Hello everyone!
Today I want to share my thoughts about my first game of Endless Winter: Paleoamericans.
Endless Winter cover box via BoardGameGeek
Game Overview
Endless Winter is a 1–4 player game for ages 12+ with a playtime of 60–120 minutes. It was designed by Stan Kordonskiy and illustrated by Mihajlo Dimitrievski and Yoma, published by Fantasia Games. My copy is the Spanish edition of the base game published by TCG Factory, with the French expansions published by Matagot.
Endless Winter set up via BoardGameGeek
Theme
Endless Winter takes place in North America around 10,000 BC. Players represent tribal chiefs leading their tribes across several generations to become the most prosperous. Throughout the game, tribes migrate and settle new lands, establish cultural traditions, hunt paleolithic megafauna, and build everlasting megalithic structures.
Gameplay
Endless Winter is a Euro-style game combining worker placement and deck building. Each round, players send tribe members to various action spaces and pay for actions by playing cards and spending resources. Tribe cards grant additional labor, while Culture cards provide unique effects.
Cards can also be saved for the end-of-round Eclipse phase, where they’re simultaneously revealed to determine new player order and trigger bonus actions.
Setup & Components
Setup time is considerable due to the many components, but the game’s insert is excellent and significantly reduces setup time. Everything has its place, no plastic bags with mixed-up pieces! The component quality is excellent, making everything pleasant to handle.
Endless Winter inserts via BoardGameGeek
My First Play
For my first game, I played the most basic setup without the two modules included in the base game, playing solo against the AI opponent using the normal difficulty setup.
The first cycle was slower as I worked to understand the rules and iconography. The game is fully language-independent, and after one round, the iconography started making sense — I needed to reference the rules less and less.
The solo opponent is challenging but really easy to manage. The rules were, in my opinion, very clear.
Gameplay Experience
I definitely made some mistakes and didn’t use the best strategy, but it was a lot of fun!
I love that cards can be used in multiple ways. Culture cards provide actions at the beginning of your phase, while Character cards boost your chosen actions from the player board.
The theme came through beautifully and the actions made sense. Boosting your action with a Character card represents sending help — so more workforce. If you hunt and send a Hunter as your booster, you gain more workforce than if you send a Crafter. It’s intuitive and thematic.
After completing actions, you prepare for the Eclipse phase. Thematically, this makes perfect sense — people of that era believed eclipses were magical phenomena with mystical force that could be harnessed.
Boards of Endeless Winter
Main Board with actions visible
Player Boards - AI player above and human player below
Map Board
Action Variety
During your action phase, you have several options: hunt, hire new characters, obtain new Culture cards, or migrate on the map board. A well-selected action can create a cascade effect and lead to powerful combo rounds.
The Result
Despite my mistakes, I came incredibly close, losing by just one point. Final score: 60 (AI) to 59 (me). So close, yet so far!
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed this game — it’s one I’ve wanted to try for a long time.
One drawback: you need a large table for setup as the game has many small components. Having things more condensed on a single board would have been a plus for me.
Overall, I’m excited to play more games and test all the expansions. I’ll probably return with another post after more plays to see if this first impression holds and how the replayability feels over time.
Your Turn
Have you tested this game? What was your experience, and at what player count did you play?
Related Links: