Players: 3-4
Playing Time: 1.5-2 hours
Complexity: 4 (of 10)

This game is published in the United States by Mayfair and was originally published as Abenteuer Menschheit in Germany by Kosmos.

The Components

As you would expect, the Settlers of the Stone Age comes with a large set of high-quality components:

• 1 game board
• 4 overview cards
• 18 exploration counters
• 32 tribe tokens
• 10 desert tiles
• 2 enemy figures w/stands
• 80 resource cards
• 10 victory point cards
• 20 wooden camps in 4 colors
• 16 wooden progress markers in 4 colors
• 8 explorers in 4 colors
• 2 dice
• 1 rulebook

The game board is a six-panel set map that lays out the neolithic world in hexes. A number of land bridge and boat routes portray how migration occurs from continent to continent. The edges of the board include 4 different technology progress charts. This map is done on very thick, textured cardboard. It, and all the components, are slightly higher quality that Mayfair's usual (very good) Catan components, and thus I suspect it was printed in Europe on the same presses that Kosmos uses rather than in America.

The overview cards, desert tiles, exploration counters, tribe tokens, and enemy figures are all printed four-color on textured cardboard too; they're considerably less thick than the board, but more than sufficient.

The overview cards hold the whole game together. The show the costs of purchasing the various components and of advancing the various progress markers. They also clearly denote the value of each progress chart. Laying out simple rules for each player is a terrific user interface decision, and I'm surprised more games haven't followed Catan's lead.

The desert tiles are small hexes, placed on top of hexes in Africa when desertification begins. They look a bit awkward because they're a fair amount smaller than the actual hexes.

The exploration counters are plain brown markers, with roman numerals on the face between I and IV. They are placed on various hard to reach locations and offer their discoverers various rewards, which are marked with simple, intuitive icons on the reverse.

The tribe tokens are circular Victory Point markers for four different types of tribes: European, Australian, Asian, and American. They're circular and are placed on hex corners as clearly marked and color-coded on the map.

The enemy figures portray a Neanderthal and a Sabretooth Tiger and are placed on simple plastic stands.

The cards are all very small, but decently thick and printed with rounded corners. The resource cards denote the four items which are produced upon the map, each clearly marked with the terrain that produces the resource. The victory point cards each clearly mark their value and use icons, color-coding, and words to help quickly identify how the victory point is gained. All these cards are well put together and their meaning is easy to grasp.

There are three different types of wooden markers: camps (which look like campfires), explorers (which are cylinders), and progress markers (which are cubes). They're all nicely cut, and up to the standards you'd expect for a game with wooden pieces.

The dice are wooden too.

The rulebook is 8 pages, printed in full color on glossy paper. The rules are abundantly illustrated and overall simple to follow.

The box is worth noting too because it's extremely well put together. The actual box is made of very sturdy cardboard. Inside it is a plastic tray which has been specifically designed to hold those components. Cards, dice, and the overview cards each clearly slip into specific tray slots. There's also an individual slot for each of the four players' wooden pieces, and then a large bay for all the remaining cardboard pieces. I'm personally not using it exactly as designed because I tend to store my games sideways and am paranoid about stuff falling out, but even in thise situation the tray is extremely useful for sorting out the various pieces.

Overall, though I found the price of the Settlers of the Stone Age high, it's entirely reasonable based upon the quality of the components within, which are about as much as you could ask for in a strategy game.

The Gameplay

The Settlers of the Stone Age deftly combines a number of different styles of gameplay.

Before the game starts, it is set up as follows: each player gets 2-3 camps in Africa and perhaps 1 Explorer, depending on the rules used; tribe markers are placed on each continent in pre-designated locations; and exploration counters are placed throughout the map in predesignated locations.

After setup is completed, each player goes in turn and does the following things:

1. Rolls the Dice - Production
2. Trades - Trading
3. Takes Main Turn - Building, Progress, Exploration

Here's a bit more info on all the gameplay possibilities:

Production: The board is built out of hexes of four different types: hills, plains, mountains, and forests. Each of these hex types produces a different type of resource. Hills produce meat, plains produce bones, mountains produce flint, and forests produce hide (sadly, unlike in the original Catan games, this differentiation doesn't make a lot of sense, because you'd expect to get meat, bones, and hides all from the same source in reality, but, hey, at least the resources feel appropriate for the neolithic setting).

Camps can be built on the corners of hexes; in fact, each player starts out with 2-3 camps on hex corners in Africa. Each of those hexes also has a number on it between 2 and 12. At the start of each player's turn two dice are rolled, to produce a number between 2 and 12. Then every hex bearing that same number produces its resource--which means that each player with a camp on the corner of such a hex gets to collect the resource from the bank.

