YOU HAVE TO ENJOY THIS REVIEW, ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!
INNOVATION!!!!!!!!!
In innovation you have your own civilization and are acquiring innovations left and right, these are the discoveries that make up each of the great 10 periods of time! You are trying to be the forerunner in the innovation game, conquering each time period ! ( Nothing is better than conquering a period, let me tell ya! )
Innovation is a great game. I find that its a bit more of a strategic game, not only do you have to play your board but also your opponents. You have to be smart in how you lay your cards, what dogmas you use. But it also has a smidgen of random due to what cards you draw. Its fun I swear, I am not doing it justice with my words. It seems to be enjoyed by the more competitive players… It has cards that affect others and sometimes it can be slightly devastating for the other player. Game says it plays 2-4 players. I have yet to play with four players sadly but both three and two are very enjoyable. I find that 2 is a bit more targeted. The game has AoE actions and sometimes sadly you have innocent casualties. 2 players is easier to direct the attack lol =) The game is for 14+ and takes about an hour. Thats true depending on players, 2 players goes quicker we have found. Especially after your second play through.
I am a huge fan of the look of this game. Plus the box has a MAGNETIC LATCH!!!! Hello who doesn’t love that?! ( Simple things please me. )
It does have additional expansions, but sadly I don’t have those.So we are just going to talk about the base game. Ok.. Ok!!!
So lets talk about what is in the box.
2 stacks of cards tucked nicely in the cut outs.
One small stack are the 5 cards called domains. These are special achievement cards that count as dominations.
The larger set of cards are the Time period cards. One side is the number or time period side and the second side is the innovation side. 
Each time period deck has the five different color cards.
Each card has 3 icons showing when active or you know, in play. It can be any mix of the 6 we have.
When we take a gander in here , What else have we got…Oh, I see, 4 double sided player cards…
One side tells you what actions you are able to take on your turn.
You get two of any of these actions:
- Draw– Draw a card from the time period of your highest card in play. If there are no cards of that period you draw from the next one. ( If you have to draw from ten but there are no cards then the game ends)
- Play– Play one of your innovations from your hand. ( Easy enough )
- Activate– On your innovations the top card is the active card. You can activate a card and have to do the dogmas that you can do, on it.
This is the AoE dogma.. it has arrows pointing ev-ery-where! This tends to be the nicer dogma. Less friends get mad at you for using these actions. Now to know who can benefit ( from this example ) you count all of the castles on your cards. Not just this card. ( In this example we only have the one card though so we are only counting it lol. ) We have 2 castles so those with 2 or more castles can do this action, in addition to you. Know that they don’t have to do it, but, they have that option.
The cool thing about this dogma is that if another person does benefit then you get a free draw card.
( These are what the game calls them but me, well, I’m a simpler girl. I need no fancy shmancy names like this. )
This is the Attack Dogma.. this dogma has one single arrow. This means you are telling someone to do your bidding. The ones who have fewer icons than you ( this sample is 2 castles ). If you have only one castle… you HAS to do it. MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAAA! You can see how this makes friends hates you. This can target all, some or none.
- Last action is Dominate– Dominating is when you are able to dominate a time period. To do this you need to have five times the time period value in scored innovations, you keep track of these in your influence ( Left side of the card ), and a card of that period active. This is one way to win. The amount of dominations needed to win depends on how many players you have. You keep track of your dominations on the right side.
The second side of the player card explains the game effects:
Archive – Putting a card on the bottom of an active card pile.
Recycle – Returning a card to the same time period it came from. ( Yes, that means to the bottom )
Draw and play – If asked to draw and play, you play the card you drew… duh.
Empty draw pile – If the period you are drawing from is empty you get upgraded to the next period of time! Yay!!!
Splay – This one is rather important. When you splay your cards, this is how you are having them showing and or are using the icons. Some innovation cards allow you to change how you have your cards splayed, otherwise you are stuck with how you first splayed them.
Stacked…Therefore only getting the icons from the top active card.
Up… Allowing you to get the bottom 3 icons as well as all 4 of the top icons.
Right… Allowing you to get the 2 icons on the left side of the bottom card and the full active card.
Left… Allowing you to have the bottom single icon and the full active card icons. I have no clue why people would do this splay.. but to each there own. Even if its silly.
Down… Giving you the single icon on the bottom card and your full active card.
The last thing we need to talk about are the domination and influence sides of your player card.
Influence is gained throughout the rounds. Whenever a dogma tells you to score a card or to receive influence from another player. You place the card with the time period number up into your influence section.
