Through the Ages is a civilization building game. The goal is to develop your civilization, not to destroy other ones. Military strength is just one aspect of your nation, as well as population, production or science. It is up to you which aspect you will concentrate on, more or less, but you should not underestimate any of them while building your civilization.
Victory is achieved by the player whose nation produces the most culture during the game. However, there are many ways to produce culture: through religion, literature or drama, by building wonders, by utilizing cultural persons etc. Considerable amount of culture can be gained even via wars or aggression.
Description from BGGThis is the thread for a Play By Forum game of Vlaada Chvátil's Through The Ages. This is not a short, simple game; it is an epic civilisation building game. As such, players should expect the game to take at least a few months (I predict about 3-4, depending on activity). This does mean it should be an engrossing, fun and strategically deep game, and the long time period should give you lots of time to plan out your moves.
A copy of the rules can be found
on BGG here. The rules are great, they're mostly very clear, and so I will make no attempt to explain the rules myself, and instead advise potential players to read them (you will need a BGG account, which if you don't have, is hassle free to make). I will of course try and answer any questions players may have.
An almost final copy of the master spreadsheet I will be using to run the game can be found
here, which contains all of the cards, the player layouts, etc. Notably, it also shows the example civilisation from page 10 of the rulebook (which BTW is ludicrously good for the end of age I, nobody will be anything near as good as that), which should give you an idea of how data is laid out on the sheets.
Each player will get access to their own spreadsheets, which will show them everything they're allowed to see (public information such as each players civilisation, the card rows, deck sizes+their hands and the like). There will also be a generic public spreadsheet, just containing the public information, for spectators. I won't just be relying on the spreadsheets to do everything; at the end of each turn I will be posting the card row, culture/science/military and culture/science indicators in the thread, i.e. an overview of the game so far.
We will be playing either the advanced, or full game, depending on player choice. We
may also play in teams, with two (or more) people managing a civilisation between them, able to discuss and plan by PM etc. Ultimately, I'd like people to state their preferences when they sign up. Or in other words, when you sign up please answer these:
Would you prefer the Advanced (shorter & easier) or Full (longer & more rewarding) game, and how strongly would you prefer it?
Do you want to play in teams, as single players, or do you have no preference? How would you feel about some players being in teams, and others on their own (just in case the numbers are awkward)?
I'd like to run a 4 player game, but will run 3 player as well (but again, if you have a strong preference on these, feel free to say it).
Signups:
Qvist
Watno (full game, no teams)
Kuildeous (neutral, okay with teams)
Galzria (Full game, indifferent with teams)
As I've drastically changed the first post, here's a copy of the original one so the following posts make senseThrough the Ages is a pretty complex civilisation building game, which can take a long time to play face to face... and along with it having what I feel are favorable mechanics for it (little if any randomness during turns, allowing lots of actions to be taken in one heap), I think this could work as a PBF game.
Now, I've only played one game (Advanced Game), but in terms of mechanics it's not too difficult to follow, so I'd be able to run a game of it. A few possible issues are:
1) It is a pretty complex game. I'd likely start with the Advanced game, because it's a little less brutal than the full game, but still strategically deep compared to the simple game. But there's quite a few rules to learn, so things might be a little slow in the first few turns.
2) The sweet spot is 3 players. That's not a huge number to run a game for. I was considering, if there's sufficient interest, to have people paired off (or even tripled up), which lets players co-operate on a civilisation, but then well I'm not sure about if that would really work or not. It can be played 4 player, that's also good.
3) You can already play it online, but that's in real time. This would be somewhat easier to wrap ones head around, due to thinking time, and hey we've got a little community going here right?
So right now, I'm throwing this out as an idea. You can find the rulebook on BGG here but I believe you need an account (free and easy to make though) to view files. If there's sufficient interest, I'll run a game, if not, I won't (and if people think the idea is crazy, you're probably right).
(Also if someone has a good reason for knowing why it wouldn't work as a PBF, pointing that out might be good too)
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Topic: Through the Ages: A story of civilisation (Signups closed) (Read 5078 times)