The Pillars of the Earth
(Die Säulen der Erde)



Designer: Michael Rieneck, Stefan Stadler
Publisher: Mayfair Games/Kosmos
# of Players: 2-4
Play Time: 120 minutes
BGG Rank/Rating: #46/7.7
Weight: Medium
Category: Gamer's Game

The Pillars of the Earth / Die Säulen der Erde is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Ken Follet, and is part of Kosmos’ line of literature-based games. It was released at Essen last year and immediately received fantastic reviews from almost everybody, with several people naming it as the early favorite for several “game of the year” awards. So when the Spiel des Jahres nominations were released last week and it was conspicuously absent from the short list, lots of people were shocked. I thought I’d take a little time to do a full review of the game and discuss my opinions on whether or not it should have received a nomination.

The theme involves the construction of a cathedral over a period of 60 years. Players are Master Builders who have gathered to participate in this grand project, and who compete to see which one can make the greatest contribution to the completed work. The core mechanics involved in the game are the efficient use of workers to collect different resources, which are then converted into victory points by the craftsmen that each player recruits. There are also a number of other actions that players may choose from to give them bonuses, recruit more craftsmen, gain certain privileges, buy and sell resources, and so forth.

Components

If it has nothing else going for it, The Pillars of the Earth definitely has some high-quality, beautiful components. The board is absolutely gorgeous, with a painted picture of the village, castle, and other surrounding area all centered around the construction site for a medieval cathedral. They also included lots of high-quality cards with nice art. There are actually four sets of cards involved (Resources, Craftsmen, Events, and Privileges), which are all used in different ways. The Resources and Craftsmen are available each round for selection, and receive quite a bit of handling and wear. I think I would have preferred for these to be heavy, cardboard tiles rather than cards, because mine are already showing some wear after only a few plays. The Event and Privilege cards work fine, even though I would have liked them to be a little larger (and therefore easier to shuffle).

There's also a ton of wood in the game. First of all, there are piles of colored wooden cubes to represent the different resources (Sand, Wood, Stone, and Metal). There are also four sets of player pieces in the usual colors (red, blue, green, and yellow), including disk-shaped markers for the victory point and gold tracks, large pawn-shaped figures for the Master Builders (3 for each color), and lots of cool "advanced" meeples (which actually look like humans rather than the Carcassone-esque "marshmallow-men") for the Workers. And then, of course, there are the six pieces of the beautiful, wooden cathedral, which basically just serve as round markers.

It takes a little time to set everything up, including setting all the wooden bits in the right place, dividing the cards into the correct stacks and preparing each one, and picking a starting player (the person who last visited a cathedral, according to the rules).

Basic Gameplay

This is definitely one of those games that takes a heck of a lot more time to explain than to just play, so I’ll do my best to keep my explanation basic and brief. In general, each of the 6 rounds is conducted in 3 phases.

First of all, starting with the first player and moving around the table, each player makes a choice between seven (of the nine) Resource cards and two of that round’s Craftsman cards. To take a Craftsman card requires paying the indicated amount of gold, while you have to commit a certain number of your Workers when taking each specific Resource card (those that give more of each resource require more Workers).

In the second phase, the start player pulls the Master Builder pawns blindly from a bag. The first player to have a pawn pulled out has the option of either paying 7 gold to place the pawn onto one of the different locations on the board or they can pass, which costs no gold but relegates them to going after all the other pawns have been pulled from the bag. This is repeated until all the pawns are pulled (with the cost of placing pawns reduced by one gold each time until the rest are all placed for free). After that, all “passed” pawns are placed for free again in the order of their original pull. The start player also gets one “do over” during this phase, where they can return one just-pulled pawn back to the bag. If that same pawn is pulled a second time, however, it enters play as normal.

In the third phase, a series of different actions take place in a certain order, many of which are based on the different locations where players placed their Master Builders. The 14 steps of this phase go very quickly, because they are mainly just the resolution of decisions made in phase 2. Here are brief descriptions of each step:

1) An Event card is revealed. There are ten different events available, five good and five bad, but only six randomly chosen ones will appear in a particular game.

2) If a player placed a pawn at the Bishop’s Office, they can choose to ignore the effect of that turn’s Event. If it was a beneficial event (or otherwise decide to not be immune to it), they can take any one resource from the Market.

3) Any Workers not used by each player to claim resources now produce one gold each at the Wool Shed.

4) At Kingsbridge, two Privilege cards are revealed at the beginning of each round. If a player used a Master Builder to claim one of these cards, he now takes it. Some Privileges take effect immediately, while others can be saved for later turns.

