INNOVATION: THIRD EDITION

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A Relic in an achievement pile or in the available Relics area is not affected by any rule or effect that affects standard achievements. Only the rules that apply to Relics may affect it.

Before executing any of the effects, the amount of times that the featured icon of the activated card (the small version of the icon that precedes each effect) appears is counted on each player's board. (A running count for how many times each of the six basic icons appears on each player's board is shown in the BGA player panels.) Any player with at least as many of that icon visible as you will share all non-demand effects. Any opponent with fewer of the icon visible than you is vulnerable to demand effects. The icon count is only performed once per Dogma action, and sharing/vulnerability for all the effects on the activated card will be determined by this count, regardless of how the state of the boards changes while the effects are applied. This time, I’m afraid this luxury is no more. I have played dozens of games of both GP and TM and can confidently say I know the games pretty well (not that I’m particularly good at them :)). In that respect, this review will rely heavily on my with the two games experience – something I can’t erase. But I’ll try to make myself understood by newcomers, as well. What is Age of Innovation?When playing with Echoes, whenever any player would draw a base card for any reason, they might draw an Echoes card instead. In general, if a base card supply pile is empty, all expansion card supply piles of the matching age are considered empty (even if they still have cards in them). Draw a card from the supply pile of the age matching the highest value among all the top cards on your board, into your hand.

Optional rule: The game may be set up to make the achievement goal one higher, for a longer game. In Options during table setup, choose "Enable" for "Extra achievement to win". Do X]. If you do, [Y]"— you must do [X]. "If you do" does not imply that you have a choice. If you have no cards, or no cards of the specific color/value, in the right place, then you ignore the [X] effect. If you do not have as many cards as the [X] effect asked for, you do it with as many as you have, but then ignore the "if you do" [Y] effect (as you did not fully do [X]). If you could not ignore [X], you must then execute the full "if you do" [Y] effect, or as much as possible. In the extremely rare situation that you have no cards on your board, you may not perform a Dogma action. Reveal— Revealed cards are shown face-up to everyone. If a "Draw and Reveal" effect does not specify what to do with the card after revealing it, it is placed in your hand at the end of the effect. Revealed cards are considered to be in your hand for effects that care about whether cards are in your hand.

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e.g., A dogma effect that tells you to meld does not trigger dig events or foreshadow promotions, as those are triggered by the Meld Action.) (While taking a normal Dogma action will be one of your two actions for your turn, dogma effects that have you draw/meld/etc do not use up more actions. Dogma effects that trigger other cards' dogma effects do not use up more actions. If the original Dogma action was a free Dogma action, neither of your two normal turn actions have been used at all) You must choose one of these four actions, you cannot simply "pass". However, it is legal (and sometimes strategically preferred) to perform a Dogma action, activating a top card that will have no effect (for example, the card only has a Demand effect, and no player has fewer icons than you), as a way to effectively "pass" the action. Like the base game, Echoes of the Past has five special achievements, which are added to the five from the base game at setup. Any of these special achievements can be claimed during the game. OK, let’s not beat about the bush here. Asmadi has always stood on the foundation of being pretty basic with their graphic design and artwork. IELLO for the 2nd Edition on the other hand want everything to be pretty and made a very colourful version.

A Relic in your achievements pile counts as a claimed achievement as long as it stays there (remember that Relics can be seized from achievement piles). If any of your opponents shared any of the non-demand effects, and their doing so changed the game state in any way, then after all the effects have been resolved, you must take a free Draw action, with your now-current highest top card (which may be different than what it was before the Dogma action) determining the supply pile you draw from. Unfortunately, there’s no storage solution (other than plastic bags), which makes handling the components fiddly and lengthy. Since a third-party insert is pretty much mandatory for regular play, the publisher could save us the trouble and include at least some insert.Effects are not optional unless they say "you may". Only the part that says "you may" is optional, and your decision may impact the rest of the effect. Draw"/"Meld"/"Achieve"— Dogma effects that instruct you to do one of these things are performed similar to taking the action, but do not count as that action for any purpose that cares about that distinction. In the gameplay aspect, it’s hard for me to find anything negative to say about Age of Innovation. It shows that this is the third title in the series and that the core mechanics are as sound as it gets. The layer over them feels different enough from both TM and GP, that it can proudly stand on its own. Your Demand effects are not executed by your teammate. Your teammate can share in your non-demand effects, but if they are the only other player who does, you do not get a free Draw action.

Claim an/any achievement— Only applies to Standard Achievements. If told to "Claim an achievement of (value [X]/matching value)", you can only do so if a standard achievement of that specific value is available. During the setup of the game, one card from each (base set) supply pile 1-9 is set aside as an available achievement. These cards are always kept face-down, and can never be looked at. They are simply used as markers to denote achievements made by players. The player aids are enough to ensure that there isn’t too much confusion though so we’re not talking Netrunner levels of obscurity. But really obscure terminology is something publishers should be avoiding in their games now. There is no strategy, and that is goodConstructing buildings will expose resource icons on your player mat (these are double-layered this time, yay!): tools, coins, scholars, power cycle tokens, and books. While most are just renamed from TM, the books are new.