“Everdell”, “Splendor”, “Wingspan”…these are just a few of the wonderful tableau building games that I’ve had the pleasure of playing in my lifetime. Enter “Earth”, an engine-builder with a very charming and dare I say, earthly theme. It boasts an impressive array of cards and will task players with building a 4×4 grid, much like in “Everdell”. Engine building is probably my favorite gameplay mechanic so I admit I’m probably going to be a bit biased, but being human I suppose that’s impossible to avoid. I love the power creep in engine builders…though 90% of the time these games are typically over just as I get my engine going. The curse of keeping play times at a respectable length, I guess.
1-5 Players, Ages 12+, Average Play Time = 45-90 Minutes
Setup & Gameplay
Players will each receive a board that outlines their actions and organizes their starting island, climate, and ecosystem cards (the latter is only used in the advanced game). Players receive starting resources and cards based on the starting island card chosen. The island and climate cards may also contain some kind of passive bonus for players to observe during the game. Players will deal out mid-game goals (fauna cards) and end-game goals (ecosystem cards) to the main fauna board. There’s more, but I’ll instead direct you to the rulebook below to save my aging joints the joys of more Aspercreme.
Rulebook: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CJwxfUMTmieUgTwD2ABzHEnbX8yjUcjk/view
There are no set number of rounds (unless you’re playing solo). Players take turns as the active player until someone fills their 4×4 grid. That round continues so that everyone has had an equal number of turns.
As the active player you’ll choose 1 of 4 actions:
Planting – Play up to 2 cards into your 4×4 grid following adjacency rules, then draw 4 cards and keep 1.
Composting – Take 5 soil (the main currency) and deal 2 cards from the deck face-down into your compost (1 card = 1 VP)
Watering – Take 2 soil and 6 sprouts. Sprouts are placed on empty sprout spaces on the cards you’ve played into your 4×4 grid. (1 sprout = 1 VP)
Growing – Draw 4 cards into hand and place 2 growth. Growth are placed onto cards that support them in your 4×4 grid. (1 growth = 1 VP but players typically receive a bonus for maxing the growth)
After the active player take their turn, everyone else will piggy-back and take the same action albeit a weaker one. Then, everyone gets to activate the cards on their player board and 4×4 grid corresponding to the color action chosen. Green action = everyone activates green card effects left to right, top to bottom like a book.
During the game players can claim mid-game goals (leaf tokens) by meeting fauna card goals. Players can decide before hand if they want the fauna board to be competitive (1st person to get the goal gets more points) or relaxed (players get the same amount of points regardless of who accomplishes the goal first).
That’s most of it (but not all). Check the rulebook above for the finer points.
The Review
I first played “Earth” on Tabletop Simulator against the solo AI (Gaia) and loved it. I just had to have it. The card art is simply over-the-top gorgeous. Very few games have “wow-ed” me in this way, “Wingspan” being another. The photography is just so wonderfully done…as an amateur photographer myself I’m incredibly jealous. The card art alone makes me want to go out and take pictures, if only my fibromyalgia would allow me. Luckily, I can live somewhat vicariously through this game. I splurged on the Kickstarter edition so some of my components were premium…I feel like it’s necessary to have in a game like this where the card art is so good. Could you imagine “Wingspan” with plastic egg tokens? Blech.
“Earth”, in my opinion, draws mechanics from a number of different games and they all come together beautifully. “Race/Roll for the Galaxy” and “Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition” features the active player goes then folks follow with a weaker action. Depending on the aforementioned game, there’s a bit of hand-size overload as well. “Everdell” and “Quadropolis” features players building a 4×4 grid. “Gizmos” and other engine builder games feature that feeling where you chain 5-6 things together in the same turn and it feels great. I can imagine this all would be intimidating to the first-time or casual player. In that case I’d start with “Splendor” and work your way up the engine building genre chain.
The solo mode was a lot of fun. I played on the easiest difficulty and whipped “Gaia” pretty good. I feel like there are certain strategies one could exploit to ensure that the AI doesn’t get a lot of free points. “Sagrada’s” solo mode felt much the same way in that I had control over what I was feeding it. In the competitive game against Aidalee I played differently based on the island, climate, ecosystem, and fauna cards out there. It felt like a completely different experience but I still felt like I was accomplishing something. I love that I can play a game two different ways but still end up with a decent to good score in the end after the smoke clears.
I like the risk/reward system of the one-off event cards. Events usually grant a player negative VP but have powerful effects. It’s comparable to the “Potion Explosion” mechanic where you can sacrifice VP to pick an extra ball from the array. It’s a tough decision but one that COULD net you even more points than what you started with. I hate taking risks in games like this and I have yet to capitalize on these cards…luckily they serve as great compost (VP)!
I also loved how the eggs…sorry, sprouts…could be traded away via card effects for some other benefit. Eggs in “Wingspan” are worth VP but can also be used as currency to place cards into the 3 available terrain rows. Maybe I’m wrong, but it felt like sprouts did more here. Growth was also interesting to shoot for. I liked how the mushroom cards had low max growth and tree cards had high max growth…very thematic.
The biggest hurdle I faced in learning this game was the iconography. Specifically, trying to understand the max growth requirements on a fauna card. In the game’s defense there is iconography guides on the player board and rulebook, but I had a hard time wrapping my head around the various “if/then” conditions. A separate FAQ listing examples and their effects would have been helpful.
We always joke that our favorite board games need to be digital. I play “Wingspan” more than “Earth” only because I have the digital game on my phone and Steam. I do believe “Earth” is available on Board Game Arena and I know for sure it’s on Tabletop Simulator. I highly recommend giving this game a go there first to see if it’s a game you’d enjoy. I personally can’t recommend “Earth” enough. It’s just through and through a fantastic game that has table presence from miles away.
—
Score: 9/10: Outstanding
—