5) The first Master Builder placed at the Priory gains its owner two Victory Points, while the second is worth one VP.

6-8) Players now play their resource cards, retrieve their workers, and claim the appropriate numbers of resource cubes from the Forest (for wood), Quarry (for Stone), and Sand Pit (for Sand). 9) The first player to place a Master Builder at the King’s Court gets one Metal resource cube. They also roll a die (numbered 2-5, with two 3’s and 4’s) to determine the amount of gold every player must pay in taxes. All players with a pawn here get to ignore this tax.

10) There are four Craftsmen cards associated with each of the six rounds. Sometimes they are brad new craftsmen, while other times they are just more efficient versions of previous ones. At the beginning of each round, they are shuffled and two are randomly dealt to the edge of the board (to be selected in the first phase) while the other two are placed here at the Shiring. During phase 2, players can claim specific Craftsmen cards by placing a Master Builder pawn below it at this location. These craftsmen are finally taken by the players in phase 3, but each player can have a maximum of 5 craftsmen cards, so taking a sixth means that they must discard one they had previously obtained.

11) At Shiring Castle, the player who placed one of their pawns can claim two additional gray-colored workers for use in the next round.

12) At Kingsbridge Market, all players who took this action get to take turns buying or selling resources. Sand is worth 2 gold, wood is worth 3, stone is worth 4, and metal (which can only be sold at the market) is worth 5. Multiple transactions can be made by each player, but only four cubes of any one resource are available to purchase each round.

13) During this step, players use their Craftsmen to process resources and turn them (for the most part) into Victory Points at the Cathedral. Players can keep up to five resource cubes for the next turn, so it’s also important to do a little planning for the future (since more efficient Craftsmen are available each turn).

14) This is the end of the round. The current start player finally places their piece of the Cathedral and the start player for the next round takes the next piece. If anyone placed a pawn here during the second phase, they become the next start player, but otherwise it just moves to the next clockwise player. After round 6 (when the Cathedral is completed), the game is over and the player with the most Victory Points wins. Ties are broken by their amount of gold remaining.

What I think…

So, what do I think? Did the SdJ jury get it right or did they miss the boat? The simple answer is yes, they made the right decision... but they made it for the wrong reason. Here's why:

My understanding (based on internet scuttlebutt) is that the SdJ snubbed it because it is a little too complicated for their "family-friendly" criteria. But that's the completely opposite view I have of the game, because I don't think it's very complicated at all. In fact, one of the main problems I have with it is that while there sure seems to be a lot of tough decisions to make and resources to manage, most of the choices are either very obvious or are almost irrelevant. In several turns, pretty much the only thing I really wanted to do was get one of the new Craftsmen, and everything else was just choosing which other mediocre choices I wanted to take.

Now, I totally admit that I may just need to play the game a few more times to fully understand the significance of the different actions and to see the larger strategy involved with them. But I usually pick up on things pretty well, and it bothers me that every time I've played I was left feeling kinda empty and unsatisfied by the experience. It seems more like an exercise in not making mistakes rather than in developing and implementing some impressive strategy.

And then, of course, there is one other significant problem with the game. I’m certainly not the first to point this out, but the luck involved in pulling those Master Builder pawns can have a huge (and sometimes quite distasteful) effect on the game. The higher gold cost of the earlier actions somewhat mitigates this advantage, but getting pulled first is always good, because even if you don’t have any particular action that is critical in that round, you can still always pass and avoid paying any gold at all. On the other hand, there are certain times in the game where you absolutely have to get a particular craftsman for your strategy to work. Especially with more players and the limited number of turns in the game, it is very easy to have one or two people whose game can be ruined by this bad luck.

Now, I know I’ve been pretty critical so far, but I don’t want to give the impression that I totally dislike the Pillars of the Earth. In general, it is a very accessible and entertaining game. There are lots of choices available each turn, and simply as an efficiency engine game it is a good challenge.

The Verdict!

• Rules: Lots of choices to learn about, but in general they are all simple and easy to pick up on.
• Downtime: Very little. Most actions are very short and many of the decisions are made simultaneously.
• Length: Since the game moves along so quickly, the length is very appropriate for the payoff. Usually runs shorter than the 120 minutes listed on the box, from about an hour with 2 players up to 90 minutes with 4.
• Player Interaction: No direct conflict, but there is constant competition for the various Resources, Craftsmen, and other actions.
• Weight: Medium - suitable for casual gamers, but it might scare off non-gamer friends.  
• GamerChris’ Rating: I’m definitely not as impressed with it as many people are, but I would still play it most anytime that someone offers it, so I’ll give it a solid 7.