Designer: Vlaada Chvátil

Final Score:  (3.9 out 5 Stars)

Vlaada Chvátil is without question one of my favorite designers, not so much because he has produced what I consider the best games, but because every time he makes a game it’s truly a unique experience. His designs stand out. More than that though he does not have a style, but rather is able to break barriers with new ideas and innovations. Whether it’s the wacky Galaxy Trucker or Dungeon Lords, or more brainy games like Mage Knight, he finds ways to separate himself from the crowd of copy-cats and creates something truly original. No game however is more unique, broken more records and set more precedence than Through The Ages. Most consider this his true masterpiece, a sentiment I largely agree with.

Through the Ages is an established award winning classic and a fan favorite on BoardGameGeek.Com sitting pretty in the top 10 for the better part of a decade. Finally after years of refurbished versions of the original Vlaada has produced a new edition that promises not only upgraded components but more streamlined and balanced gameplay. While I have always been a fan of the original it never ranked high on my list of best games because I always felt it had this thick coat of Euro game complexity and length that made the game difficult to get to the table. It was a game that was difficult to explain and even harder to grasp. Over the course of a decade I played it perhaps ten times all together, it’s what I like to call the dust collector of my collection.

With a new edition and hope for an improved version of this un-played but fantastic game I gladly dove in. Let’s see how it fares!

Overview

Through The Ages is a competitive civilization building game abstracted into card drafting and resource management mechanics. The word competitive hardly does it justice as despite the absence of a map and miniatures it is a brutally combative and competitive game, I’m talking about some seriously mean cut-throat shit here making it difficult to define it as a Euro game, yet that is exactly what it is.

Each player takes on the role of a world leader of a civilization from the ancient age all the way to the modern age. In typical euro game fashion the game is won by collecting the most culture points of any civilization by the end of the game. Uncharacteristically of Euro games however Through The Ages is as much a resource management and development game as it is a mean spirited war game. It takes that classic formula of Sid Meiers Civilization but in abstracted form, yet maintaining that if I can’t out build them, I can conqueror them approach that Sid Meier’s Civilization is so famous for. Oddly enough despite two previous games with the word Sid Meier in their title (eagle games version and Fantasy Flight Games version), Through The Ages thematically has more in common with the classic PC game than anything that has come before and after it.

Components

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: Aesthetically pleasing art, quality components and separated game boards make this a vast improvement over the old editions of Through The Ages.

Cons: A lot of book keeping and statistics to track result in a very fiddly and ultimately messy game space in particular towards the end of the game.

Through The Ages in previous editions left you very underwhelmed in terms of components, certainly they were functional but they were both aesthetically ugly ducklings and so small you felt like a giant trying to handle cheerios. The game was already a hard sell for being a complex Euro with a steep learning curve, but to have look of a prototype definitely didn’t help.

With this new version component quality could not possibly get worse so naturally it has improved. Thankfully that improvement is dramatic in particular in the application of quality art and a sizing up of components that make it possible for a grown man to handle them without feeling clumsy.

The art style is reminiscent of old school Sid Meier game art, which I don’t think is a coincidence as this is exactly the theme Through The Ages is trying to capture. I in particular like the colorization of components, it makes every type of component easy to distinguish across the table.

The card stock quality is excellent ensuring this game will actually last through the ages and there is a solid broken up design for the gameboards that will make it easier to put on the table by splitting up the various boards into distinct areas. I don’t know that this change was necessary but depending on the size of your table and available space being able to organize the different pieces in Tetris style is going to be appreciated by those with tighter game space.

A vast improvement over the old version but still only gets a passing grade for today’s standards. Its functional, built to last and aesthetically pleasing but it’s not going to blow you away. Given that a six year old with a box of crayons could have done a better job than the last version of Through The Ages, the improvement in this new edition are much appreciated.

That said the game is still extremely fiddly, you are pushing cubes, counters and cards around constantly and the table gets quite messy towards the end of the game. Towards the 3rd age you will find yourself counting and recounting the tracked statistics to ensure you have them right which kind of renders all the book keeping useless.

Theme

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: Competitive civilization building theme is captured with perfection ensuring every faucet of a civilization is included and equally important. This is Sid Meiers Civilization in a board game.

Cons: Some might miss the absence of a map and moving units around on the board. Like the PC game version its based on, Through The Ages is a loooooong game.

Through the Ages has been in the top 10 on board gamegeek for a decade for one very solid reason, its theme. There is absolutely no denying that the competitive culture race and clash that made Sid Meier’s PC game so popular is captured splendidly in board game form in Through The Ages. The newly improved art helps to solidify the theme, but really even without it Through The Ages had a solid connection between mechanics and thematics.

I don’t think the new version has added anything that distinctly makes it more or less thematic than the old version, but having some quality visuals defiantly makes it feel like this version is more thematic. Art really does count towards theme but the truth is that Through The Age gameplay is really what makes the theme sing.

