Divine Deeds and Devotees - a preview of Folklore & Pilgrimage

We have received a prototype of Folklore & Pilgrimage to try out before the Kickstarter campaign launch. We’re quite fond of An Age Contrived as it’s a very unique and layered game, so we were curious what the expansion had to offer. After trying it out let’s take a look at the details!

TL;DR

With Folklore & Pilgrimage you get three things.

First, there are 2 new asymmetric characters to play with all their tokens and boards. A pretty straightforward albeit awesome addition to improve replayability.

Second, the Folklore module. This module allows players to place Artifacts on the map and play Folklore cards for unique effects with each God getting their own deck of cards. Using this module makes moving on the main board more meaningful and it also adds a much needed new use for the Recharge channel token effect.

Third, the Pilgrimage module. You get a separate board where you will construct 8 shrines during the game. It’s a bit similar to completing Monuments, but is much easier and quicker to accomplish. Your Pilgrim token can ascend on a track visiting these shrines and activating their effects. This, again, adds a new use to the Recharge effect.

With the new modules there are some new avenues for getting victory points, and you can also get scoring cards that improve the standard scoring conditions. All-in-all a pretty great expansion that makes the game better, but also a bit longer and more complex.

New Characters

This is a pretty self-explanatory addition. Two new characters with new abilities and components. But let’s see what their asymmetry looks like in a bit more detail.

First up is Valimod with white colored tokens. Activating a wild energy (level 1 ability) lets him jump into the tile pool where he counts as 2 energy you can spend later to buy transmuter tiles. When this happens, he teleports out to any non-bridge space. The level 2 ability continues the tile-shopping theme, as he gets one-time bonus movement depending on the conduit icons on bought tiles. The level 3 just lets him load energy into the top row of transmuter tiles that have conduit symbols on them. It is not bad if you have enough exhausted energy, but it might not bring much if you lack energy in the bottom row for actions.

The second new god is Chronari with bright red tokens. His level 1 ability lets him load the just used wild energy and another one from the exhausted pool into an active tile - a pretty strong and versatile ability, I must say! The level 2 ability is also interesting, as he can slide in a transmuter tile from the right side when Advancing, so he can easily reactivate Conduits. The level 3 is something completely new, letting him deconstruct a part of a monument while constructing another one, which could help get more chances to activate a specific monument bonus again, or bind energy there later.

Folklore

The Folklore module brings in cards which represent godly deeds. Each player has a 6 card deck, from which they get 3 cards at setup randomly, or optionally by drafting. To play these cards you have to place Artifacts on the board. To place an Artifact you have to prime it first by using a Recharge action (instead of refreshing your Channel token). There are also some placement rules: the first Artifact can’t go in your starting region, and you can only place one Artifact in each region. This makes movement on the map more important.

When you place an Artifact, you can choose 1 of your 3 cards and activate an effect on it. Each god has its own deck, so the abilities on the cards have some of their theme, but there are some common effects like:

• Loading energy in some way
• Binding energy to a Pillar of Civilization spot
• Moving up the Folklore track, which is a new source for victory points.
• You can get doubler tokens, that practically double one of your energy tokens on the map - just as if you had 2 of the same token there for any purposes
• There are new scoring cards you can pick that enhance one of the normal end game scoring conditions for you.

There is an additional mechanic: whenever you place your Artifact in the same spot as an opponent’s Artifact, you get to choose two effects from your chosen card instead of just one, and they get to reactivate one effect from one of their previously played cards. This adds some positive player interaction and even more reason to move around. Unfortunately, with 2 players it didn’t feel very meaningful to go for this, unless you get something essential.

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is a bit bigger module. There is an additional side board with 8 buildable Shrines (with similar magnetic cardboard structures as the Monuments), plus everyone has a Pilgrim token. Pilgrims will walk up the track as Shrines are built, activating completed Shrines they visit and unlocking more end game points the further up they are. You also track the speed of your Pilgrim with a cube, which you can raise when using the Recharge actions (again, by skipping refreshing your Channel marker). Some effects will require you to decrease your speed, so it is kind of like a resource you have to manage, in a sense.

Building Shrines works similarly to building Monuments but with some key differences. They have energy slots where players can deploy their energy in the usual ways, however it doesn’t have to be fully filled for a completion to trigger. If someone has 2 energy tokens at the end of any turn, then everyone who has at least 1 energy there will be able to build a Shrine anywhere on the Pilgrimage board. Used energy is activated and exhausted as usual, but if someone only had a single energy token they can choose to leave it there. An important difference is that no energy is bound anywhere.

The game is also slightly longer with Pilgrimage, as you don’t just need to complete every Monument for your player count, but also all 8 Shrines - though to be fair, I found that Shrines are quite quickly built, but they do divide your energy-attention a bit. On the plus side it is another area to send your energy so you get more choices. As Shrine completions are often triggered, it is also a good opportunity to activate energy for their useful effects without binding them anywhere.

Some more thoughts

An Age Contrived felt like a complete and rounded game to me that puts a lot of emphasis on player interaction instead of being a point-salad eurogame. I wasn’t sure how the expansions would seamlessly add to that, but after playing it, I have to say I like what I see. As usual, we had a limited time with the prototype and only played it with 2 players, so keep that in mind - and that everything you read here might change in the final version. So here are our first impressions:

There is now more to do, and decisions are harder to make - I guess playtime and downtime increase, but the puzzle of each turn is made more compelling at the same time.

The most welcome changes are definitely the mechanisms that encourage movement on the map, and the additional ways to use the Recharge action which wasn’t all that interesting before. Now - if you include all modules - it becomes a real dilemma to decide what to do with that action. Keep in mind that you’ll have to forfeit the basic ability of recharging your channel marker to do something else. This also makes the action upgrades that let you additionally Recharge more attractive.

The two new characters are good to have and add to the replayability. We found Valimod’s ability very creative and the option of jumping back to the map at any non-bridge space resulted in some nice combos. It made the Claim action much more interesting for that character, even in later turns when buying new tiles wouldn’t be as rewarding anymore. Chronari’s ability to instantly construct or deconstruct a part of a monument seems powerful, though to be honest I didn’t have the time to properly evaluate the uses of this. I need more plays in the future with him.

The doubler tokens, scoring cards and new tracks make scoring a bit more varied which is nice, though my favorite are the Folklore cards that add a welcome infusion of theme to the game - we are mighty Gods after all and not just marathon runners. Plus even more of the beautiful art and colors that I find so appealing!

Some bonus two-player thoughts: The Folklore cards and Artifacts are definitely the weak point at this player count, as it is not necessarily worth it to walk to your opponent's Artifact. I was afraid how hard it would be to complete 8 Shrines with 2 players (as their number doesn’t change with player count), but it didn’t prove to be an issue at all. We enjoyed Age Contrived with 2p before and the expansion doesn’t change that.

As always, thanks for reading!