Pillocks of the Earth

It was a balmy Sunday evening and Sam and I met up for a brief game of Pillars of the Earth. A new game. New vistas, new adventures. And new bloody rules.

Pillars of the Earth is a nice game, but the rule book makes it far more complicated than it is. It begins by saying the winner is the one with the most victory points, but then doesn't say how to get those victory points until about three pages in. Actually, until then it doesn't even mention them, making the rule book feel like one of those "clever" films which suddenly includes a minor character from the very beginning as a pivotal point at the end and you're supposed to remember them and if you don't then that means you're stupid.

I hate that sort of film.

But once you start to play it, it starts to make more sense. First, workers go to collect resources or buy craftsmen. Then master builders go to get extra powers like "get more workers", or "avoid taxes", or "go to the market". Not really super powers, but powers nevertheless. And then finally the craftsmen give you victory points according to the resources you've got, and the cathedral is built.

By happy chance, in one pile of cards (out of four different piles needed in this game) the last two cards turned over involved a bonus due to the cathedral being nearly finished, and a bonus due to the king visiting to see the cathedral. Total luck - there's nothing to stop these from being the first in the pack - but it did give a lovely ending to the whole evening.

We weren't at all sure we'd got the tactics right, but Sam got a healthy 58-ish, to my 35-ish, even though he'd spent most of the time in poverty compared to my gold-rich lifestyle. It was an interesting game of worker placement. Like a Cuba-lite or half-Stone Age/half-Agricola, but perhaps not as good as that might sound. It's definitely a game to be played twice, and I'd be up for that, since I never have to read that rule book again.

But, honestly, Joe: you need to write something about how to explain rules properly. You owe it to the gaming community.