Earth Review
A gorgeous, simultaneous-ish euro that streamlines lots of Euro concepts.
Construct an island full of plants and terrain within our home planet! Catch is, everyone’s turns will activate other’s islands! A wholesome, time efficient, family friendly game. This tableau builder plays from 1-5, 45-90 minutes.
Video published January 30th, 2024
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Attract organisms to your island.
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Activate colors, left to right.
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Pick from a massive hand of cards!
Story
We learned this game in Abu Dhabi using our friend’s deluxe version, then bought a copy and played it more times at home! Also, played it once on BoardGameArena!
Plays:
5 Player: 3x
4 Player: 2x
3 Player: 1x (BGA)
Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!
Component/Art PROS
Awesome wooden growth pieces and sprouts
Normal and multi-color toppers all fit well together
Combined on cards look like actual plants growing
Natural feeling touch to each game board
Incredible detail to each card can draw
Habitats, Latin Names, Room for growth/sprouts
If interacts with other cards, has arrows
Flavor text for education
Objectives have percentages of cards it asks for
Cards all easy to read in how consistent and color coded they are
Iconography Pros
Almost everything makes sense
e.g. planting, composting from deck OR hand, drawing, getting soil (aka dirt)
Color activations have icons to help colorblind
Rulebook Pros
Excellent, plenty of diagrams, clear wording, helpful boxes
Nice addition of a beginner mode to get started fast
Gameplay Pros - IMMEDIACY of Crunch
Setup has 6 double sided cards to make crucial starting load out of 3 cards
If do right, get 20-30 VP swing as pair with objectives in the middle
Get more cards, resources, or flat VP?
2/3 of starting cards have color activations, to start planning an engine
2 of these cards have color activations to start planning an engine
Not surprising early game already have combos that go off on others turns
Early turns have ABSURD matrix of choices
Every card draw matters, what you plant matters, what you discard matters
When to use instant events? (Yes can play on others turns)
Have a TON of cards in hand to keep options immense
Activation to draw is draw 4 (Yellow)
Bonus for green is seeing 4, keeping 1
Earth’s early game is like other Euro’s mid-late game (or late game)
Gameplay Pros - Orienting plants in your island
How to fill eventual 4x4 grid really matters
Terrain gives points for certain types of cards next to it… or its row… or column!
Ecosystems that reward you for building your island a certain way
Plants can let other plants around it produce more
When activate cards it’s always left to right (like reading book)
Order in which plant abilities matters
Gameplay Pros - Combo GOODNESS
Combos early game helped form initial setup
Massive options in hand keep combos coming
e.g.: Get a growth, then a cube, then 2 dirt by discarding, then spend growth just got to draw again
e.g.: Yellow sprout that copies another ability for huge options
For more see our video review!
All plant activations are optional, get to choose player board before or after island, so crunchy deciding to do each conversion
Gameplay Pros - Massive card diversity
283 draw-able cards with no uniques
179 earth cards have mushrooms to shrubs with different archetypes
66 Terrain cards all let build differently
38 Event cards can play anytime
Gameplay Pros - Insane replayability with lots of different strategies
Can pick certain color and go hard on it
Go hard on terrain to see how many point multipliers get
Try to do all objective completion ASAP then try to end the game fast
Grow and sprout like crazy (easily get 20 a turn)
Fill trash for compost points
Get lots of cards in hand (terrain & ecosystems that give points for this)
Basically anything can be treated as points with the right load out
25,6000 possible starting setups, not even including drawing from deck
Gameplay Pros - Balance feels finely tuned
Even with all unique cards, many overlaps and card draws
Can have busted event opening, but on average won’t happen
On average everyone starts with something good
Gameplay Pro - Simultaneous-ish Gameplay Works!
In practice pretty much everyone is going at same time, once hear the color selected, you do your thing
Clever because adding more actions into the game without adding more turns
With masses of cards in hand, with events that activate at any time, there’s always something to look at
Addresses the Euro downtime problem well
Really is under 1.5 hrs after 2nd game with 5 players
Gameplay Pros - Easy to see other’s boards
Easy to see they have certain colors to not activate that color
In low player counts (2), easy to see if someone doesn’t have cards in hand, then can plant.
Likely a tighter race of central objectives
Visibility is here if want to check out other islands
Gameplay Pro - Awesome Progression
If color gets activated that you’re invested in, get TONS of stuff
Even if didn’t invest that much in 1 color that is chosen, with dual-colors, cheap cards, and wild colors, everyone mid game on average is getting quite a bit of stuff from every color
Islands keep churning out faster, line go up
Eventual tension to see someone’s island is almost filled, and game about to end
Should you try to end the game first, or take turn to exploit your own combos?
