you 2-4 extra food, when gathering food. An axe makes it easier to chop wood. By cleverly using your own cards and those of your opponents, you try to offer materials to as many holy places as you can, thereby increasing your status even more. After 14-20 rounds the game is over. The player that has collected the most status has won.

Media

Images and visual references

Images, galleries, and videos are grouped here so the page feels visual before every asset is fully hosted.

No media imported yet.

Editions

Versions and regional releases

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
No editions imported yet.

Files and documents

Rules, aids, translations

No files imported yet.

Linked items

Graph expansion queue

Related games and expansions help build a connected catalog around every title.

No linked items imported yet.