Earth. A game that immediately enticed me and was at the top of my wishlist for a while. Then it dropped lower on my wishlist. Then up again. Then back into the "I'm sure I'll get it sometime" kind of spot.
I'm sure glad I'm at "sometime" and that it's found its way onto my shelf. 😀
I knew from day one that the theme grabbed me. I LOVE all things nature. The idea of creating an island full of a wide variety of flora using soil, sprouts and trees to your advantage, while creating this engine building island of beauty, speaks to me. I immediately saw it as a game that would be relaxing to me like a Wingspan, and in some ways PARKS (although that game is less relaxing due to those pesky rangers in solo mode😋). All of which have beautiful artwork that makes your table look incredible while you enjoy the game.
I dove into learning the game Thursday evening after work this week, and with some time before our home opener for the college soccer season yesterday, I sat down to play my first solo game against "Gaia", the Earth AI opponent.
Here is a look (granted not my best pic) of the solo player board early in the game. I was using the beginner/medium difficulty actions at the top of the player board. In Earth you choose from one of 4-actions: Plant, compost, water or grow. The cool mechanic in Earth is that on EVERY turn, ALL players will take actions. If it's my turn, I get to choose/activate an action so I would take the actions in the top row of my selected action. Let's say planting for this example (top left action in the above pic). As the player who activated that action, I would plant up to 2 flora onto my island (a 4x4 grid of beauty), and then draw 4 cards from the draw deck; keep 1 and discarding the other 3 (in a regular game. In the solo mode, my 3 discards goes to Gaia's compost pile which helps gain her points at the end of the game). Meanwhile, the other player would take the bottom row action of the planting action space. It's a similar action but a less impactful one than for the player who activated the action. After that, players would then activate the cards on their island of the colour shown in the middle of that action selection (green, in the case of planting). And from left to right on your island, you activate those actions on the cards (that's the engine building part).
On my player board you can also see three cards going across:
The island card (left): Which tells you your starting resources and hand, and provides a coloured action for your island (in the case of my game yesterday - whenever I activate the watering action space, it activates the blue actions on my island cards. In the case of yesterday's game - my island card's blue action gives me 2 soil if I activated the blue actions).
The Climate card (middle): This gives me an on-going boost with an action colour throughout the game, that's added to my island.
The Ecosystem card (right): Is an end game scoring boost, which also helps dictate your strategy in how you're building your island.
*Note: This is strictly my own personal scoring ability. In a more advanced game of Earth, the "Fauna" board would have two public ecosystem cards to allow for additional scoring methods.
Below my island cards on the left, you can find the 'Event card' pile. These cards can be played ANYTIME and offer ways to trade and/or gain resources such as soil, sprouts etc. Sometimes though they will cost you negative end game VPs, so you have to choose wisely. 🤔
To the right you can see the cards with "Earth" on the back - That's my compost pile. These cards are worth 1-VP each at the end of the game (as are sprouts that are on cards on your island). However, throughout the game you can turn that compost into soil and other resources to utilize which makes it an interesting decision making situation on what you'll do to earn VPs.
Here is Gaia's player board part way through my game yesterday. She has 6 cards (green earth cards) that you draw from. You turn the top card of that pile and set it on her discard pile face up (right). From there, you first take actions yourself (top row of actions on her card), followed by her actions which are below on the card. Above in the pic, she chose the Grow action. She gained 7-tree trunks/canopy pieces (top right of her board) and would get another piece for every card I took that turn. In this case, I had the option to take two tree trunks/canopies OR draw two cards; I took the trees.
The solo game ends in two ways:
-Gaia's solo deck is gone through twice (12-rounds).
-I complete my island (4x4 grid).
Gaia does not "build an island" but she can grow sprouts just like the player can (top left green cubes) - which get her 1 VP each at the end of the game.
The leftmost pile of Earth cards is her compost pile.
Beside that, faceup, are discarded cards that would techinically act like her island, which give her VPs at the end of the game. These often come from discards I chose not to keep as the player.
Here's a terribly blurry shot (what was I doing yesterday? I feel shame) of the basic side of the Fauna board. These remind me of awards and milestones in Terraforming Mars. Anyone can snag these as they build their island and as they meet the requirements of the Fauna cards. On the basic side of the board, whichever ones you complete, you get 10VPs. In the pic above, you can see my blue leaf token on the top right Fauna card as I completed it. Gaia already has two here.
In the middle of the Fauna board is 7VP bonus for the player who completes their island to trigger the end of the game. That was me yesterday on the very last turn!
If you flip the Fauna board over, it's a more competitive game where the FIRST one to complete a fauna card would get more VPs than second, third etc.. Also the more competitive side has the two public ecosystem cards to offer additional means of gaining VPs as I mentioned earlier.
Here's a pic of my island as it's growing. My "Hairy Crabgrass" had to be front and centre for this shot because it makes me smile just saying it. 😂
The island is built in no particular order. However, once you place a card to start your island, the next card has to be orthagonally adjacent or diagonal to another card. Your placement of cards will be based on the various cards you put on your island. For example, my "Beach Rose" plant, gives me the ability to place 1 sprout on each berry card in that column when a blue action is taken.
Here is my completed island yesterday. Beautiful!
I lost to Gaia; 187-167 (which I was quite happy with for my first go at building an entire friggin' island and ecosystem 🤣).
Overall, I really love this game and I'm excited to explore more. It's quite simple to learn. The actions and engine building are very satisfying to me. Each card (like Wingspan) has flavour text at the bottom, providing facts about that card's real life counterpart (which I love that learning aspect in games like this).
Oh! And I should mention that there is also a TEAM MODE you can play in Earth as well, which would be helpful while introducing hesitant non-gamers perhaps. Very cool!
I will absolutely be adding all the expansions to this one. I'm so happy to have Earth on my shelf.