Gameplay Pro- Nature theme meets Gameplay
Literal ecosystem in your island that you’re building towards
Terrain helps other plants grow
Mushroom plants are dirt cheap, but can’t grow much height on them
Shiitake mushroom is a cool exception
Trees can grow a lot of height
Making island habitable for animals to come (which are objectives)
Events are really thematic
Tons of dirt from mudpots/lava flows
Heat waves and sun rays give growth
Giant flood gives lots of compost (new fertile soil)
Composting unused plants from hand makes sense
Component Cons
Not enough plastic bags to store cards/tiny pieces
Hard to see objectives in the middle
Too small (same size as cards in hand)
Should show objective on both sides of card, then name in the middle
Objectives also need examples of specific cards they’re asking for
Iconography Cons - The Leaf Symbol
Leaf VP symbol is the exact same as compost
To show that both worth raw points, but confusing because you’d think points interact with compost
Same symbol is on back of cards, which deceives you into thinking its part of the game art
Sprout symbol is ALSO the leaf symbol
Solution: change personal compost symbol to look more like trash, give sprouts own symbol
Iconography Cons - Flora
Flora never explained anywhere while playing, where some cards/objectives ask for it
Flora is any plant card with green border, should should have it explained on bottom of player boards
“Flora” can also be written in green text
Recommender Score - 10/10 MASTERPIECE!
Obviously there are some component cons as we said. And yes your card hands are gonna get GIGANTIC, but you can organize it since you’re playing in person, which really stood out after playing on BGA, where all of those suckers splayed out on screen was an eyesore. Anyways, this plus the aforementioned cons are pretty much negligible in the grand scheme of the IRL Earth experience, and Earth is offering SO much to Euro fans out there who want a faster engine building experience: see putting stuff on your played cards to get points… just like laying eggs in Wingspan.
Of course Earth is more diverse with more point salad-y aspects, with so much insane hand management and events being dropped everywhere. Hey, Earth has a lot of card game-isms that some playing CCGs like modern Yugioh. Like, oh snap I’m gonna have this massive chain of events, then activate blue which starts popping off my island! Or I can activate events IN THE MIDDLE of my activation… or during anyone’s turn like trap cards!
Oh yeah cards, let’s talk about randomness! Yes, the central deck 283 cards and everyone is drawing from it. But the randomness is actually totally well handled, since you draw SO much in this game, whether it be sheer drawing, or drawing and then keeping some of those. On average, games will feel reasonable, and sure someone can get a busted opening, but getting a couple of extra points doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things among Euro veterans.
Earth ends up being a VERY tactile experience, where you’re touching stuff as much as you’re taking actions, which is everyone’s turn so constantly. There’s the growth and sprouts to fiddle around with, your hand demands organization, and you’re taking actions and activating your islands on other people’s turns! Who can make the most calorie efficient point salad as you find the tiniest details in your hands and squeeze for the best juices before someone completes their island.
Combine that with a beautifully presented game with a seamlessly integrated theme, and we got ourselves an legit 10/10. Now of course not everything about the theme makes complete sense, we’ve seen rainforests on desert islands, and this supernova card ummm could blow up your island, but hey this is enough like a nature simulator where you feel like you’re touching grass even when you’re not.
Earth is just a feels good game where stuff is constantly happening, good stuff keeps coming to your island, you can’t really neg points, and so it’s like the line just keeps going up. Everything really matters to win consistently since it’s a point salad, but also since there’s so much conversion of resources, including a built-in one, everything doesn’t always matter if you’re just playing for fun! You don’t just really feel bad. So in Earth, you’re a grower AND a shower, GROW GROW GROW your boards look nuts!
You may say, oh there’s one of four colors, easy game! But be warned, Earth still isn’t the easiest Euro out there to jump into, there’s just SO frontloading of info. There’s tons of Symbols and cards to look at, and tableau placement matters! It’s a really good step 2 gateway game, that is if you’re already really into Wingspan, Splendor, or 7 Wonders, this is a fantastic choice, and maybe even shorter than those.
And for seasoned board gamers, it’s also really good! A huge draw IS that lower time length with the genius simultaneous-ish play, while still being super crunchy and accelerating so much tableau building satisfaction to the beginning of the game. There’s a lot of mechanics and combos, and IMMENSE REPLAY value for those who maybe don’t have time to play the full length of Gaia Project or Terraforming Mars.
One last thing, Earth is good for small groups AND big groups! With larger groups, no worries about downtime, although optimizing your island is SO complex that this is pretty multi-player solitaire. In 1v1, the game gets a lot tighter with only 1 other person to track, so then the race for central objectives gets tighter. Like you’ll actually play around our opponent having terrain that gives them points for colors in other people’s islands!
