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In 2007, a new publishing company — Czech Games Edition (CGE) — was established and released its first titles: Galaxy Trucker, also by Vlaada Chvátil, and League of Six by Vladimír Suchý. Fast forward years later to 2015 when Chvátil and CGE released a revamped and slightly retitled second edition of Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization, which was followed by an excellent digital adaptation in 2017. The Through the Ages app is considered by many (including myself) to be one of the best digital implementations of a board game.
The natural next step was for Chvátil and CGE to further enhance the Through the Ages experience, so the New Leaders and Wonders expansion was created and released in 2019...well, digitally at least. Finally in 2020, the analog English-language version of the New Leaders and Wonders expansion is here. Considering that the New Leaders and Wonders expansion has been available digitally for some time, I wanted to let you know what you can expect in the tabletop version, much of which is also available in the app. (Note that I received a review copy of Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders from CGE.)
If you're not already hip to Through the Ages, here's a high-level overview of this challenging, card-driven, civilization-building game for 2-4 players:
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Each player attempts to build the best civilization through careful resource management, discovering new technologies, electing the right leaders, building wonders, and maintaining a strong military. Weakness in any area can be exploited by your opponents. The game takes place throughout the ages beginning in the age of antiquity and ending in the modern age.
One of the primary mechanisms in TTA is card drafting. Technologies, wonders, and leaders come into play and become easier to draft the longer they are in play. In order to use a technology you will need enough science to discover it, enough food to create a population to man it, and enough resources (ore) to build the building to use it. While balancing the resources needed to advance your technology, you also need to build a military. Military is built in the same way as civilian buildings. Players that have a weak military will be preyed upon by other players. There is no map in the game so you cannot lose territory, but players with higher military will steal resources, science, kill leaders, and take population or culture. It is very difficult to win with a large military, but it is very easy to lose because of a weak one.
Victory is achieved by the player whose nation has the most culture at the end of the modern age.
One of the primary mechanisms in TTA is card drafting. Technologies, wonders, and leaders come into play and become easier to draft the longer they are in play. In order to use a technology you will need enough science to discover it, enough food to create a population to man it, and enough resources (ore) to build the building to use it. While balancing the resources needed to advance your technology, you also need to build a military. Military is built in the same way as civilian buildings. Players that have a weak military will be preyed upon by other players. There is no map in the game so you cannot lose territory, but players with higher military will steal resources, science, kill leaders, and take population or culture. It is very difficult to win with a large military, but it is very easy to lose because of a weak one.
Victory is achieved by the player whose nation has the most culture at the end of the modern age.
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The New Leaders and Wonders expansion seriously amps up the replay value of Through the Ages! Players have plenty to chew on here with the added variety of not only forty new leaders and wonders, but also nineteen new military cards and different variants for incorporating the new leaders and wonders with the base game to maximize replayability. In addition, New Leaders and Wonders includes rebalanced versions of some cards from the base game as well as additional base game cards to adjust the game length for three- and four-player games.
Due to changes in printing technologies, there was no way to match the backs of the new military cards to the old ones, so CGE ended up reprinting all of the base game military cards for this expansion due to the importance of maintaining secrecy with players' military cards. I understand this wasn't the original game plan and it caused some delays, but kudos to the CGE team for taking the extra steps to get it right.
As mentioned above, the New Leaders and Wonders expansion also includes additional cards to rebalance the base game. The rebalancing decisions were made based on the opinions of experienced players and statistics from tens of thousands of online games. I personally have not played the base game alone enough times to speak to the impact of these changes, but the good news is that you can choose to use the rebalanced cards if you like them or continue using the original version. The goal was to make some of the stronger cards that experienced players would always tend to swoop up a little less powerful, and in contrast, make some of the weaker cards more powerful to entice players to choose them more often. Here are a couple of examples of original base game cards (left) vs. expansion rebalanced cards (right):
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You can see the new version of Napoleon Bonaparte is less powerful now that it grants only one military action (red cube) instead of two, whereas the new versions of the other examples are a bit juicier; Hanging Gardens now grants players a two-food bonus upon completion, and Fundamentalism has a reduced science cost and provides an increased military value.
