Through the Ages - demo game and rules explanation

[rho21]

Round 8

With the start of Age II, it's about time we compared the progress of all the civilizations.

Firstly Cheater Hater:

• Food: Moses (who just died) has left CH with plenty of population. Consumption now balances production though, so there will soon be an urgent need for new agricultural technology.
  
• Resources: One of the extra population has been invested in a fourth iron, giving CH a pretty solid resource income for this stage. It's entirely possible to make it to the end with only 4 resource production, but you need to take a lot of yellow cards and be frugal with how you use resources. An upgrade to coal when it becomes available might be advisable.
  
• Science: Universitas Carolina leads to a very nice science situation, with a fair bit in the bank and a good income.
  
• Military: A good Age I tactic (Phalanx: 3 strength for cavalry, infantry, infantry) provides a game-leading 8 strength.
  
• Technologies: Code of Laws, Bread & Circuses and Knights.
  
• Hand:
  • Monarchy provides a new form of government, but it's not a huge upgrade this late. Might be worth ignoring it in favour of an Age II government.
    
  • Barbarossa needs more food quickly to be truly effective, plus the need for more military units. The next population needs to go into happiness though, so might be a while before anything useful comes of Barbarossa.
    
  • 2 resources available from a yellow card.
    

Overall a reasonable mix but lacking a bit in economic development. Hopefully can convert a good military position into some advantages from events, or at least into not needing to invest further in it until the economy has been improved.

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Chumchu:

• Food: No net production, and behind by a couple in population. Needs urgent improvement.
  
• Resources: 3 bronze is acceptable for this stage but not great. Bolstering this is da Vinci, who provides an extra resource each time a technology is discovered (great combo after Aristotle).
  
• Science: 12 science in the bank and 5 more arriving each turn. Great situation to be in.
  
• Military: A weak tactic, but the Great Wall (+1 strength per infantry and artillery unit) means this is still a pretty strong position as it's easy to increase strength without significant investment.
  
• Technologies: Alchemy, Swordsmen, Code of Laws and Masonry.
  
• Hand:
  • Irrigation means the food problems can be dealt with, in the short term at least. Play ASAP.
    
  • Warfare doesn't look hugely important right now.
    
  • Drama is a possible source of culture, but can't be an urgent goal. May need a proper source of happiness too.
    
  • 2 resources in a yellow card.
    

Overall, an incredible science position with solid military. This is an excellent basis for advancing to a winning position. Needs to improve food production urgently. Also needs to capitalise on that science edge: an Age II government is traditional, but there are many other paths.

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Lastly me:

• Food: Again no net production, but I do have a good population thanks to yellow cards. Food production needs to be improved soon. Handily irrigation is right there...
  
• Resources: 3 iron is a very strong position right now. This means I can look more to wonders to support me, hence the Basilica.
  
• Science: 2 production is weak but not uncommon for this stage. Needs urgent improvement, though. Thankfully I have the science on hand for either of the Age II science buildings.
  
• Military: No tactic in play yet, but I do have Legion (2 strength for 3 infantry) on hand. I'd rather go to Medieval Army (2 strength for cavalry, infantry), but I don't think I have the science to spare for a cavalry tech. Short on military actions too, which will slow potential improvements. Overall on the weak side but not a critical problem quite yet.
  
• Technologies: Iron, Swordsmen.
  
• Hand:
  • 2 resources and a military action from my yellow card.
    

Rather a different strategy from my opponents. Miles behind on science and weak militarily isn't a great combination, but there are strong points, and plenty of time yet to pull myself out of that hole, hopefully.

On to the turn. I finished the Basilica straight away, as it fixes my happiness problems for a while. I picked up Irrigation to solve my food problems shortly. I also used Patriotism and all of my military actions to upgrade both warriors to swordsmen and adopt legion, taking me to 8 strength, hopefully enough for a while. No spare actions to draw military cars with though, so again no chance of a colony. One remaining civil action was used to increase population, as I wasn't thrilled by any of the cards in the 1 section of the row.