The only exception is when a "7" is rolled. In this case, no resources are produced (there are no "7" hexes), and instead all players with more than 7 cards in their hand lose half of them. In addition the "phasing" player gets to move the Neanderthal, placing him on a location in either Europe, Asia, or Africa--which then will not produce resources until the Neanderthal is again moved. In addition, the phasing player gets to randomly take a card from one of the players with a camp at a corner of that hex

Trading: Quite simply, the phasing player can trade his development cards for other players' development cards. This is normally a central and critical part of any Catan game, although as I discuss later in "Game Design", it sadly doesn't work as well in this game as in the older releases in the series.

Building: As with all the Catan games, one of the central mechanics is the exchange of resource cards for various tangible items within the game. Trading is usually undertaken so that a player can get ahold of the resources he needs to build, and then this building is done with those newly acquired resources. There are three core building costs in Settlers of the Stone Age:

Build an Explorer: meat, hide
Move an Explorer: meat
Convert an Explorer into a Camp: bone, hide, flint

Explorers are created next to an existing camp. They're then moved across the board at a speed of 2-7 spaces per meat, as discussed in progress below. Light brown hex borders clearly mark where explorers can move, allowing access throughout the continents, and some migration routes over the oceans.

Each landmass (Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas) has either 5 or 8 tribe counters on it (depending on the number of players on the game), each one located at a hex corner. These mark places where players can build new camps. A player must simply move his explorer to the tribe marker, pay the appropriate cost, and convert his explorer to a camp.

At this point the player gets to claim the tribe marker, which is worth 1 victory point. Also of note: if the player is out of camps, he can pick up an old one and reuse it. This is particularly noteworthy when African camps become useless due to desertification.

There's also a special bonus VP card worth 2 victory points which is given to the first player who collects all four types of tribe counters (Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas).

Progress: You can also spend resource cards to increase your progress levels in four different categories: clothing, food, construction, and hunting. The cost of doing this varies depending on the level you're ascending to:

to Level 1: flint
to Level 2: bone
to Level 3: flint, bone
to Level 4: flint, bone
to Level 5: hide, flint, bone

It's worth noting that some of progress levels tie the increases to the resources spent, which is a nice bit of color. For example the five levels of consruction are: simple hide tents (1); bone-walled huts (2); boat building (3); tallow lamps (4); and cave painting (5).

Each level 5 is an "art". Only one player can ascend to that level and he gets a card worth 1 victory point when he does.

Each progress category also provides an extra benefit. Food improves your explorer's movement, which is equal to 2 + your food progress level. Clothing & construction each affect exploration, as noted below. An increase of your hunting progress level allows you to move the neanderthal or the sabertooth, stealing a card as a result. (The sabertooth acts just like the neanderthal, but can only be moved in the Australia and the Americas.)

Bones are the key to progress.
--Smartass, though technically correct player

Exploration: As noted earlier, one common game tactic is to create explorers, move them to tribe counters, and then build camps. Another tactic is to build explorers and move them about the board collecting exploration counters.

These counters are located at the extremes of the board. For example there are some up where Britain should be, and throughout the northern lands; more on migration routes leading to Pacific islands; and others available at the entrances to Australia and the Americas. Each one is marked with a requirement box showing the level of clothing progress and the level of construction progress you need to have acquired to move past the box and to claim the counter (assuming you're the first player through).

These are nicely depicted iconically: all clothing requirements are listed as white numbers, all construction requirements as black numbers.

Overall, these requirements also provide nice color and make sense. For example to get to Australia you need clothing 1 (shoes) and construction 3 (boat building), while to get to the Americas over the Bering Straight you need clothing 3 (sewing) and construction 1 (simple hide tents). In other words, warm clothes for the Arctic and boats to get off the contient.

The exploration counters when flipped over reveal one of three possibilities: an enemies counter (player gets to move the Neanderthal or the Sabertooth); a desertification counter (player puts a desert token in Africa on the depicted terrain type); or adaptation (only one per region, gives you a 1 victory point card). The main purpose of exploring is ultimately to get these VP cards.

There's also a special victory point card worth 2 victory points which is held by whomever has the most exploration counters.

It's the Spartan simplicity of your relative lack of sophistication.
--Another smartass player, on how to win.

Winning the Game: The game is won when someone gets to 10 Victory Points. I've already laid out all the VPs, but here's a quick recap:

Each Tribe Counter: 1 VP
Each Level 5 Progress Card: 1 VP
Expansion/All 4 Tribe Types: 2 VP
Exploration/Most Counters: 2 VP

Typically the winner will have a number of tribes, 1 or 2 progress cards and at least one of the 2 VP special cards.

