The automotive engineering race of the early 1900’s has taken off. Car bodies are becoming sleeker, engines are becoming more powerful, and consumers are ready to buy. Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering is a reimplimentation of a 2015 release that I didn’t get to play on its first release. Award winning designer Matthias Cramer is behind this game and it’s published by Arcane Wonders. Let’s kick the tires and see what this game is all about.
Turn of the Century
Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering puts you in the role of a corporation that’s trying to make a name for themselves in the early 1900’s. Players will spend money to gain new car bodies and more powerful engines over the course of three rounds that represent decades. With multiple levels of car bodies and engines, players will rely on their two development tracks to build the most advanced vehicles.
Rounds are broken up into a setup phase, action phase, and finishes with a scoring phase. Players will take turns during the action phase that don’t follow a standard turn order in Kraftwagen. Turns are taken on the action rondel that is on the central board. The player at the back of the Action Chain will be the active player. The active player chooses one of the action tiles, moves their company token to that space, and moves the chosen action tile to the next open space in the Chain.
Action tiles will give you one to three actions that can be performed in any order. Kraftwagen gives you a variety of actions that will lean into a couple different directions for building your company.
The research action lets you advance your personal development tracks on your boards. This allows you to gain more advanced car bodies and engines as you build these two items on your player board. Hiring workers will give you the staff you need to sell the assembled vehicle when you’re ready. You can attract a buyer to the market where cars will be purchased at the end of the round. You can even race your vehicle in the Grand Prix to impress the public and gain reputation (points).
Built to Last
A big part of Kraftwagen is building cars and selling them to the public at the end of each round. Players are filling the market with buyer tokens, each one looking for something different in the vehicle they want to buy. At the end of your turn, you can pair an engine, car body, and worker on your player board bring a car to market. You’ll choose the price for this vehicle from the available price tokens. It’s important not to overprice your vehicle, especially if you’re the first person to add a car to the market.
This market is also what brings a round to an end as players take their turns. When a sixth car has been added to the market OR when the market marker is on the fourth space, the round enters the scoring phase.
Players who raced in the Grand Prix that round will be awarded reputation (points) based on their car position and number of laps they completed. The buyers in the market will then purchase the vehicle that best suits their preferences, earning points for the player who brought that car to the market. Since players are pricing the vehicles themselves, this market section of the board becomes very competitive. Players are trying to sell their car, but deeply undercutting their opponents may not be worth it. Knowing or controlling the buyers that are in this market is a big deal. You need to cater your car builds for them.
Building for the Future
Once all buyers have purchased cars, the rest are scrapped from the game. Other avenues that player can go down include recruiting Engineers and Investors. Each of these give unique perks that set your company apart. There are also achievements that players can chase, earning reputation for being the first to accomplish them.
While I never played the original Kraftwagen, it seems like the consensus is that this game improves on the game in lots of ways. I love the visual style they went with and even though I’m not a big car person. The entire game has a classy, old world style to it.
There are so many different ways to approach this game and this makes Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering very replayable. I really like the rondel and how players take actions on their turn. Players are always in competition in this Action Chain. A lesson we’ve learned while playing is to make sure a single player doesn’t have all the control in one area of the main board.
If someone is leaning hard into racing the Grand Prix, they can wrack up large amounts of reputation if they everyone else ignores this track. Giving a player full control over the buyers that are added to the market may keep you from selling your best cars during that round. There is a balance to the game that keeps players invested in each track, at least on some level.
Final Thoughts
The biggest issue with Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering has to be the way it scales with its player count. We’ve played the game at three and four players every time and have had a great time. I can’t say we played it at two players because we put the game away after the first round when we tried it at that player count. In my opinion, this game is purely a three or four player game. Leaning more toward four players.
I’m not sure why I haven’t seen Kraftwagen talked about more often. This game checks a lot of boxes for me. The action tile rondel is fun to interact with. Players are directly competing for the best spot each round. Developing your player board and building a new car is fun. The art style feels both vintage and classy at the same time.
Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering is a game that I enjoy coming back to and trying a different strategy. The game has enough going on to challenge gamers but is still accessible for someone who is newer to hobby board games. If this is your first time hearing of this game, do yourself a favor and find a way to play this game. Who knows, this might be a great new addition to your game shelf.
Kraftwagen: Age of Engineering is available at your local game store, on the Arcane Wonders webstore, or purchase it online through Amazon today.
This game was provided to us by the publisher for review. Read more about our review policies at One Board Family.
Highs
- The Action Chain rondel is well done and competitive
- Lots of ways to earn reputation (points) throughout
- Dual-layer player boards, great art direction, and solid components
- Best played with four players
Lows
- Could not recommend this game for two players
- The rulebook has issues, but many items are cleared up on BGG
