Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization (2015)

How To Play Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization

Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization Gameplay

The goal of this section is not to present a full rules overview, but to give new players an idea of the core game mechanics. For a full overview check out the rules which are freely available on Czech Games Edition’s website. A normal round of Through the Ages has the following phases:

Start of Turn

• Fill up the card row, check and see if the end of an Age has occurred.

Politics Phase

• Do things like declare war, colonize territory, and steal other players’ stuff.

Action Phase

• Do things like creating population, building, and declaring leaders.

End of Turn

• Score culture, produce food/resources/science for the next round, and try not to starve.

In the middle of the playing area is a line of cards, each with a symbol of the related Age. These cards serve as a timer, and as each Age’s deck is depleted, the next Age begins. Players move through the phases noted above, back and forth, until all the Age decks are depleted.

Cards are divided into two categories: civil and military. Civil cards represent concepts like technology, units, wonders, or leaders while military cards contain things like war, aggressions, colonization, and unit tactics. There is also an event deck that will fire during the Political Phase when players introduce new events into the flow of history. Certain events grant points at the end of the game, so managing the event deck becomes a priority for final scoring.

Action Pools

Players also have two pools that determine the number of actions they can take in a turn: civil and military. In order to play a card, the cost is paid by spending either a requisite civil or military action and the appropriate point cost on the card.

There are three main types of points that can be used to pay for things in the game: food, resources, and science. A primary goal throughout the game is to create an engine that generates these points faster than your opponents. Players also need to be aware of effectively spending resource points they have generated. If they don’t, the corruption mechanics of greed and avarice kick in which will bleed away those precious resources to the black market.

Your government type determines how many of each action you have available to you on your turn. Despotism provides 4 civil and 2 military actions

Managing Your Workforce

Population, food management, and happiness are also key concepts. Workers are generated through the production of food. They are then placed on cards to note the type of points (food, resource, science, culture, etc.) that unit of population generates.

However, the more workers a player has, the more happiness they need to create to keep the populace productive. Happiness is generated primarily through urban developments (like theaters and sports arenas) and the amount produced is noted at the bottom of the population track. If the player doesn’t generate enough happiness to keep his population productive, things break down quickly.

Military Might

The concept of military power is represented as a total strength number for each civilization. Strength is used primarily during the Political Phase when evaluating the impacts of wars, colonization, and aggressions. The main way to build strength is by researching and constructing military units and tactics. Using total strength to destroy other players’ buildings and steal culture points can be particularly effective. Balancing the right ratio of military to urban improvements creates strategic dilemmas for the player.

The military board tracks the players’ total military strength. This is also where the event deck lives.

Leadership in Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization

Leaders are also a source of strength for any civilization. They are represented by civil cards, available for drafting, and the Age they are from is represented on the top of the card. Leaders are all unique and have a particular ability that mimics their place in history. For example, Moses makes generating population less costly; Gandhi makes it more expensive for other players to declare war, etc. Leaders can be changed over time and their selection can bolster different player strategies.

Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization Review

“Knowing how to keep all of those plates up and spinning is something you can improve at, but the fact that everything in Through the Ages is housed in a few shuffled decks of cards makes each game new. It’s a brilliant blend of strategic and tactical decision-making, as you know which cards will appear, but not quite when. The “when” is important. Everything, really. Knowing when to adjust and when to keep firm on your long term plans is something I still don’t know how to do well, even after probably twenty plays. Every time it’s fresh and exciting.”

thethoughtfulgamer.com

“Through the Ages is a comprehensive civilization-building strategy game in which players vie to have the most lasting impact on the world. Gameplay focuses primarily on tactical card drafting and skillful resource management, as you balance the needs of your culture, technology, diplomacy, military, and production.

With seemingly hundreds of things to keep track of at any one time, it’s not for the faint-hearted. But, if deep strategic civilization games are your thing, you’ll do well to find a better-put-together one than this.”

Joe Jones, gamecows.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and meeplemountain.com. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.