By Adam Roffel
When Earth first released, a friend of mine picked it up and introduced it to me. I thought it was a really good experience. But I got beaten so badly that I didn't really want to keep playing. At Gen Con last year, we popped into the Inside Up Games room to check out Earth: Animal Kingdom. After a few demo rounds, I decided I wanted to give Earth another try.
The outcome is still much the same: my wife kills me in this game. But I've come to enjoy the turn-to-turn mechanisms, and now I cannot wait for more Earth content to become available.
How Earth Works
In Earth, players place flora cards into a 4x4 tableau. The goal is to score as many points as possible at the end of the game. Most cards feature some type of plant. They generally provide base points, the ability to grow the plant for more points, and spaces for sprouts. They can also have zero, one, or two coloured abilities.
What cards you play will depend on the strategy you employ. Some cards provide high base points and end-game scoring but won't give you ongoing benefits. Others have great ongoing benefits but fewer points or opportunities to grow. Having a good mix is the key to victory, and I think that is what makes this game so compelling to me. Pond also rewards careful card choices, although it uses deck-building rather than Earth's tableau system.
At the start of a turn, players choose one of four actions. The active player gets a major benefit, while everyone else gets a minor one. Then everyone goes through their tableau, activating abilities that match the chosen action's colour and collecting the benefits.
Maximizing Turns to Earn as Much as Possible
You can earn and spend various resources in Earth, including growth on your flora. Soil is the primary resource you spend, covering the cost of the cards you play. Sprouts and growth on your flora cards can also be spent to activate abilities. I'm still learning when to gain these resources, when to spend them, and how to get the most out of both.
For example, if you have a lot of "Spend Growth" actions, you might want cards that provide growth! Growth is also worth one point per piece at the end of the game, with extra points for fully grown plants. Sprouts work much the same way. You can spend them to activate abilities, but each one left in your tableau at the end is worth a point.
Your basic actions help as well. In various combinations, they provide soil, compost, sprouts, cards, and growth for your flora. Ultimately, though, your game will live and die with your ability to balance all the various aspects that earn you points.
In one game, for example, I had too many cards that gave me the growth ability. By about the three-quarter mark of the game, I had no additional room for growth and was wasting these cards when activating my tableau. Obviously, I had played too many growth cards and should have been playing other things instead.
Not a Perfect Experience, Made Better by Expansions
Two things can frustrate me when playing Earth. Earth: Abundance helps with one of them. The other depends on who you're playing with.
In Earth, you can end up with an astronomical number of cards. If someone already takes forever on their turn, giving them 10+ cards isn't going to help. I love my wife, but she takes a LONG time taking turns in this game as she decides which cards to play. That works out for her, though, since she's always won. It doesn't make the game any shorter.
The other issue doesn't happen often, but I find it more frustrating. It's one reason I recommend Abundance. You'll draw a lot of cards throughout the game, so you'd think you'd always have what you need. But near the end, when you're working on those last few card plays, you might not have the card you need. That can cost you important points in your tableau.
Perhaps you need a mushroom card for one of your end-game scoring cards or need a little extra growth to take advantage of one more tableau activation. For me, it was needing a card with a base value over three. I needed one more to meet the central objective and score some serious points. There are a few point rewards to compete for, but I didn't have the right card in hand.
Without the Abundance expansion, it was just a sucks-to-suck situation. With the Abundance expansion, I was able to use a seed token to search the deck for a card with the feature I needed.
The Animal Kingdom Invades Earth
Like Abundance, Earth: Animal Kingdom requires the base game. It's a fantastic way to add new ideas to Earth. Each player has the chance to add one or two animals to their tableau. Their wooden animal pieces can move between cards, and using a leaf activates their individual abilities. Those abilities can provide resources or scoring opportunities.
The animals look amazing, and their different powers add complexity for people who play Earth a lot. Alongside the asymmetric animal powers, a shared Global Ability activates at the end of each round and affects every player.
Earth Is Worth It, Even All on Its Own
Even without Abundance and Animal Kingdom, I think Earth is still a fantastic game, and I'd play it anytime it came to the table. Having both expansions mixed in makes this a 10/10 experience in my opinion.
There are obvious frustrations when playing with the wrong people, but that is not a problem with the game. With the right group, Earth is a blast each and every time.
Earth Board Game Review Summary
Liked
- Different card abilities, growth, and sprouts provide plenty of strategic options.
- The four-action system gives everyone something to do on each turn.
- Abundance's seed tokens help find cards with needed features.
- Animal Kingdom adds distinctive animal abilities and more strategic depth.
Didn't Like
- Turns can drag when players spend too long choosing between cards.
- Finding the right cards for late-game objectives can be frustrating without Abundance.
Adam Roffel
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