CGE also addressed imbalance in the action cards between player counts. In the base game, the same number of action cards are used for all player counts, which made them harder to acquire in three- and four-player games. This was addressed by adding more action cards for 3+ players so that these games will have slightly more cards than before. Due to social distancing, I have not been able to play any three- or four-player games of the tabletop version to see how it feels, but I can certainly appreciate all the research the CGE team did to realize these rebalancing changes were needed.
Besides the abundance of new and updated cards included in this expansion, there are different ways you can incorporate the new leaders and wonders which will for sure keep Through the Ages fresh and interesting, game after game:
• You could play a "Pure Expansion" game in which you replace all the base game wonders and leaders with the expansion wonders and leaders and follow the usual game rules.
• You could alternatively play a "Secret Mix" game in which you combine the base game and expansion leaders and wonders and not know which will be included until they appear when you're replenishing the card row. You'll basically separate the cards by age and type (leader vs. wonder), then shuffle each deck and draw six leaders and four wonders for each age in a two-player game, and seven leaders and five wonders for each age in three- and four-player games. Incorporating additional leaders and wonders in three- and four-player games now is a solid tweak considering more players are competing for them.
• You could also play a "Public Mix" game, which is perhaps my favorite because it incorporates the new proxy cards that are used in conjunction with the new wonder and leader boards. This is an awesome new addition for strategic planning. You'll know exactly which leaders and wonders are coming down the pike, but you don't know exactly when they'll appear in the card row.
When playing the "Public Mix", you use the specified number of leaders and wonders, but instead of shuffling the selected leaders and wonders into the appropriate age civil card decks, you display them, one age at a time, on the new wonder and leader boards so that all players can see them before they enter the card row. How will these wonders and leaders make their way into the card row? That's where the proxy cards come into play.
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Each proxy card has a number matching the numbers on the wonder and leader boards. You shuffle the proxy cards into the civil card decks for each age, then when you are replenishing the card row, if a proxy card appears, you discard it and replace it with the corresponding wonder or leader that matches its number. Once all the wonders and leaders have been moved to the card row for a given age, i.e., once the wonder and leader boards are empty, you refill both boards with wonders and leaders for the next age.
Seeing the leaders and wonders ahead of time really helps you plan, but does not guarantee you'll score the card(s) you're hoping for. This set-up might even save some time during the overall game since players can examine the future wonders and leaders ahead of time when it's not their turn. I'm all for trying anything to make the game move a little faster. I'm sure not everyone will love the "Public Mix" variant as much as I do, but the point is that you have plenty of options to explore, which will introduce more variety to the game.
When I initially dabbled in Through the Ages, I didn't quite get into it...or shall I say, I didn't quite get it. Let's face it — this is a hard game to play. After playing more, inspired by many of my friends who are TtA fanatics, I'm pretty hooked and appreciate it more with each play. I still have a lot to learn, but I do enjoy it. The engine building is challenging considering it's an extremely tight balancing act of trying to keep up with literally everything — military, science, culture, food and resource production, etc. — to stay afloat, but it feels so satisfying when your civilization starts to really develop and grow. The player interaction is incredibly enjoyable, too, with players driving the political events and having the ability to create pacts and initiate aggressions and wars with other players.
The New Leaders and Wonders expansion adds so much juicy variety and spice to an already awesome game. If you enjoy expansions like this that mainly add variety and increase the replay value of a game with minimal rules changes, I suspect you'll dig this expansion for Through the Ages. Even considering the rebalanced cards alone, you might consider this an essential expansion depending on your experiences with the base game, but for me, a Through the Ages rookie, I think I'm mainly into this for all the added flavor. Of course, ask me five years from now when I have more games under my belt and I might have a different response.
If you're already a big fan of the base game, I'm sure the Through the Ages: New Leaders and Wonders expansion is probably a no brainer, but if you're on the fence and curious to try it out, I recommend checking out the app adaption first. It's solid with an excellent tutorial, and it's a great way to see whether this is something you might want to delve deeper into.
Also, if you're interested in hearing about the origins of Through the Ages, you can check out Vlaada Chvátil's designer notes. I've found them to be quite interesting and insightful!
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