There is this distinct feeling of advancement and growth, starting with what feels like far too little resources and eventually rising to a point where you have far more than you could ever use. More than that though you’re Civilization can really be focused and distinct. By the time the 2nd age starts each player will have created a completely unique engine, driven by bonuses and advantages as a result of combining different technologies, wonders, discovered territories and just general management. You could argue that some strategies are more or less effective than others but my experience has been that players will often focus their strategy on the theme they have chosen for their civilization rather than simply trying to game the game, which I think is a great sign of the game having strong theme.

In particular the card drafting mechanic really inexplicability have the feeling of the passage of time, a kind of pressure to keep up that gives it that distinctively civilization building feel. Best of all though is that there is no element of the Civilization theme ignored here and every element is as important as the next. You need military, science, technology, culture and resources (food and metal) to win and you need them all in equal qualities. If you focus on one more than the other you will have a distinct advantage in that area over other players who fail to keep up, but it will come at a sacrifice of something else. It’s simply impossible to be the best at everything and that really drives the theme home. Civilization building games are about choices and Through The Ages has choices in spades.

Through the Ages still does civilization building in a board game the best of any game I have played and from that stand point the theme is nearly perfect.

If there is any part of the game that would count against it is that in most civilization games you get to manage and control unique units on a big map, this is really a big part of the civilization building genre. This part of the theme is abstracted quite heavily in Through The Ages to a point where you might initially feel its absence. The game is so robust and engaging however that after a couple of plays you forget all about it.

The other thematic issue which I will go into deeper later in the review is the length of the game. Civilization building games are typically quite long and Through The Ages is no exception here, in fact, it’s so long that anything beyond 3 players is too long as each player adds about one and a half hours to gameplay. This definitely works against the game since you kind of want to play it with more people, but realistically the more people you add, the longer the game gets and that can be quite painful towards the end of the game. This of course is actually thematically correct as far as capturing the Sid Meier Civilization theme, but ironically while it captures this part of the genre, for many this is the part of the genre people who love the game, don’t like. So it’s a strange relationship of both capturing the good and bad parts of the theme in this genre.

Gameplay

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: A deep strategic experience with countless potential approaches to the game that keeps you engaged despite its very long play time. Great mechanical balance.

Cons: Not for the casual gamer, things can get quite mean and once you fall behind it can be very difficult if not impossible to catch up.

Through The Ages has an incredibly robust and unique combination of card drafting and resource management mechanics. It’s a Euro through and through in this regard and one that is constructed with an uncanny balance and eye for that fiddly complexity and high level strategy Euro gamers love. It evokes a lot of thought and multiple plays reveal the many levels and depths the game can rise to revealing countless possible approaches to the game. If you play the game without the military aggression and war cards, this game would be a pure Euro game experience and a very good one.

At its core the game is about drafting technology cards that represent the various types of advances that can be constructed like buildings, wonders, leaders of the world, military units etc. The card line is constantly moving however and the closer to falling off the line the cards get the cheaper they are to pick up. Civil actions, one of the resources in the game are what drive your civilization. This limited supply replenishes every round but because it’s so limited every decision you make is a tough one. What technology you pick up will in turn determine what sorts of advantages you will be able to construct with your resources through the course of the game and in fact can very much define your advantages and disadvantages in later stages.

The sequence is fairly simple. You might pick up an Iron Mine technology, that will allow you to build Iron Mines which of course will give you more resources to build with later. Simple concept except that in order to build Iron Mines you need population, which in turn requires food to build, so you might need to build some farms first. You need science to put the Iron mine into play to begin with and ultimately you will need to keep your people happy enough so that as you deploy your population to work you can bare the costs of doing so you also need religious temples to keep your people happy. Everything is sort of interconnected this way and it’s all about ceasing opportunities and building a civilization that is self-sustaining one step at a time. Misstep and you might find that you have lots of resources to build with but not enough people to build them with for example. It’s challenging and fun to create your engine and it really captures the essence of civilization building games.

In typical Vladi fashion however the entire game is turned on its heels with the military and politic mechanics which create almost a mean spirited competition of the likes I haven’t seen since games like Diplomacy. It’s ruthlessly brutal where players can really stick it to each other, often kicking your face in the dirt when you’re already a bloody mess. It’s so mean in fact that there is a rule for resigning from the game when you have had enough.

At its core however the entire military and political mechanic is built on a sort of delay and in lays its genius. Whatever wars and attacks are going to take place, they will do so several turns in the future as the event deck is built with a 4 event delay. Meaning that if you put down a nasty event that will help you because you are the strongest civilization, that card won’t actually come into play until later in the game. This gives everyone an opportunity to react to the current status of the game and effectively build up to potentially reap the benefits of cards someone else played.

Military power is as important if not more important than other developments however it produces very little on its own so building up a big one comes at the cost of other developments. It’s a real back and forth balance and so you have to decide whether you are going to let your military fall behind to build other more productive developments or if you are going to keep up so you don’t get smashed when those nasty event and war cards come.