CH triggered an event:

Bullet: dodged. Not that losing a little culture is the end of the world right now. Chumchu only has 3 culture, and you can't go negative in this game, so that's all that is lost. CH still gains 4 though.

Also, both my opponents changed government, leaving me behind in civil actions for the first time.

CH revolted to Monarchy (5 civil, 3 military). Remember, this uses all your civil actions (including the ones you get from the new government). As a result, a couple of resources were lost to corruption. It can be really tough to avoid corruption during a revolt, but it can still be a good choice when you need to save science.

The card row ticked down to reveal Constitutional Monarchy (6 civil, 4 military), which chumchu immediately took and played for all 12 science. This was a very good move, securing an excellent government.

[rho21]

Civics

I haven't said all that much about the blue civics cards so far. They are cards that give you a flat bonus without requiring (or allowing) anyone working on them. You can only have one of each type; playing a new one of the same type replaces the older one, which is discarded. There are four types:

Civil


These provide bonus civil actions and blue tokens. As such, they're extremely good, but I personally often find it difficult to spare the science for Code of Laws early on. In this game, both chumchu and Cheater Hater had lots of science, and elected to play Code of Laws to match me on civil actions.

Military


These provide extra military actions and some strength. Again they're difficult to find science for early on. If you end up using a government like Republic or Democracy that is relatively low on military actions, they can be a lifesaver.

Construction


These provide a significant discount to the cost of urban buildings (this does affect upgrading - you pay the difference between the discounted costs). They can also save on civil actions when building a wonder. Very useful to have.

Exploration


These are the primary source of colonization bonus; they also provide a little strength. Lovely if you can afford the science and expect a lot of colonies to show up.


So all of these are pretty good, and provide yet another excellent use for science.

[Cheater Hater]

Are blue tokens that good, especially in this new version of the game where corruption is evaluated before production? The only time it really mattered in our game was in Age I, and otherwise it mostly just makes sure you grow/build something every turn.

[rho21]

They can be particularly strong if you keep using Bronze all game (which is entirely playable), as they let you store up some resources from turn to turn. They certainly become less relevant the more each one is worth when in use.
Still, they tend to act as grease in the machine of your civilization, making it easier, without immediately running into corruption, to have a revolution or to spend your entire turn picking up cards or to store up 30 resources and suddenly have a huge army from nowhere. The amount this is valuable again varies from game to game, but generally flexibility is a useful thing to have.

[rho21]

Round 9



With Journalism and Scientific Method available in the row early in Age II (phew!), it's definitely time to upgrade my science. So which is it to be? Journalism is generally the stronger pick: it provides plenty of science and simultaneously starts the move towards producing culture, that you ideally want to get going by the middle of Age II. Here however I picked Scientific Method as I can afford to upgrade to one this turn, while I don't have the 8 resources I would need for a journalist. I'm feeling the pinch on science and want to get going as soon as possible.

Also, I was aware that the Inhabited Territory I (stupidly) seeded is going to be coming up for auction pretty soon, so I used my final action (after taking, playing and doing one upgrade to Scientific Method) to pick up Navigation. Perhaps I will get the time and science to play it before all the colonies have gone.

After triggering an event that gave us all a little culture, CH was able to pick up both Selective Breeding and Coal, to play the former, and to get one farmer upgraded.

chumchu also triggered an event, revealing a Vast Colony (some immediate food, 3 yellow tokens but minus a blue token).
The bidding started at 2. I haven't played Navigation yet, and with my abject lack of military actions I still had no bonus cards, so if I wanted to outbid this I would have to spend two swordsmen. I didn't feel I could quite afford that expense. I would have been outbid anyway: after a bid of 5 from CH, chumchu won the auction for 6, paid for with all three swordsmen! A good idea? Maybe so: the extra yellow tokens in the bank will give chumchu a bit of time before happiness and food need to upgraded, which were both pressing problems. Still, that's a lot of resources. In the longer term, the colony will provide for extra population, which is invariably useful as military demands increase.

