Through the Ages - demo game and rules explanation

[rho21]

Round 4



This turn I have a lot to spend to avoid corruption. Each time you build a stage of a wonder, you mark that stage with a blue token from the bank. They all go back to the blue bank when the wonder is completed, but part completed wonders contribute to corruption. Not that this matters here because I want the Pyramids ASAP.

I finish them immediately with three actions, two of them using up the engineering genius cards. This gives me another civil action at once, so I have 2 left, with which I take Iron. I use Hammurabi's power for an extra civil action to increase population. I'm still going to be corrupt though, so I spend my remaining military action on a warrior.
I didn't really want a warrior this early, though it will probably be useful later. However, if the Age A event comes up which lets you turn an unused worker into a warrior, I shall probably have to skip it as I won't be able to spare the population away from other duties. In hindsight, it would have been a better move to save my Engineering Genius I for a later wonder and not have to build that warrior.

alert. Definite mistake this time: I should have saved Engineering Genius I for a later wonder, spending resources instead. This would have let me avoid corruption without having to build that warrior. Oh well.

CH triggered our second event:

Less good for me this time as I have lots of resources already. Still, more is usually better when it comes to, well, everything. With lots of civil actions and resources I will be able to upgrade to iron quickly, then afford a second wonder.

Edit: oops, got confused between turns. The text that was here about open borders is now in Round 5.

Aside: obviously I'm paying much more attention to what my opponents are doing than I'm telling you about in these short summaries. My plan is to do a catch-up look at how they've been specialising their civs in a few turns' time. Their progress will become more relevant once we start competing on strength for events, colonies and aggressions.

[rho21]

Urban buildings

This update, I'll tell you a bit more about the different types of urban building. There are five of them: our starting technologies include a Lab and a Temple, later we can get Arenas, Libraries and Theatres.

Labs


Remember, these urban building technologies produce their effect for every citizen working on them, and it's possible to spend an action to upgrade a citizen on an urban building to a higher level one of the same type, paying the difference in the resource cost. As a result, higher level labs are particularly sought after: you start with a citizen on a lab and often put a second one there early on, consequently you can upgrade which is relatively cheap in resources.

As expected, they cost progressively more science and resources to discover. The marginal gains from one level to the next are relatively small compared to the science cost, so you will usually end up skipping Scientific Method if you have Alchemy.

Libraries


The other urban buildings that provide science are the libraries; they also throw some culture into the mix. Printing Press is quite weak, but the others can be an excellent way of building your score (from mid Age II you can hopefully afford to invest in that) while improving your economy at the same time.

Temples


Temples are the default source of happiness, and provide a little culture alongside. The Age A ones aren't stellar but can be a useful way to invest a few resources with the plan of upgrading later. The later temples are an excellent option for keeping your citizens entertained efficiently. There's no Age III temple available, presumably representing the decreased role of religion in modern society.

Arenas


Arenas are the other main source of happiness; they also provide some military strength. A very good alternative to temples, particularly in the early to mid game where the boost to military strength is very significant.

Theatres


Finally, theatres provide the largest available boost to culture, and come with a small amount of happiness. These won't really function as your sole source of happiness, as you can't afford to use that many citizens in them. They are an excellent source of culture though, if you can afford to invest in them.

[rho21]

Round 5



This turn I discovered Iron and upgraded a couple of bronze mines to iron mines (expensive at 3 resources per upgrade, but it will pay off pretty quickly). I used the remaining civil actions to pick up Breakthrough and Cultural heritage, both of which will give me a little more science to keep me afloat in that department. This is one reason civil actions can be so valuable: you can often use spare ones to take a yellow card that will temporarily bolster an area you are weak in.

CH fired off yet another event: this time we all gained two food.

chumchu's political action is a proposal of open borders (a pact) to CH.

This is definitely inspired by the right of passage from Civ III! A nice advantage for both players, but a big risk of backstab.

CH accepted, which is probably the right move. A third military action is very useful.

[rho21]

Sorry for the poor update pace, real life got in the way. I have more time now, and an outline for the next few posts, so I can hopefully catch up a bit.

[Cheater Hater]

Sorry for the poor update pace, real life got in the way. I have more time now, and an outline for the next few posts, so I can hopefully catch up a bit.

