This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components may change in the final game. You can follow the game here and check out the crowdfunding here.
When I reviewed the base game of An Age Contrived, I described it as being one of my top ten games of 2024. After multiple more plays, I would firmly stand by that. The game is brilliant, and gets better and better with more plays. I am no way near done with the base game yet, but was intrigued to find out what this second main expansion after 2024's Ad Infinitum brings to the table. I would recommend reading my base game review if you have not played that game first to get a better understanding for the base game before reading on. You can reach that here.
This new expansion is made up by three main parts. Two new characters, the Folklore Module. And the Pilgrimage Module.
First, let's look at the two new characters, Chronari and Valimod. They offer their own unique focus on the game. Chronari has increased powers in time manipulation by moving Transmuter Tiles into position five instead of one after you Advance. They do this by exhausting one energy. This allows you to re-trigger any recently used Conduit tokens to gain their benefit again. A powerful benefit!
Valimod focuses their power on the Tile pool. Valimod has the power to Teleport to the Tile pool when any Wild energy is activated, counting their mini itself as two energy. They can then teleport back out to any non-bridge location when this energy is exhausted during a claim action, choosing any direction to face you place your character down.
It is always nice to have additional options for which character to use in games like this. I like these two new characters and feel they offer a fresh and unique skillset to the game. Neither feels over powered and both offer something new.
The second main addition is the Folklore Module which brings in encounters with mortals for each player. The idea for this part of the expansion is to bring in more thematic ties to the games routes, increased player interaction, and to fix some complaints from the base game, introducing more meaningful movement on the main board with your miniature.
This is very easily introduced into the game, simply adding the board extension, cards, artefacts and tracking cube into their player area during set up. The Artefacts and tracking cube are placed into set areas on the board extension. The cards are shuffled and three are chosen at random for each game. It is all pretty seamless and adds less than a few seconds to set up.
During the game, when you recharge your Channel Marker, you can now prime an Artefact by moving it to the top central spot on your character board extension. You can only have one primed artefact at any one time. Now, when you move your mini on the main board, if you end your movement on a non-bridge space, you can place a primed Artefact onto this space. Your movement ends, but you can now play one of your three Folklore cards from your hand. If your opponent has an Artefact in this space already, you can perform two actions from your Folklore card. Your opponent with an Artefact here can then do one action of their own. If this is the first Artefact to be placed here, you simply get to perform one action from the card. At the end of the game you will score additional points based on your final position of your tracking cube.
This brings in some additional interesting ideas that do indeed make your character's movement on the main board a lot more interesting. The options on the cards are all very well thought out, bring some exciting new options. And I like how they can be triggered both actively on your turn and passively on other people's turns.
The third and final part of this expansion introduces a new element called Mortal Pilgrims which bring new strategies and combo opportunities for more experienced players, looking for extra twists and turns in the base game play.
There is a thin additional board that is now added to the main board during set up. Place this to the side of the main board along with the metal Shrine frames, eight Shrines, four Blockade Tokens, tracking cube and Pilgrimage mini. Replace the two Neutral Bridge tokens usually used with the new new ones here.
When you Recharge your Channel Marker you may now increase your Pilgrimage speed by moving your tracking cube on the board. There is a maximum speed of two. You can also place Energy onto the spaces on this new board just as you would usually with the normal Monuments. When you complete a Shrine on the new board players will not bind their Energy as part of this completion. When you participate in the completion of a Shine you can move their Pilgrimage on the board based on their current speed plus the number of energy they have on the Pilgrim board. When you move to a completed Shrine you will gain the shown benefits. The at the end of the game you will score additional points based on how far you were able to advance your Pilgrim.
This is my favourite part of this new expansion, in that I feel it makes the biggest and most obvious change. The Folklore module feels like a tweak. The Pilgrimage module feels like an actual full expansion. Its up to you if you think the game needs that or not. I happen to think it does not need it. It is good enough already. But I do think the game is made better by its presence. And I would always now include it in any game. I like the extra drama this brings, the choices it offers, and the additional points scoring opportunities.
There are also revised player aids to be used with or without this expansion, that clear up a few previously commonly misinterpreted rules. Such as how the Monument Tokens work, and what happens when you place energy into a Monument. These help with or without the added components of this expansion.
If you are a fan of the base game, I would certainly recommend this expansion. It makes the game a little better and offers a few more choices. If you do not like the base game, I do not think this will change your opinion of things necessarily that much. The expansion seeks to address issues with the base game and proudly talks about being "Guided by feedback," such as the issues around the main map having minimal relevance to your overall game experience, and the newly introduced Folklore module. However, I am unsure if this was a massive issue for me to start with, or if this module really makes it that different. It obviously course corrects somewhat, but the point I am making is this game will not be fixed for you if you did not like it to start with. It will make it a little better, but your issues will remain. Whereas if you liked it to start with, then I expect it will just make you enjoy it even more.
I mention this simply as I am torn on this point around responding to feedback. I like it and dislike it in equal measures. It is obviously good that a designer is willing to listen to feedback and make the game better based on this. But I do often worry about scale. If one person moans loudly, but thousands enjoy the game in silence, who is listened to? Especially if that person who moaned was a famous YouTube reviewer! I just think that you need to take into account the numbers when listening to feedback, and see what actually matters and what would actually make a game better or enhanced.
Don't get me wrong. This expansion does do that. It does make it better and enhance the experience. The motivation just somewhat concerns me.
It is worth noting that this has been advertised as the final expansion for the game, so if you want everything, this is it. There will not be anything else added at a later point. A nice fact to know for any completionists out there.
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