An Age Contrived

Summary

👥 a game for 1 to 5 players
⏳ Play time is 60 – 120 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Bellows Intent

Introduction

In An Age Contrived, each player takes on the role of a god in the Eldranic pantheon, deriving their power from the belief of mortals.

For a thousand years, you and the other gods have ruled over Eldranir, a mortal world of disparate clans and untapped potential. And whatever you might think of them, you need the mortals, for it is only their belief in you that gives you your power. Now, an inflection point emerges in the history of Eldranir, precipitated by your own making: An Age Contrived. The events that you set in motion are significant. The mortal clans are on the cusp of uniting, bringing stability to Eldranir after centuries of strife. Steer the new mortal order into reliance on the pantheon as you engineer the formation of a flourishing civilization. Solidify your legacy among mortals, and you can lead the pantheon and the mortal realm into a new age!

Let’s set it up

Shuffle the 5 Monument Randomizer Tokens and reveal a number equal to the player count. These Monuments, in addition to the Beacon Monument, will be in the game.

Locate the metal frame for each Monument in use this game, insert it into its assigned position below the game board, and place the board in the middle of the table.

Locate the stacked sections for each Monument in use this game and place them in their assigned space on the board. Check that each stack of sections is numbered in order, with 1 at the top.

Locate the Monument Patron Token for each Monument in use this game and place it into its Monument’s bound energy area.

For a player count of fewer than 5, remove all Monument Benefit Tokens that show a player count greater than your number of players. Randomly deal 1 Monument Benefit Token face-up into the assigned space next to each stack of Monument sections in use for this game.

Randomly deal 1 of the 6 Achievement Tokens face-up into each of the 2 blank Achievement Token spaces on the board. For a player count of fewer than 4, remove all upgraded Transmuter Tiles that show a player count greater than your number of players. Shuffle the remaining upgraded Transmuter Tiles by tier I, II, and III, as depicted on the back side of each tile. Then, place the Transmuter tiles in the assigned part of the board with tier III on the bottom, followed by tier II, and tier I on top. Reveal 4 upgraded Transmuter Tiles face-up to fill the Tile Pool in order, starting with the leftmost space.

Depending on the player count, remove all upgraded Action Tokens that show a player count greater than your number of players and return them to the box. Place the remaining tokens face up near the board in a 4×2 pattern.

Place the Conduit Tokens into three stacks near the board, with the tokens with two icons at the top of each stack, form the supply.

Now randomly assign 1 quick-start card to each player to determine their characters. Take your character’s matching Transmutation Device, Character Board, character components, and a player aid. Each player may choose which side of their Transmutation Device, Character Board, and Transmuter Tiles to use, which has no effect on gameplay.

Place your Character Miniature on the starting space of the closest region to your seat at the table that has a Monument in use this game. Then, 2 Energy Tokens of each type can be placed into the energy reserve on the game board. It does not matter which of the 5 energy reserve sections you use.

Place your remaining 13 Energy Tokens into the Exhausted Pool of your Character Board. Place your 3 Bridge Tokens on their matching numbered spaces I, II, and III on your Character Board.

Place your Channel Marker on its matching space on your Character Board with the charged or exhausted side facing up, depending on the player count. Then, place your 5 Action Tokens into their corresponding numbered spaces 1-5 of your Transmutation Device.

Place 5 Transmuter Tiles into their matching numbered spaces (1-5) of your Transmutation Device and 2 Transmuter Tiles numbered 0 to the left of your Transmutation Device. Place Energy Tokens from your Exhausted Pool in the positions depicted on your quick-start guide, including the ones that need to be on the Transmutation Device.

Depending on the player count, randomly deal the neutral Bridge Tokens depicted below face-up onto the broken path spaces connecting each player’s starting region to the central region. Then, randomly deal any remaining neutral Bridge Tokens face-up onto the remaining broken path spaces connected to the central region.

Determine the starting player randomly and give them the starting player marker, and you’re ready to start the game “An Age Contrived”!

Everything you do in the game is driven by your Transmutation Device, which works like a conveyor belt that moves from left to right. There are two types of turns, and you can choose either one or the other. The first type of turn is to ADVANCE, where you move your channel of tiles forward and load some of them with energy. The second type of turn is to take ACTIONS. You can take as many actions as you wish, but you can only use the energy in the bottom row of your Device to do so. All of the available actions are depicted on the Action Tokens in the bottom row of your Device, and to take any particular action, you must exhaust an energy from immediately above it.

-Advance, move your conveyor belt of tiles one or two positions to the right, then fill only the tile(s) that entered your device with energy from your exhausted pool.

If your Channel Marker is charged, you may exhaust it to repeat this advance action and how a player can apply two Transmuter Tiles in this turn. Do know that the tiles that are pushed out can’t be used during this turn.