Don't worry about it too much--if you're way behind I don't feel quite as guilty about skimming through

[rho21]

Colonization

I mentioned colonies earlier, but not what they do or how you get them. As previously stated, they are played into the future events deck, just like regular events. When they are popped off the top of the current events deck, however, they trigger a colonization auction.

Each player, in turn order starting with the player whose turn it is, either passes or increases the current bid to any amount of military strength that they can afford to pay. Once you have passed you are out of the auction, which continues in order until one player's bid is unopposed. (If all players pass without bidding, the colony is discarded.)

The player who wins the colony must pay (at least) the amount they bid, summing their colonization bonus (if any), the value of any defence/colonization cards they choose to discard and the strength of the units they sacrifice (i.e. take the yellow token from the military technology and return it to the yellow bank). They must always sacrifice at least one unit. Should they sacrifice an entire army, they gain the tactics bonus for it (more on that later).



Colonies can be pretty expensive to take: to fully replace your losses costs food and civil actions for the population, plus resources and military actions to rebuild the sacrificed units. This is why a colonization bonus can be so valuable: you can often afford the biggest bid that only sacrifices a single unit, and your opponents may not be willing to sacrifice more.

Of course, for this cost to be worth it, colonies have to be pretty powerful. Let's take a look at a few:


The centre of the card indicates the immediate, one-time bonus the card provides (if any), while at the bottom is an ongoing effect. Obviously some are better than others: the ones that provide lots of yellow tokens are often particularly valuable, as they mean you require less food production and less happiness, and will likely end up with a higher population eventually.

[rho21]

Round 6



So here's a turn of great on my part.

I began by seeding my first card to the future events deck: the Inhabited Territory (a colony) I picked up last turn. This caused the fourth Age A event, which turned out to be Development of Trade Routes: 1 science, 1 resource and 1 food for everyone. Note that it appears in the "Future events played" section of the interface to help me keep track. This also scored me my very first point of culture.

I finally got around to building a second philosophy, to bring my science income to 2. That expense plus upgrading my final bronze mine to iron dealt with the impending corruption and allowed me time to pick up Frugality, plus Swordsmen to provide me with a future military option.


Lastly, I was able to take Christopher Columbus for free, using Hammurabi's ability to pick up a leader for one fewer action. Columbus is a really nice leader to pick up at the end of Age I: I can hopefully fire his one-off ability, then pick up an early Age II leader to replace him. And that's where the comes in: why on earth did I seed that colony into the deck when I was about to pick up Columbus? I'm relatively low on military actions and will probably need to spend most of them upgrading my military fairly soon, so I'm far from certain to draw another colony to use his ability. Argh. This definitely shows the value of thinking through your turn before doing anything!

[Aside: the interface has a feature to undo your action phase, which lets you sim through a complicated turn, trying various things out before committing. This can undo a passed political action, but can only undo to the start of the action phase if you have used your political action (as they typically reveal information you wouldn't otherwise have).]

Edit: Forgot to mention, Cheater Hater seeded another event this turn, causing Development of Settlement to pop as the final Age A event, giving us all a free population increase. If you think these events are awfully nice, that's true, but the ones from now on mostly won't be. Many of them are affect the weakest player negatively or the strongest player positively, so it's definitely time to start looking after your military strength.

[rho21]

The End of an Age

Here's a really important feature of the game that's about to happen but I haven't mentioned yet: the age ends when the cards in the civil deck run out.

At the end of an age, all players discard certain things that are two ages out of date (e.g. Age A things at the start of Age II):

• Leaders in play
  
• Wonders still under construction
  
• Cards from hand (both civil and military)
  
• Active pacts
  

This is designed to force your civilisation to change over time, and to provide some urgency to building wonders and playing cards. On the plus side, it means that cards you took but no longer want to play won't clog up your hand forever.

At the same time, all players discard two yellow tokens from their yellow bank. This is a really big deal and can easily bite you if you're not prepared for it. I assume the idea behind this is to provide an incentive to increase your population earlier while it's cheaper. It's definitely one of the most arbitrary rules though, and the most likely to mess up a beginner's game if not allowed for.



Lastly, both the civil and military decks are discarded, and replaced with those from the new Age. (If the military deck runs out during the age, the discards from that age are reshuffled into a new deck.)

An age change happens three times in the game: at the ends of Age I, Age II and (notably) Age III. Age IV doesn't last long and has no cards, but the military deck from Age III is still removed from play.

