Stone Age Board Game Rules

Overview

Stone Age is a worker-placement board game set in the early days of human civilization. Players take on the role of tribal leaders, assigning their people to gather resources, build structures, develop tools, and advance their tribe's agricultural knowledge.

Players: 2-4 | Goal: Score the most victory points by building huts, collecting civilization cards, and advancing your tribe.

Game Setup

• Each player starts with 5 people and 12 food
• Place the game board in the center with resource areas, buildings, and card stacks
• Shuffle civilization cards and building tiles; place them face-up on the board
• Each player's agriculture marker starts at 0 and tool markers at 0

Worker Placement

Each round has three phases: placing workers, resolving actions, and feeding your tribe.

Players take turns placing one or more workers on available board spaces. Once all players have placed all their workers, actions are resolved.

• Resource areas (Forest, Quarry, River, Hunting Grounds): Place 1-7 workers. Roll dice equal to the number of workers, then divide by the resource value
• Hut: Place exactly 2 workers (male and female) to gain a new person
• Farm: Place 1 worker to advance your agriculture track by 1
• Tool Maker: Place 1 worker to gain a tool
• Buildings: Place 1 worker to claim a building tile
• Civilization Cards: Place 1 worker and pay the resource cost

Resources

Resources are gathered by rolling dice. The total is divided by the resource's value to determine how many you collect:

• Food (value 2): Easiest to gather, needed to feed your tribe each round
• Wood (value 3): Basic building material
• Brick (value 4): Used for buildings and cards
• Stone (value 5): Valuable construction material
• Gold (value 6): Rarest resource, high value in scoring

Buildings and Huts

Buildings are purchased by paying the required resources. Each building scores victory points immediately when built. Some buildings require specific resources, while others let you pay any combination.

• Simple huts: Pay any combination of resources; score points based on total value
• Specific huts: Require exact resource combinations; score fixed points

Civilization Cards

Civilization cards provide both immediate effects and end-game scoring bonuses.

• Immediate effects: Gain resources, food, tools, agriculture advances, or points
• End-game multipliers: Score bonus points based on your people count, buildings, tools, or agriculture level
• Cards cost 1-4 resources depending on their position on the board

Tools

Tools let you add to your dice roll when gathering resources. Each tool adds +1 to your total. Tools are single-use per round but reset at the start of each new round.

• You can have up to 3 tools, each upgradable to a maximum of +4
• Tools fill left to right: first tool maxes out at value 1-4, then the second, then the third
• You may use any combination of tools on a single dice roll

Agriculture Track

Your agriculture level determines how much food your tribe produces automatically each round. At the end of each round, you must feed your tribe:

• Each person needs 1 food per round
• Your agriculture track provides that many food automatically
• Any shortfall must come from your food supply
• If you cannot feed everyone, you lose 10 victory points

Scoring

The game ends when either the building stack or one civilization card stack is empty. Final scoring:

• Points from buildings (earned during the game)
• Civilization card end-game multipliers
• Each leftover resource is worth 1 point
• Penalties from not feeding your tribe (-10 per incident)

The player with the most victory points wins.

Strategy Tips

• Balance between growing your tribe (more workers) and feeding them
• Tools are extremely powerful for resource efficiency; invest early
• Agriculture reduces food pressure and lets you focus on building
• Civilization card multipliers can swing the game at the end
• Watch what other players are collecting; block key card positions
• Gold is hard to gather but valuable for flexible building payments