The Golden Ages

EvEvanstar2,5

In my first play I had only done the base game, and it felt like a little too straightforward a game, where you find the most efficient ways to farm gold and then have at it. This play we tried it with the expansion for the first time. I liked everything the expansion brought with it. It mitigated some of the luck elements that troubled me in the base game. It gave players more things to think about and a bit more of an interesting decision space, as with the base game you more or less just path your way through the leader cards you get to play one of at the start of each round. Ultimately though, I found I still wasn't really connecting with the game that much. It's a little uncomfortable that the secret endgame 8 victory point card each player is dealt at the start of the game relies on having a specific situation line up on the central board at the very end of the game, when most of those conditions are dependent on other player's late game moves. For example, I had the endgame card that said have the most cubes on the board (no ties). I had all my cubes down. When I passed to end the game, I had the most. In my opponent's last turn, without knowing my goal, he put down his last cube, creating a tie. Goodbye the 8 points I had been aiming for since turn 1. It's also just a little strange that mostly points are public information, except for the little tokens you get for winning in combat, which are facedown random pulls from a pool that has points ranging from 2 to 6. This is in Eclipse as well, and it bothers me a bit there too. I'm not thrilled with players getting different rewards for taking the same actions. Ultimately, I would play this again (with the expansion), but I think for this same euro civ experience I'd lean more on Antike II or Olympos. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment

KuKushstar4,1

1st Impressions: "NO!"— the first thing I said when I was asked to play this game. Completely judging the book by the cover, which was hideous as hell. However, I relented and was peasantry surprised how engaging the game was. The mediocre art, terrible graphic design choices and components kept getting in the way of a good experience for the first few rounds. This game deserves better! For a 2004 game, such amateur production is a shame. This is the year we saw games like Five Tribes, Abyss, Dead Of Winter! Not saying every game needs to Best Production contender, but this does not look like professional product and more like some college students (actually, even they could do better)putting together a game and selling for $$ in the market. The game can be mildly attack-y but the choices seemed interesting. Could have put in a tier higher just based on the gameplay, but will wait for a 2nd edition.