Why Endless Winter: Paleoamericans is Still Dominating My Table Years Later

Ice. Mammoth. Survival. It sounds like every other prehistoric survival game you’ve ever seen on a shelf, right? But Endless Winter: Paleoamericans is different. It’s weird. It’s basically a "Greatest Hits" album of board game mechanics, and somehow, it doesn't sound like a total mess. Stan Kordonskiy, the designer, took deck-building, worker placement, and area control, threw them into a blender with a sprinkle of "euro-style" resource management, and out came this massive, sprawling beast of a game. Honestly, when I first saw the Kickstarter back in 2020, I thought it was trying to do way too much. Usually, when a game tries to be everything, it ends up being nothing.

But I was wrong.

The Weird Logic of Endless Winter: Paleoamericans

Most people think of deck-builders like Dominion or Clank! where you buy cards to make your deck better so you can buy even better cards. In Endless Winter: Paleoamericans, the deck-building is just the fuel for the engine. You aren't just playing cards to get "money"; you’re playing cards to send your tribe members out to do actual work. It’s tactical. You have to decide if you want to use a card for its immediate effect or save it to help you win the "Eclipse" phase at the end of the round. This is where the game gets its teeth.

The Eclipse phase is essentially a massive initiative check. If you’ve committed enough "labor" (the little sun icons on your cards), you move up a track. Moving up gets you rewards, but more importantly, it determines the turn order for the next round. Being first is huge. It's the difference between getting the prime hunting grounds or being stuck with a handful of useless berries.

It’s Not Just One Game, It’s Four

You’ve got the main board where your workers go. Then you’ve got a separate map for "Terrain Tiles" where you’re moving villages and camps around like a traditional area-influence game. Wait, there’s more. There’s also a "Monolith" board where you’re literally stacking stones to get multipliers for your end-game scoring. And let's not forget the animal cards. You can hunt them for immediate food or "tame" them to build a collection for points.

It sounds bloated. On paper, it is. But in practice? It flows. You go to a space, you pay some food, you play a card, you move a guy. Simple. The complexity isn't in the rules—it's in the timing. Everything in this game is about when you do it, not just what you do.

Why the Art by The Mico Actually Matters

We need to talk about Mihajlo Dimitrievski, better known as "The Mico." If you’ve played Architects of the West Kingdom or Raiders of the North Sea, you know his style. It’s chunky, stylized, and incredibly expressive. For Endless Winter: Paleoamericans, his art does a lot of the heavy lifting for the "feel" of the game.

Without this specific art style, the game might feel like a dry spreadsheet of numbers. Instead, when you see a card of a rugged hunter draped in a saber-toothed tiger pelt, you feel the cold. You feel the stakes. It gives the game a personality that sets it apart from the hundreds of other "brown and beige" Eurogames that come out of Essen every year. Fantasia Games knew what they were doing when they hired him. They didn't just want a game; they wanted a vibe.

The Problem With Setup (And How to Fix It)

Let's be real. Setting this game up is a nightmare if you aren't organized. There are dozens of piles of cards: Culture cards, Animal cards, Tribe cards, Chief cards. Then there are the tiles, the tokens, the plastic minis (if you have the deluxe version), and the individual player boards.

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If you just dump everything into the box, you’re looking at a 30-minute setup time. That’s a mood-killer. Most long-term players swear by custom inserts or even just a heap of labeled snack bags. You need a system. If you can get the setup down to ten minutes, the game hits the table twice as often.

Is the "Big Box" Too Much?

There’s this trend in modern gaming where every game needs an "all-in" pledge with six expansions. Endless Winter: Paleoamericans has a lot of them: Ancestors, Rivers & Rafts, Cave Paintings.

• Ancestors: This is the one you actually need. It adds more variety to the tribe and culture cards without breaking the game.
• Rivers & Rafts: It adds a whole new board. It’s cool, but it makes the game take up even more table space. Only get this if you have a literal dining room table dedicated to gaming.
• Cave Paintings: This adds a "roll and write" mechanic to the main game. It’s clever, but it can feel like you’re playing a mini-game while everyone else is playing the main game.

Most experts agree that the base game is actually very solid on its own. You don't need the expansions to have a deep experience. In fact, adding all of them at once makes the game feel disjointed. It's better to sprinkle them in once you've mastered the core loop of managing your food and tools.

Strategies That Actually Work

Don't ignore the Monoliths. New players often get distracted by the map and the hunting because it feels more "thematic." But the Monoliths? That’s where the "math" happens. If you can stack your stones effectively, you can double or triple your points from other areas. It’s the "boring" move that wins games.

Also, watch your food levels. It’s incredibly easy to run out of food right when you need to take a powerful action. Unlike some games where "starving" just loses you a few points, in this game, being broke (food-wise) completely stalls your momentum. You end up wasting turns just to get a single piece of meat. It’s painful. Always have a buffer.

The Verdict on the "Point Salad"

Some critics call this game a "point salad," meaning you get points for basically breathing. While that's technically true—everything you do gives you some sort of reward—it’s a controlled salad. You can't do everything. If you try to build all the monoliths, dominate the map, and collect every animal, you’ll lose to the player who picked two things and did them perfectly.

That’s the nuance. It’s not about finding a way to get points; it’s about finding the most efficient path through the snow.

Endless Winter: Paleoamericans successfully blends different genres because it treats them as tools rather than gimmicks. The deck-building isn't the goal; it's the preparation. The worker placement isn't the goal; it's the execution. It’s a game about a tribe growing over generations, and it actually feels like it.

Next Steps for Future Tribe Leaders:

1. Check your table size: This game is a space hog. Ensure you have at least a 3'x5' area before you even think about setting up the expansions.
2. Organize immediately: If you just bought the game, spend an hour bagging the components by "type" (e.g., all starting cards for one player in one bag). It saves hours of frustration later.
3. Watch a "How to Play" video: While the manual is decent, seeing the Eclipse phase in motion makes it much easier to understand than reading the text three times.
4. Start with the Base Game: Resist the urge to add Rivers & Rafts or Cave Paintings on your first play. Learn the "labor" and "influence" economy first.
5. Focus on your Chief: Each player starts with a unique Chief. Build your entire early-game strategy around their specific ability rather than trying to be a "jack of all trades."