chumchu only had 4 resources on hand to rebuild with, too. It's a fairly good rule of thumb that if there's a really good colony on offer, you can afford to take it provided you can rebuild your military enough to be reasonably safe from aggressions. Here, one swordsman rebuilt wouldn't be ideal. Handily, chumchu had the science on hand to make use of da Vinci's special ability (gain a resource whenever you discover a tech) twice, to collect two extra resources and afford two swordsmen. Nice play! There were a few good yellow cards around to pick up with the rest of the turn, leaving chumchu in an excellent position for future turns. In particular, Wave of Nationalism can be a really handy card as it can provide a lot more resources than other cards of its Age:

[rho21]

Governments

Not all that much in the way of new rules to talk about now that we're in Age II, so let's show off the governments.



Changing your government is a very important thing to do in Through the Ages, just as it is in Civilization. It's pretty expensive in terms of science to have a peaceful change, but if you're strapped for science a revolution is always an option. And for the revolution cost, you're getting a huge bargain.

Of the Age I governments, Monarchy is by far the most valuable. Especially if you revolt to it early in Age I, it can be an excellent choice. (Theocracy is much weaker. I have used it successfully once, but it's pretty rare.) It's often difficult to stick with Monarchy until the end of the game though: both civil and military actions can become extremely tight, even when bolstered by blue techs. Consequently, you might want to save up for an Age III government to replace it.

Age II governments, on the other hand, are usually expected to last you for the rest of the game. Here Constitutional Monarchy is the star, giving a nice mixture of civil and military actions. Republic is perfectly playable, but needs you to invest in Strategy alongside to have enough military actions for the end of the game. On the plus side, it's ludicrously cheap to revolt to. If you have lots of science production, you can usually afford to play an Age II government without a revolution. In this game, it was no coincidence that chumchu had 12 science in the bank going into Age II.

The Age III governments are really strong, but remember you're not going to have them for long. Still, Democracy or Communism early on can be very nice indeed. You shouldn't wait to Age III to upgrade from Despotism though.

Of course, as with everything in this game, the card row doesn't always play along with your plan. Sometimes you're waiting until the very end of Age II for any governments to pop up and are kicking yourself for not taking Monarchy earlier.

The urban building limit is represented here by the number of little house symbols in the middle of the card. Remember, this is the maximum number of urban buildings of any given type (i.e. Labs, Libraries, Temples, Arenas, Theatres) you are allowed to construct. For example, in the current situation, I would not be allowed to build a new citizen into Alchemy or Scientific Method, as I already have two scientists.
An urban building limit of 2 is generally a bit limiting by the end of the game, but 3 is not usually a problem. Another good reason to upgrade government at least once.

Lastly, I should note that the timing of governments can affect the length of the game by a round or two. More civil actions earlier lead to more cards being taken from the row, and the decks running out rather quicker.

[rho21]

Round 10



Not drawn a colony.

I know that the Inhabited Territory is the only card in the current events deck, so time to get Navigation into play in the hope I can grab it. I also upgraded my remaining alchemist onto Scientific Method (finally a good science income!), and picked up the yellow Breakthrough card to bolster science further: I'm going to want a government sooner rather than later, and I still need to get Irrigation into play. I picked up Cavalrymen in the hope of using them with the Napoleonic Army I picked up last turn. This is one of the best tactics in Age II, 7 strength for Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery. A fair way to go to get there, but perhaps I can make it to medieval armies on the way there. Lastly, I grabbed Engineering Genius in the hope I can get a good Age III wonder to use it on.

I strongly considered picking up Cannon right away, guaranteeing my future access to Napoleonic Army at the cost of both Engineering Genius and Breakthrough.

Unfortunately, CH was the one to trigger the Inhabited Territory auction. This is bad for me as if I win it, chumchu will have a chance to attack me before I can recover my strength. Consequently, I wasn't willing to pay more than one swordsman for it, and without bonus cards, that wasn't enough to even get a bid in: CH bid 2, chumchu 5, I passed and CH won the auction with a bid of 6. Sacrificed were a knight, a warrior and two bonus cards.

