This is a very beautiful game, the board, the pieces, the cards are extremely good quality and the artwork is superb. It has a fantastic theme and setting reflected well in the gameplay. Each turn players allocate their initial supply of people onto various areas on the board to try and collect resources, build (and gain Victory Points), collect cards, gain tools, forage for food or increase your bank of people.
Each area has limited space for people except for the forage field which has unlimited capacity. For each person you have in a resource area (Food,Wood, Brick, Stone, Gold) you roll 1 dice, each resource has a point cost you spend the points rolled to buy the resource. Starting with the first player you place your people in these areas, however you can only place people in one area at a time and you can not increase them on further turns. Play rotates around the players until all the people have been placed, then starting with the first player you resolve the action for each set of people. The order you do them in is your choice and you will find that doing them in the right order helps you improve your options during this part. After each player has completed this you then have to pay 1 piece of food for every person you have, if you do not have enough you pay the difference in resources if that is still not enough you lose points.
Cards you collect give you bonuses, some immediate, some for collecting enough different types and others give special Victory points based on what you have built, the number of people etc. A very popular area is the one that increases your food production (so you start getting food for free) however there is only one space there so its usually the first or second player that ends up taking this.
I really enjoyed this game and will look forward to playing it again real soon. I lost completely but still enjoyed the game and will now have a better idea of what to do for future sessions.
This would make a worthwhile addition to anyone's collection.
