Episode 179: Ecos: The First Continent

Ecos: The First Continent is a resource management, hand management, tile laying, set collection(ish) game designed by John D. Clair with art by Sabrina Miramon and Matt Paquette, and published in 2019 by Alderac Entertainment Group. In it, players take on the roles of forces of nature molding a new continent by placing and rearranging hexagonal land and water tiles, wooden terrain pieces, and various kinds of animal tokens in order to expand the world but, more importantly, score points.

At the start of the game players will collect their deck of action cards, either by using one of the several pre-determined decks, or by going through a drafting process. Once selected, the players will place three of these cards in front of them as their starting actions. Action cards each have a cost to activate, indicated by one or more boxes with symbols matching the various elements in the game, and a number of possible activations, indicated by a number of leaves on the outer edge of the card. In general, more powerful action cards have higher costs and/or fewer number of available activations. Players will also receive seven wooden power cubes and a Dial Token. Finally, four hexagonal world tiles are placed in the center of the table – desert, forest, and two water – to seed the new continent.

A game round consists of the active player, called the Harbinger, drawing an element tile out of the bag. There are 8 different element tiles in the game, at varying amounts for each tile, for a total of 40 possible tiles. After the tile is revealed, all players will simultaneously EITHER place a power cube on a space matching the drawn tile on any of their action cards, OR turn their Dial Token once clockwise. If the element dial drawn does not match an element on any of a player’s action cards, they MUST turn their dial.

If any player has covered all the element symbols on an action card, they call out “Ecos” and, in player order if more than one player has completed an action, resolve their card. First, the pull all the power tokens on the card. Then, they complete the actions on the card in the order listed. Then, they turn their card once clockwise if there are more activations available, or discard it if not. Actions will do any number of things to the game state – add, remove, or relocate world tiles, place mountain or forest tokens, place, move, or remove any number of different kinds of animal tiles, and so forth. Action cards are also how players score points, with a wide variety of scoring methods available – everything from different kinds of set collection, to simply counting the number of certain kinds of tiles or tokens available, even to sending a shark rampaging through the sea eating as many of everything as possible and scoring points for everything eaten.

Triggering one action card could result in gaining more elemental power, allowing the player to activate additional action cards in a cascading effect.

Alternatively, depending on the active face of the player’s Dial Token, the player may gain additional power cubes, draw new action cards from the available decks, or put power cards from their hand into play.

The round ends when the active player draws a Wild element tile. The round resolves as usual and then, if any player has reached 80 points, the game is over. If no one has triggered the end game, all the element tiles are returned to the bag, the bag is passed to the next player in clockwise order, and the game continues.

01:40:34 – Review

02:06:12 – Ratings

ReRoll

02:13:19 – Dead Man’s Cabal [Buy] – Pandasaurus Games; Designer: Daniel Newman; Art: Henning Ludvigsen, Denis Medri;

Check out our original review for GAME during Episode 154.

Gameplay Photos

* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors. If you are interested in submitting a title for review, please read our Review Policy.

Show Notes

Banter

Plays

News

Ecos: The First Continent * [Buy]

ReRoll

Gameplay Photos

Episode 303: Tag Team

Episode 302: Shackleton Base

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