CH elected Barbarossa as leader and used his special ability to help with the rebuilding process, enlisting a knight cheaply. CH also grabbed Cannon and picked up the Kremlin.

That's minus one happy face, incidentally. The Kremlin is a very nice wonder if you can afford to get it finished quickly. Here, I think CH has made a mistake, as 4 production won't finish it quickly, and anyway needs to be devoted to more pressing issues. Most importantly, taking an Age II wonder that you can't finish before Age III is a problem because it prevents you taking an Age III wonder. The Age III wonders are a major source of points in the late game. More on them later.

chumchu used the Wave of Nationalism for full value to pay for a couple more swordsmen, plus continued to use the civil action advantage to collect yellow cards.

[rho21]

Aggressions & Wars

We haven't had any attacks yet because everyone has kept up well in military strength so there haven't been any tempting targets. I'm sure that won't last though, so let's talk about aggressions and wars.



First, aggressions. As you'll see from their names, these represent smaller military actions that are nonetheless significant to both parties. When you play an aggression as your political action, you pay the cost in military actions then nominate a target and compare military strength immediately. Your target may use Defence / Colonization bonus cards to temporarily add the defence value to their total military strength; they may also discard any military card for 1 extra strength in the same way. They can never use more cards than they have military actions, though, so even if someone has lots of cards in hand, if they only have two military actions you can be sure they won't be able to offer all that much defence.

It's always worth watching the strengths of your opponents, both to defend yourself against a possible aggression, and to take advantage of an opponent losing strength due to sacrificing units to take a colony, for instance.

If your target is able to match or exceed your military strength, the aggression fails and there is no further effect. If not, you resolve the effects stated on the aggression. These range from relatively mild to very nasty, so make sure you're prepared to defend yourself. It is often worth playing an aggression when your strength is greater than your target's by more than the number of military actions they have, so they will have to have drawn a bonus card to be able to defend. This is provided you can spare the military actions, anyway, which may not be the case early on.

Because they're so immediate, aggressions are relatively easy to get to succeed. If you have a sufficient military advantage, your opponent will be forced to either concede, or throw away lots of bonus cards if they have been lucky enough to draw them. They are also one-directional: there's no risk to playing them, just a chance of success.




Wars, on the other hand, are neither immediate nor one-directional. When you play a war as your political action, you pay the cost in military actions and choose a target, but nothing else happens immediately. Instead, the war will resolve at the start of your next turn, immediately before your political action. Or in other words, both sides in the war have an opportunity to increase their military strength before its resolution. There's no discarding of cards to increase strength and either side can win the war: whoever has the greater strength wins and you apply the effects as stated on the card.

Wars are a much riskier proposition than aggressions: if you have underestimated your opponent's ability to increase their military strength, you can be in for a very nasty surprise. Furthermore, you have to use a bunch of military actions to declare the war, so may not have as many as you might like to build your own strength. On the plus side, if you can get a significant military advantage, you can gain a proportionally large swing, so a really big war can be worth far more than an aggression.


The ideal way to play a war is to declare it and immediately massively increase strength, including an upgrade from an Age I tactic to a much stronger later tactic. This gives your opponent as little time to prepare as possible, and means they can't copy your new tactic even if they want to (as it hasn't been in play long enough). Then, after winning the war, immediately declare an aggression, making further use of your suddenly high strength before anyone has much time to react. That's all very well, but it's hard to pull off and requires a lot of military actions.

In comparison to wars, aggressions may seem so quick as to be a little unfair, but remember that your opponents do have a chance to build military after they see you increasing your strength.

Of course, there's a natural check on constantly building strength and playing attacks: if you're doing both of those, you won't be using your military actions to draw more cards, so your available attacks will eventually run out. Even so, it can be a valid tactic to spend your resources building up strength and aim to recover them by playing aggressions. If it fails because your opponents build strength to counter you, they have also spent resources they'd rather have put elsewhere so all's even.