Now if you have enough influence ( 5X number of time period ), a card of that time period in active play and a domination action available you are able to dominate that domain.
Once you have dominated a time period, you are going to grab the corresponding number from the middle of the table and place it under your domination side of the player card.
EASY STEEVIE!!! Once you have enough of those you are winner winner chicken dinner.
Thats it! That is all that is in the box. So lets set this bad boy up!
Warning! Warning! Bigger table is needed than my Itty bitty table. Just WARNING ya!
Place the time period cards shuffled and face down in a numerical circle. You will be drawing your cards from these piles. Then place one card from each time period in the center. These will be the cards you claim for the DOMINATION! ( Infidels, Bow before your new leader ! MUAHAHAHAHA, oops sorry got carried away a bit there, back to …. TOTAL DOMINATION! )
The domains are to be placed in reading view of all players… or closer to players that tend to forget what is on the cards or needed to achieve them… I am one of those people. Love the game, played it a lot.. still forget these cards. (FAIL)
TADA! Board is set and the game is a foot! … No i don’t think that should go there, but, I like it so we are keeping it. =P
give each player two of the first time period to start the game. They must play one then first players turn!
What? Did you want to see it played? Just so happens I have a said bit of a game i recently played right here! By now if you are familiar with me you are familiar with my players. Me n Me too! Me too is a little snippy lately. Don’t mind her it happened when you always come in second. BURN ( Yup, I burned on a totally imaginary counterpart of myself. If you can’t burn on yourself, who can you burn on? Exactly )
The cards are delt!
Me received her two cards and played her Purple card
Me two received hers and played her Yellow card… hehe
( Prime example of to little of room… Note to self.. larger table needed…
Ultimate cosmic powers.. itty bitty living space. )
Let this bad boy begin.
Me has played her purple card and that leaves her with a blue card.. Now nothing wrong with her blue card but she’s going to see if there is anything better in the time period pile.. She Draws, then plays the blue card from her hand.
Me too turn!
She too Draws for her first action.
then she actually plays the card she drew into play. Nice solid move.
Sadly she wasn’t paying much attention to Me, for if she had she would of seen…
Can you read that? No.. Let me. If you have few crowns than i do Me too, which you do.. muahahaha… and if you have 4 or more castles you must give me one of your active cards that provides a castle! But to soften the blow, you draw a card! hehehehe. So now me has a wonderful new card. After activating that dogma for one of her actions she drew a card for her second.
Me too, show me what you can do…
She plays the AoE dogma on her card.. If you have 2 or more castles put into play the lowest card in your hand and draw. she does this…
Now Me wants to do this as well and she has 2 or more castles so she can..
Now she has gotten her second blue so she has chosen to splay her cards up. Giving her really the most icon advantage as she can. especially this early in the game.
Since Me took part and benefited from Me Toos play Me Too gets to draw a second card! yay!
For her second action Me Too is going to play one of her drawn cards.
Go, Me, Go…
Me decides to activate a dogma..Its an AoE but sadly its for Light Bulbs and only Me has those.. 
Bummer Me Too… hehe…
So Me gets to draw from the 2 time period. 
She draws a nice little yellow card. Since that worked out rather well but not as well as she had hoped she is going to activate her Metal working dogma. This is also a AoE but Me Too only has three castles instead of the four needed.
Me gets to draw a 1 card and if it provides a castle she gets to score it and repeat the process. ( Love this Card )
Lame, no castle but thats okay, it goes into her hand.
Guess Me Too gets to go again..
She has decided that drawing for two actions is a good plan.
Me’s turn again.
She is no fool, she has decided to try metalworking again.. lets see…
Look its a castle!!!! To the influence it goes! Come to Ma’ma!
Woot Woot!
For the last action of her turn she is going to play a green card from her hand.
Me too is going to play a card and draw a card.
She seems to be stockpiling here cards a bit…
Me is going to activate her Sailing into play.
Again she is the only one able to partake in this benefit.
She gets a nice new blue.
As well as another go at Metalworking!
lol this goes on a bit …. Lets fast forward
Me has achieved 5 influence, she also has a free action! Lets Dominate people!!!
One down 5 to go…
fast forward again
We continue battling it out till finally Me has kicked serious butt with 4 dominations
and another
and another
Finally we have a WINNER! The prize goes to ME!!!!!!!!!! hehe.
Hope you all enjoyed this little exploration into the world of innovation!
Thank you all for reading and as always, suggestions and comments are always welcome.
Have a game you want me to show? Let me know.
-WarBird signing off.
WarBird Gaming 
