Thanks for your thoughts on this game, very much apprectiated. Never played TM, but i LOVE GP. The game mechanics are simply great, I will now add AOI to my collection. I think it is different enough to justify having both, maybe in the same manner as Brass Birmingham and Brass Lancaster.
Wow that was a quick turnaround. Man feels like there so many euro releases this year. Never played the original terra mystica or Gaia project. I am definitely intrigued but admit right now I'm euro out. Will add to my list of wants when I tire on one of my heavier euros. As always thanks for the thorough explanation. Until next time.
Great video. I have the big box terra mystica. Looks like you can use Merchants of the Seas expansion here and variable end game scoring bonuses from the Fire and Ice expansion.
Power cannot be spent unless it is in bowl 3 and you have to move from bowl 1 to bowl 2 to bowl 3 before you can spend it. However, I believe you can push and eliminate power from bowl 2 to move to bowl 3 at anytime right before you take a power action.
I have Gaia and love both the theme and gameplay. Now i want TM, becouse i love Fantasy themed games as well. So, i should go with AoI right? It's better than TM? Artwork looks more detailed and vibrant at least. Also, can you play against 2 and 3 automas as you can in Gaia? 🙂
For sure. Age of Innovation is a more refined and better version of TM in my opinion. It also has a built in solo which is not part of the original TM game. As to playing against multiple bots, I am sure you can make that work but I am not sure exactly how.
My opinion is Age of Innovation. It takes the best from the other games, refines it and makes it better. Also, you can mix and match a lot more content in Age of Innovation to make the game more interesting and replayable.
Thank you, John, for a glowing review. I own Terra Mystica, all expansions, and the automa box. Permanent keeper. Absolutely love it. I also had Gaia Project still in shrink, but I sold that off. I figure that since I had TM, and GP had the same basic mechanics, all I needed was TM (which has a less cluttered look to it too). Just placed my order for Age of Innovation 👍
I’m lowkey kind of upset that I spent around $100 for the TM big box about a year ago and now this version is out. TM is a great game but now I almost feel like I have an inferior version of it. Maybe the saving grace is that the expansions are included in the big box (which I haven’t even gotten to yet). This new version looks great
I could see that issue. That’s why I think most folks who have a lot of TM content need to look closely at whether or not Age of Innovation makes sense to purchase. If you look at the rules, perhaps you could see if the expansions have made much of this a reskin or not in regards to the buildings, abilities and competencies. I never played any of the expansion content for TM, but this version certainly seemed to weave in a lot of the influences from Gaia Project.
Man I really like your channel and reviews, but it would be helpful if you could give some numeric rating or label to the games. It does not need to be 1 to 10, you can make it a "burn / dodge / play / buy" kind of thing. Or maybe "not for me / fine / great / amazing", etc.
So I try not to put a rating on things because I don’t want to influence peoples own opinions of what I am showing them. However, I will say that most of the games I review end up as an 8 which is a very broad category for me. All of my game ratings are on BGG too. In this case, I rate Age of Innovation a solid 10!
I find "generic fantasy races terraforming terrain" such a boring theme compared to aliens colonising the solar system from Gaia Project. But this looks like the most complete package with the best components.
The theme is the only bad thing about the game. I don’t know why they didn’t do a better job there. Regardless, I did make the choice actually. I sold Gaia Project in favor of Age of Innovation and am not looking back. I think it is just the most fun and most varied of all 3 of them.
I have to agree with you on this one. I typically prefer fantasy settings, but the theme of Gaia Project fits so well with the mechanics of those games. I think I prefer the resource tracks of Gaia Project compared to coin and wooden cubes.