The Game Design

Klaus Teuber has to be given big points for successfully innovating his Catan series into a very different style of gameplay for Stone Age. Unfortunately some of the changes ultimately diminish the strengths of the original Catan (trading in particular). However, first, here's a listing of the good points:

Very Nice Modeling: Settlers of the Stone Age sets out to model the migrations of early human beings, and it uses its game rules to do a very good job of this. The exploration bonuses, the slow desertification of Africa, and generally the way victory points are allocated all ensure the peopling of the world as people leave the cradle of humanity in Africa. This modeling is even done in small ways; for example since rolling a "7" only moves the Neanderthal, who can't go to the Americas or Australia, there's yet another incentive to migrate forth.

Multiple Paths to Victory: Different players can try and achieve victory in various ways. The main two methods are exploration and settlement. Players can also try and seek out their unique victory by trying to gain the expansion VP marker of any of the four progress VP markers. (Unfortunately many of these paths ultimate require the same resources, but I've saved that discussion for later.)

Well Controlled Exploration: The exploration aspect of the game is well done, and something that's definitely missing from older Catan games (with the exception of Starfarers). Using progress markers to increase your ability to explore is a fairly simple abstraction, and by dividing up the exploration regions into areas I through IV, the randomness is tightly controlled for what you might discover (e.g., there's only one "Adaptation" victory chit per region).

Good 3 and 4 Player Paradigm: Settlers of the Stone Age provides slightly different setups for 3 or 4 players (in the one you only place 5 tribes per region and the other 8). Differing setups for different number of players is an excellent way to balance a game without requiring players to memorize lots of different rules.

And here's some of the problems:

Bad Allocation of Resources: Almost every aspect of the game is negatively affected by bad decisions about resource requirements. Doing anything exciting at the start of the game requires meat to move explorers, and thus it becomes an absolutely required resource at start. Both the settlement and exploration strategies ultimately require all four resources. For example, to settle you need to create an explorer (meat, furs), move an explorer (meat), and build a camp (bone, furs, flint). (Also, the requirement to have a total of 6 cards to really make a notable move really makes things hard because of the 7-hand-size limitations.) On the other hand, exploration requires lots of meat, and also purchasing up two of the progress markers, which ultimately requires fur, flint, and bones in different amounts. Overall, too many absolute requirements, too much overlap, and too few true alternatives in resources spent combine to badly allocate the resources in Stone Age, which causes other problems ...

Slow Start: This is one of them. Because you have to have meat at the start of the game, things tend to stall until the magic numbers are rolled (though some players will inevitably buy some progress markers up while twiddling their thumbs). This effect can be made worse if one player gets off to a quick start, begins exploring, and starts turning Africa into a desert ... because all the players suddenly find their already scant resources disappearing.

Mechanical Start: The start also felt a bit mechanical, as if there were a clear "best" route to success for the first couple of turns, which tended to involve buying your food progress up, to increase movement, then sending your explorers jetting forth toward the closest tribes near resources you need and immediately building camps there.

Trading Flawed: Trading has always been an important heart of the Catan games and it's sad to see it flawed in this outing. Because every player ultimately needs all four resources, no matter what their strategy is, there's a lot less incentive, or even possibility, to trade. This is particulaly true early in the game, but even late, when some resources are more abundant, trading is fairly constrained. (And if you want more discussion of why trading does or doesn't work, I suggest my Thinking Virtually column on the topic, which was largely inspired by frustration with the trading dynamics in this game.)

Randomness Overly Important: Finally, because every player needs all the resources, and also because the trading is constrained, bad luck can have a fairly major fallout in this game. If, for example, you don't happen to get meat resource cards at the start of the game, you're going to be totally screwed, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Overall, I felt like the gameplay of The Settlers of the Stone Age was somewhat flawed, and I'm not entirely sure how often I'll play it as a result. However at least some of that is based upon the fact that it's gameplay feels substandard to the other, similar Catan games, and when just considered on its own it does a bit better. Overall I'd thus rate The Settlers of the Stone as purely average ("3") on the Substance side of the ratings.

Conclusion

Klaus Teuber, in The Settlers of the Stone Age, does a superb job of adapting some of his extant Catan ideas to a new setting, in the neolithic era, and really making it feel like a complete and cohesive piece that's really accurate and apt for the background. If that appeals to you, go grab this game.

If you're looking for an alternative to your standard Settlers of Catan gameplay, I'd suggest a little more caution, as I don't think this plays as well as the original. However, it still plays decently well. (Personally, as an alternative, I'd suggest The Settlers of Nurnberg instead.)