Pillars Of The Earth (2006) Michael Rieneck, Stefan Stadler

We played Pillars of the Earth again this week and I wanted to write a few words about why I like the game.

I first saw the game when it appeared on several Dice Tower top 10 lists, they consistently praised the game and I thought it would be something I would enjoy. At that time it was out of print, happily it is now back in print and readily available at a reasonable price.

First, the game is really pretty. The board is beautifully illustrated, the components are all wooden tokens and the Cathedral round tracker is completely unnecessary but adds to the visual appeal.

The game itself is themed around building a Cathedral and uses worker placement with 2 types of workers and a unique mechanic of paying gold to place your workers if you want to go early or passing if you don't mind waiting until later in the round. There is randomness with regard to which pieces are taken from the bag, we found in our last game that sometimes all your pieces are just pulled out of the bag last.

The game moves along quickly and there's not much downtime, even when people need a minute to figure out what to do next. There are multiple strategies to win and good variability due to the worker cards and event cards which get drawn each round.

I like how the theme is implemented and the inclusion of characters and events from the book. However you don't need to be familiar with the printed story to enjoy the game. The game flows very nicely and everything just makes sense.

Positives -
Good component quality and great artwork.
Nice flow to the game, quick turns and lots to do.
Variability - not all event cards are used in every game.
Good choice of strategies.

Negatives -
Randomness from the bag draw and cards. Dice for taxes, bad events which may scupper your plans etc.
If you don't like the worker placement mechanics you probably won't enjoy this.

Summary -
Even though this is an older game at this point (2006), I can't ever see it leaving my collection.

Score - 9/10

I'd like to play this sometime Rik!... Also if you're interested I have a copy of the lighter 2 player version called "pillars of the earth builders duel" if you would like to give that a go...? Have you read the book? I listened to the audio book a few years ago....

Evilevan wrote:I'd like to play this sometime Rik!... Also if you're interested I have a copy of the lighter 2 player version called "pillars of the earth builders duel" if you would like to give that a go...? Have you read the book? I listened to the audio book a few years ago....

Yes I read the book off the back of playing the game. Would like to try Builders Duel sometime, looks cool.