Players are also able to make pacts and alliances with each other, again via event cards. These cards allow weaker players an opportunity to cut deals with stronger players that will encourage them to leave them alone. This works to the benefit of the stronger players in the short term but in the long run players who aren’t focused on military build powerful economies that can be really difficult to dismantle later even with an overwhelming military. The balance here is uncanny and the decisions are tough all leading me to one conclusion. This game is awesome!

There is this amazing risk vs. reward system with a constant stream of hard decisions that keeps you engaged whether it’s your turn or not. It’s as important to you what other players are doing as what you are doing so even though there can be some fairly sizable downtime in the game, the downtime is really an opportunity to re-asses, plan and of course think about your response to each other players actions.

On the flip side though the downtimes can be quite long and while assessment and observation are a part of the game, Through The Age’s fun factor really suffers as you wait for your turn. In particular if players are being indecisive, this is definitely a game that can cause some analysis paralysis. The wait times increase over time as Civilizations become more complicated to manage and events are being triggered almost every round. In a four player game you might end up waiting as much as 10 minutes for your turn to come up by the final rounds of the game which can be quite excruciating after 4+ hour game.

The fact that the game is quite competitive and outright mean at times can result in players falling hopelessly behind. This is compounded by the fact that the game can stretch into the 5 hour mark with 4 players quite easily. It’s one thing to be getting your ass handed to you in a 20 minute card game, it’s another to be abused in a 5 hour game and in Through The Ages its often beneficial to attack the weakest opponent. Now experienced players are not going to have this problem, play the game a couple of times and you will know the consequences all too well of not keeping up militarily. This makes the game that much tougher on new players who are not only having to learn the ins and outs of the complex rules, but getting abused for failing to grasp concepts like military power quickly. This might explain why there is a “low aggression” option for the game and a shorter game variant where you only play to the second age. Both good for introducing new players and highly recommended.

Through the Ages has fantastic mechanics and gameplay that merges well with its theme, it’s truly a unique experience but it’s one that takes some effort to get into. It’s a demanding game with considerable rules complexity, tough and unforgiving systems and fairly mean spirited “take it” type mechanics. To me, its music to my ears, but objectively I can understand how this might not appeal to everyone.

Replay ability and Longevity

Verdict:
Tilt: 

Pros: Plenty of strategies to explore for repeated plays, it has already proven itself to have long term legs.

Cons: While the Euro puzzle is difficult to unravel, if you study the game you will eventually unravel its mysteries creating repetitive strategies that can dissipate the dynamics of the game hurting replay ability.

Through the Ages has sufficient strategic routes to keep you entertained endlessly and so its replay ability is very good which might explain its high ranking for so long on BoardGameGeek.com. There is however a sort of general sequence to the game, every card in Age I, II and III will eventually come up so there is definitely a sort of pre-planned strategy possible which can result in players unraveling the mechanical puzzle and creating repetitive strategies that work. This is the drawback of most Euro games. There is some randomness to the order in which cards come out and this definitely mixes things up, but patient players can definitely build long term strategies from round one and with minor adjustments be very successful at executing them in every game.

That said, the game is so long and so complex that its not going to be something you play at every session, it’s just too demanding. This game is longevity and really at the heart of replay ability isn’t so much that it’s something you want to play 5 times a week, but something you still want to play 10 years from now and Through The Ages definitely has that long shelf life appeal.

I do believe Nations is a much more dynamic game because the reliability of what cards come up for purchase of developing your Civilization is not only randomized every game in what order they come up but what actual cards will be available. In Nations you will see 20% of the possible cards each age come up so effectively every game is going to be vastly different, this is not the case in Through The Ages. I don’t consider this a major drawback, but in terms of replay ability there is definitely a puzzle that can be solved here and I can see this game growing repetitive and tiresome if you play it too often. It’s got dynamic character and longevity, but it’s going to need to rest and collect dust periodically. It’s too heavy, complex and long to be played often.

Conclusion

Through the Ages is a fantastic game, but its deep, complex and long so it’s definitely a game with a very particular audience in mind. This is not a casual game and will likely only appeal to experienced gamers who can appreciate its depth and don’t mind overcoming a steep learning curve both in learning how to play and learning how to play well.

That said this is a true gem in the rough, most Civilization board game implementations really do kind suck. Through the Ages and its little brother Nations handle things in a more abstract way, but actually capture the civilization genre better thematically and mechanically then more literal interpretations like the Eagle and Fantasy Flight Games versions.

I recommend it with the disclosure that you really need to enjoy heavy games like this. If you are looking for a more casual civilization building game I recommend Nations instead which is far more approachable to the casual gamer.

In the end however this game appeals to my gamer sensibilities, its deep, complex and extremely competitive, all the things I want a great civilization building game to be.