Thames & Kosmos Kingsbridge The Pillars of The Earth: The Game

This is one of the best worker placement games I have played. The mechanics are creative and fit the theme of the game and the board is beautiful. The rules suggest you start playing and read the rules as you go (once you've set up) and that is unique and worked well.

Great thematic ties to the book. This game was very difficult/expensive to come by for a long while, but thankfully you can finally get it for a reasonable price. One of my favorite worker placement style games with a few interesting twists. Very solid, not too long, great production and look. Highly recommend.

Fun, two-hour, game for up to four players with many different strategies to accumulate victory points.Having loved the book series I really enjoyed how well the game brings in characters, production and problems from the books into the game.Plays quite differently with three versus four players but both are fun.

I gave this gift to my fiancé because he loves pillars of the earth books. He enjoyed the subtle tie ins into the book. I enjoyed the game having no knowledge of the books. It’s pretty easy to learn, just follow the steps directly and it helps you play just fine. Lots of replay value too!

Excited to get a 2 player game but haven't played it yet as rules seem complicated

Pillars of the Earth is one of the all time Euro classics, and it still holds up today! You don't have to be a fan of the book to enjoy the game either! POE is a mixture of worker placement, resource management and action (card) selection! The rules are simple and the game can be taught in less then 10 minutes! All you do in Pillars is gather resources and turn them into victory points using worker cards....that's it. You have worker cards (upgradable and more powerful as the game goes one) that allow you change resources directly into VPs at a (very) low rate at the start of the game.The real strategy in POE comes from when to spend money(always tight), deciding which resources to specialize in and when to upgrade your workers to score even more VPs.Uniquely, Pillars has two worker placement phases! The first phase is based on selecting action cards that allow you to either gather resources or by better workers. The resource cards allow you to gather one of the three resources (wood, sand, stone) for the cost a certain amount of workers from your worker pool. The costs are high and the resources obtained are low! Efficiency is the key!The second phase of POE is the placement of your three "master builders". The master builders are placed on one of the the board's 15 worker spaces. The Master builders give you all kinds of powerful abilities. However, they way and order they are placed are what put Pillars of the Earth into the upper tier of Euro-games!The placement of the master builders in POE is a fantastic and original first player (for placing your master builders on the board) mechanic that brings real tension to the game. The first player marker is a dial with values/costs from 7-0. Each player has 3 'master builders' (workers) that are randomly drawn from a page by the current first player. The master builder first drawn from the bag determines give the player of the matching color the option to PAY for the privilege of going first during the master builder phase. The first round, the cost is 7 gold-a lot in this game. If that player passes, his master builder is placed on the '7" space and passed over. Then another player's builder is drawn and that player can now pay 6 to go first. He/she can pay and place, or also pass. In which case, the '6' is covered by that player's master builder and the whole process begins again with cost being '5'. The repeats until all players have paid or passed until the cost drops to '0', In which case placing your builders (still drawn from the bag) is free. Then,once all the masters are drawn from the bag, the pawns still on the dial are placed in the order they passed.The production value of the game is still fantastic all these years later; the board is beautiful and building the giant wooden cathedral in the center of the board (used as a turn marker) is a awesome.The only flaw of the game (and why it loses a whole star) is that Pillars of the earth is a TERRIBLE 2-player game! Sorry to say so, but it's true. The game does NOT scale well at all. It's two easy at 2 players and there are no tough decisions or meaningful player interaction! What a disappointment, If you're looking for a good 2-player game, Pillars of the Earth is not for you. However, if you need a GREAT 3-4 player game, POE is FANTASTIC!

I bought this game as a collectible, but I discovered it is a great game to play with new and mid-level gamers. It is an older worker placement game that still has a lot of fun to offer modern gamers. I would like to see this game reprinted with update rules and play pieces.

Great game for this price