As a player decides how to load energy onto the new transmuter tiles, the next player may start to take their turn. This helps to keep the game moving at a steady pace. However, you must not use the next player’s turn to inform your own decisions.

While pushing the new tiles into the transmuter device and conduit tile aligned with the same symbols on a Transmuter tile, this will also be activated.

There are a total of 3 symbols on the conduit tiles:

– Booth icons: move your character forward on the map by up to the number of icons counted.

– Monument icons: move on the Monument track. When you bind energy from the Monument Track, place it into a Monument’s bound energy area in any region where your character or at least one of your Bridge Tokens is present.

– Pillar icons: move on the Pillar track. Using this track, players can bind energy by placing it into an empty space in a Pillar of Civilization in any region where a player’s character or at least one of their Bridge Tokens is present.

During the game, these conduit tiles can be upgraded, as well as the action tokens, which will be discussed below.

By exhausting energy from the bottom row of your device to take actions, one at a time, until you decide to stop or run out of bottom-row energy. Each tile on a player’s Transmutation Device has a bottom part, which is connected to the action token in that row. Each action token has its unique ability, and to proceed with these abilities, the top part of the transmuter tile will then be activated. By activating a top part, there also needs to be energy available. Whenever a player uses energy from the bottom row, it will be exhausted. However, using the upper row energy will not end up in the exhausting pool. These will be used for;

DEPLOY: Allowing players to apply it towards the purposes of their choosing on the board. This step will be explained more below.

RECHARGE: Flip the Channel Marker over from its exhausted side to its charged side.

MOVE: Move on the map or on one of the two tracks on your Character Board, thereby gaining benefits or VP.

REPOSITION: Players can reposition previously deployed energy to take advantage of openings at opportune times.

CLAIM: Claim new Transmuter Tiles from the Tile Pool to improve the efficiency of your Device, develop your ability to move, and fulfill Achievement requirements.

Getting back to Deploy is, of course, the most important thing in the game because the energy will be used for building monuments. The monuments in play will be built based on the required energy types, which are Compass, Magnet, Rose, and “Wild.” This “Wild” energy means that each player character has their own symbol, which will be the “Joker” and can be used for each of the other types. If you ever run out of one of these types, there are ways to get more, such as from the reserve. But still, use them wisely.

So monuments, each monument is divided into 4 or 5 sections that are constructed one at a time until the monument is fully completed. The sections are numbered in the order in which they are finished, with section 1 at the top of each monument’s stack. When a player places the last needed energy on a monument section, all players who have contributed will be rewarded and receive an action related to the type of energy they placed. The player who contributed the last energy will place it in the monument’s bound area. This will mean that players can’t use these “bound” energies anymore. Still, when the first player “bounds” two energy tokens to the same monument, that player gets the Monument Patron of that monument. All these achievements will be related to VP at the end of the game.

Achievement Tokens are also a part of the player board, which players can earn when they meet the necessary requirements for extra final VP.

As mentioned before, and if there is not already enough to do in this game, all characters also have their own special abilities. These abilities are covered at the beginning of the game on each player board by Bridge tokens. These abilities can be unlocked during the game, and the Bridge tokens will then be placed on the main board, providing additional advantages.

The game ends when the last Monument is fully constructed, having its final section completed at the end of a player’s turn. Finish the current player’s turn, including all resulting effects from the section completion. If necessary, subsequent players take one final turn until all players have had an equal number of turns. Once the last player’s turn is finished, perform final scoring. The player with the most VP wins the game.

Conclusie & eindscore

Difficulty: 3.56/ 5
Re-playability: 7
Our score: 7 out of 10 dice

What a blast “An Age Contrived” is! It’s massive and very nicely produced. During the Kickstarter campaign, all these features and beautiful parts were shown, and I really thought about how this would finally end up. Well, it ended up being this very fine piece of artwork translated into a board game.

The products used for the boards and components are truly of good quality. They need to be, especially when you have to place the holders of the monuments through the board.

We liked the magnetic parts of the monuments from the start; they make the game come alive.

We also received the Founders Edition and the mechanical steel player boards, which are very well thought out. As an engineer myself, nothing makes me happier than this nice piece of engineering.

Getting started and beginning to play “An Age Contrived,” I did get a bit worried.

Having a steel board, shooting energy around the table. After a few minutes, we both stopped using this because it did not add much to the gameplay itself. We also noticed it’s not a two-player game, and we had better game nights when we had 3 or even more players to get the best experience from this engine-building Euro game.

Another thing I mostly can’t shake off is the massive main board with great character tokens, which are not really needed. Moving on the board is good, but the main mechanic is deploying the energy tokens. This can all be managed from a player’s player board, without any need to move on the main board.

But with the upcoming expansion, this will hopefully get a bit more balanced.

When you love this fantasy world, and you will, An Age Contrived will be an interesting game to play. It’s an adventure from the beginning until the end!

Thanks to Bellows Intent for this review copy and the opportunity to write about this game.