[rho21]

Round 7



As you can see, there's just one card left in the civil deck, so the age will be ending at the end of my turn. Phew, just time to wring one more use out of Hammurabi.

I should draw your attention to the Personal Notes section in the bottom left, which lets you store notes to yourself. I find this particularly useful to record the events I've discarded, so I know what won't be showing up... no cause for that with Hammurabi, I simply haven't drawn enough cards to have to discard before this turn.

Note also that Iron is greyed out in the card row. That's because I've already taken a copy of this technology so can't have another.

I haven't drawn an event to seed (let alone a colony), so nothing useful to do with my political action.

There's another special rule for leaders that if you play one to replace an existing leader, it gives you a civil action back. [A bit arbitrary, and only in this new version of the game; I think people were skipping Age I leaders entirely in the old version, and this is to provide a bit of a bonus for replacing leaders quickly.]

Anyway, this means I can use Hammurabi's special ability to spend a military action instead of a civil action to replace him with Columbus, and get a civil action back as a result.


I picked up St Peter's Basilica, which I regard as one of the best wonders in the game. Not because its power is particularly special by itself, but because it improves so many other cards and strategies. Remember the Theatre line of urban buildings, and how they provide lots of culture but not enough happiness... suddenly they produce the happiness you need too. Or you can skip happiness techs entirely and rely on your starting Religion card. A couple of Age I leaders combine really well with it too.

My hope is to be able to pick up Opera relatively early in Age II and use them for both happiness and culture. We'll have to see how the game plays out though.

I also discovered Swordsmen (using Breakthrough for a couple of extra science) and built one, increased population (using Frugality for two extra food), built a religion to temporarily deal with the happiness problem (just in case we see one of the events that penalises you for unhappy workers) and picked up Patriotism to assist with improving my military later.

This means I don't get any military card draws. I considered not using Hammurabi's power in order to have a spare military action instead of a civil action. But I decided that investing the civil action in Patriotism (giving me an extra military action when I play it, plus resources) was the better play.

My opponents also began to increase their strength this turn. Apparently we're all worried about nasty events coming up. The first event from the new deck is a colony though:


Chumchu seeded the event, and starts the bidding at 3. As I'm holding no bonus cards, it would cost me all my military units to outbid that! CH also passes - not the most thrilling of auctions. Chumchu sacrifices a swordsman for 2 strength plus a bonus card to make it up to 3. It's nice when colonies come up on your turn or the turn of the player before you, as it allows you to sacrifice a military unit without fear of being attacked before you get a chance to replace it.

[rho21]

Tactics

So, what are the tactics cards I've mentioned in passing from time to time? Here's a selection:


Tactics represent grouping your military units into a fixed army structure, and provide a bonus for each such army you own. They start off simple and weak: a couple of infantry can form a fighting band and get 1 extra strength. By the end of the game, a pair of infantry, some cavalry and artillery might form a modern army for 13 extra strength.

As you can see, tactics from Age II onwards have a second number in brackets. This is the bonus if any of the units that makes up the army is from a technology two ages behind the tactic: say warriors in a defensive army or knights participating in a modern army.


Air forces appear on no tactics cards; instead each one has the special effect of doubling the tactics bonus for one of your armies. This can be extremely powerful with later tactics.

To play a tactics card, you pay one military action and lose the bonus for any previous tactics you had. Make sure you're ready to build your new army!
A turn later, your new tactic becomes available to everyone else. To adopt someone else's tactic, you pay two military actions. The idea of this is that you can get a temporary advantage from a tactic you draw, but other people won't be entirely ruined by the misfortune of not drawing any.

So how do tactics usually play out?

• Age I tactics are nice to have: they will bolster your strength a little and help you win some event comparisons.
  
• Age II tactics are vitally important: they have serious numbers on them and don't require too much technology (or resources spent on advanced units) to get the full benefit from. Look to win aggressions and wars with these.
  
• Age III tactics are lovely if you get a useful one and have appropriate technology. They're not that much more powerful than a good Age II tactic though and the technology and resource cost to power them can be prohibitive.
  

You will often be looking to have two armies in play whenever possible, from age II on. That's a significant amount of population and resources, but the investment is usually necessary to remain competitive in strength. This is not a game that's easy to win militarily... but it's very easy to lose that way.