In summary, attacks are in the game to provide the stick to force players to remain competitive on military strength, and to prepare for how they might regain parity if an opponent suddenly builds a lot of military and looks dangerous.

[rho21]

Round 11



Still no colony yet.

I did draw an event though, Iconoclasm. Events right now are very likely to be nasty for the weakest player, so I had a look around and discovered that our military strengths were: me 10, CH 8, chumchu 14. (When there's a tie, it's resolved in favour of the player who has least recently had a turn with which to increase their strength. So even if CH had had 10 strength, I would still have been stronger for the purposes of events.) Anyway, that means it's relatively safe to trigger an event, so in the screenshot above I have just seeded Iconoclasm, revealing Border Conflict.

Phew. While it's much better to be strongest for Border Conflict, it's nice not to be weakest.

When CH had decided to demolish a bronze mine (here that just means moving the worker back to the unused workers pool), it was time for my action phase. There are so many cards I want to take:

• that's the final Cannon, and it's vital for my military plans, enabling Napoleonic Army without waiting for (and paying for) Rockets
  
• Opera would be a great card to combine with the Basilica, as discussed earlier. Both of them are right there.
  
• Efficient Upgrade is always a useful card to have in hand.
  
• Constitutional Monarchy is a really good government and would solve my lack of civil and military actions for good.
  

Mentioning that lack of civil actions, remember they also act as a hand limit, so holding 4 cards in hand already means I can only pick up 1 more card without playing any. I'm pretty desperate to improve my food production as soon as possible and could really use more military. I decided economy was most important, so I discovered Irrigation with Breakthrough and picked up Cannon. Here I thought long and hard about which combination of taking more cards and improving my farming to take, and eventually decided to upgrade once from Agriculture to Irrigation and build a fresh Irrigation. This was the only sensible way to bring me to a food surplus of 3, meaning I will be able to increase my population next turn (before those yellow tokens are discarded at the end of the age and it starts costing me more).

I'm still not sure if this was the right move. Certainly it was a painful compromise: I really wanted an Opera. The Pyramids are great in the early game, but not having a government means the lack of actions is really killing me here. If I'd had 12 science on hand, I would probably have played Constitutional Monarchy for full price, as chumchu did earlier. On the plus side, I reckon it will still be there next turn as CH is in Monarchy so doesn't really want it.

CH offered a new pact to chumchu, asking for protection from his armies at the cost of some culture:

This was declined though, so it returns to CH's hand. You're not allowed to discuss pacts in advance, in order that offering one remains a risk of your political action. As a different means of increasing military strength, CH took and played Napoleon, one of the best leaders in the game:

CH also upgraded a bronze miner to coal, and took a couple of yellow cards to provide more resources.

Thanks to CH getting 4 extra strength from Napoleon, I was now weakest, so dreading chumchu seeding an event. Though an event was played, fortunately what came out was Rebellion: a nasty event that affects players with unhappy citizens. None of us had any of those, so no effect.

chumchu's turn involved taking and playing Coal, and, like CH, upgrading a bronze miner. With the help of yellow cards and those free resources from Border Conflict, chumchu was also able to build a couple of Drama, getting a proper start on producing culture.

[rho21]

Quitting the Game (don't worry, I'm not)

I'm running a bit low on rules to talk about now, so as a quick aside I thought I might mention that Through the Ages has a specific rule about how to quit the game when you're no longer in contention or having fun. You're allowed to resign as a political action (except on the final turn), and the game continues for the other players. This is designed for people who are suffering from repeated aggressions and wars and have entered a sort of death spiral. There are various small rules associated with the process that I won't go into.

This is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an extremely controversial rule. Some people regard it as very bad form to resign, others see it as part of the game, and so an incentive not to over-attack someone who is losing. I'm in the latter camp: after all, it's far better than flipping the table or being forced to sit around not enjoying yourself.

Anyway, it doesn't happen very often, and it won't be relevant in this game.