Game Review: Era: Medieval Age

Building your own town or village has shown up in many different forms in boardgaming. Tiles, standees, cards-we’ve seen some unique examples out there. But today we are going to look at a game that literally allows you to build your own town, from structures to walls and even a few farms. Where you compete with your fellow town-builders to determine who can make the most prosperous village while attacking and defending from your fellow builders.

Today we will be looking at the game Era: Medieval Age, designed by Matt Leacock and published by Eggertspiele for 1-4 players. This game comes with a number of plastic 3D building structures that you will build on your personal board. There are a total of 71 buildings, 32 walls and 27 scorched land areas. 36 custom dice also make this game one of the more beautiful component games of the year.

Setup and Gameplay

Era is played over a number of rounds where players roll dice, gain resources and build the best city they can. Points are collected until the end of the game to see who can be the most prosperous builder in the land. Each player receives a starting hand of 3 peasant dice and 1 noble die along with a player board, 6 pegs and a screen. Everyone also gets a starting set of structures that include 3 longhouses, 1 farm and 3 walls.

Each round is six steps that each player will take from the starting player and then moving clockwise before going to the next step. Steps play out in this order:

1. Roll
2. Collect
3. Feed
4. Disasters
5. Build
6. Extort

In Roll, players will all roll their dice in secret at the same time up to three times. You may keep and re-roll dice as you see fit for all dice except for those showing a skull which you must keep.

Next is Collect, where players add the trade goods, stone, wood, food and culture gained to their player boards. You also gain any bonuses from structures at this point in the game as well.

The third step is Feed where players need to spend 1 food for each population they have which is represented by each of the dice you have currently.

In Disasters players look at the number of skulls they have rolled this turn and then resolve the disaster on the appendix found on the player screen. Each player must do theirs in turn order.

Build lets you build walls and buildings to improve your domain using the resources on your player board. The starting player goes then rotates clockwise. For each hammer you roll you may build one structure if you have the available resources to you. If you take the last structure you flip over one of the tracking tokens and once they all show a red X, the game will end at the conclusion of the current round.

Finally Extort allows you to steal good from other players in the form of one of any resource if you have more combat strength then they do in the form of swords rolled. Players compare swords rolled, higher number swords can steal an available resource from another player. Shields higher than the number of swords will stop players from stealing from you as well.

Play continues until there are no more blank tracking tokens and ends at the conclusion of that round. Player will add score from their structures, gaining double points for structures in completed wall enclosures along with any points from culture, bonuses and losing points for each spot on the disaster track they have moved. The highest total of points is declared the winner!

Impressions

Things that could be better:

Player aid. The screens at to secure your die rolls from other players and the location of the appendix for disasters and structures. The way it is designed, a lot of first time players for some reason completely miss the right side and only look at the middle section for building structures. A player aid card or something else with those structures and dice faces on them might be nice.

Player boards. Im not the first to say it, but there is something missing from the board. Structurally the board is great. The pegs and pieces fit fine. The issue is the depth writing on it. The bright yellow board makes it really hard to see the detail in the different tracks for what they represent.

Things I liked:

Structures. Wow. These plastic pieces are awesome. They are worth the cost of admission alone-solid construction and lots of detail work was definitely put into them. The buildings and walls all look really good.

Dice. I love custom dice in any fashion. These are solid dice with great composition. I love the colors and the pop of the details on them.

Roll and build. Such a fun unique concept for a game. I love the roll and write genre and this one gives us that in what feels like a bigger experience than most roll and writes give you. The building and construction of your map is a fun and really draws the eyes over to your table when you play this in public arenas.

Overall

Era: Medieval Age brings a new way to play to the boardgame table, introducing us all to the roll and build mechanic. The structures, dice and materials overall are well-made with a pop that really makes this game stand out amongst the sea of component-driven games. I have introduced this game to a range of players from casual to more experienced players and they have all loved it aesthetically and competitively.

The comparisons to Roll Through the Ages will be there and rightfully so-but I really feel that designer Matt Leacock improved on an already amazing game in Roll Through the Ages to create this beautiful design. I can’t recommend this enough to players looking for a fun, challenging puzzle with the right mix of strategy and dice-rolling smashed together. If you have a chance to play this game don’t hesitate to compete to become the best village builder in the land!