Grow your fledgling civilization from scratch and outmaneuver opposing civilizations in Roll Through the Ages: the Bronze Age! Outsmart your opponents as you build cities and research developments. Complete great monuments before they do. Avoid disasters while sending pestilence and revolts to your opponents. Become the most effective empire in the Bronze Age by winning the technology and construction race in this exciting dice game!
Roll Through the Ages can be an empire-building dice game thematically based on the Through the Ages game which in turn is founded on the hit video game Sid Meier’s Civilization (which in turn is based on the original Civilization board game!) This dice game – with each game lasting about 50 % an hour – is considered a quick and easy alternative to the Through the Ages game which has somewhat more complex mechanics and can take up to 4-5 hours.
Roll Through the Ages comes with a group of 7 dice unique to the game, 4 pegboards, colored pegs and a stack of score sheets, and that is all you need to play the game. The overall game mechanics are also pretty an easy task to pick up: a turn starts with a player rolling dice to see what resources they get. Goods and food are collected and workers are fed. The workers build cities and monuments, and you get to purchase a development. That is the basis of the overall game, and players repeat these actions before game ends, which happens when all of the monuments have already been built or any single player has 5 developments. The player with victory points wins the game.
The first action in the turn is rolling the dice to see what resources you obtain. The number of dice you roll depends on how many cities you have, and the dice produce either food, goods, workers, coins or skulls. Workers are accustomed to build new cities and monuments, while food is required to feed the workers. Goods and coins are accustomed to buy developments. Skulls are bad, representing disasters that eventually either you or your opponents.
You get to roll each die up to three times (except skulls which can not be re-rolled). This allows you to influence the dice to create resources closer to the thing you need that turn. best metal dice will be handy if you were attempting to expand or build a monument, while you would want more food if your food stores are running low as well as your people are going to starve. Once all the dice are rolled, any food and goods collected are marked on a pegboard which records the stuff you have in storage. Based on how many goods you roll and how much stock you have, different types of goods with differing coin values are added to your stock.
The next action is to feed your cities. Having more cities means you can roll more dice, but it addittionally means you need to produce more food to keep them from starving. Unless you produce enough food and you have insufficient food in storage, your workers will starve and you will be penalized with negative victory points. Disasters (based on skulls on the dice) are resolved now as well. Depending on how many skulls turn up, either you or your opponents will incur negative points or even lose all of the goods in storage.
The next phase involves assigning the workers you rolled this turn to building cities and/or monuments. Each available city or monument has tick boxes in them on the score sheet, indicating just how many workers are needed to complete them. Once all tick boxes in a city or monument are filled, they’re completed. Completed cities offer you an additional die to roll but cost a supplementary food each turn. Monuments have no effect other than providing you with victory points. There’s urgency in building them though, because the first player to complete a monument will earn double the points of those who are slower. In addition, one of many endgame conditions is when all the monuments have been built.
Lastly, you get to buy developments utilizing the goods in your storage sufficient reason for coins rolled this turn. These developments provide victory points but also convey beneficial effects. For instance, the Agriculture development gives a supplementary food for every food die you roll, while the Religion development causes the Revolt disaster to affect your opponents rather than yourself. The better developments will cost more, but also provide more victory points once the game ends. Another of the end game conditions is when any player has 5 developments.
The strategies available are nearly limitless. Do you want to concentrate on growing your cities first and thereby reach roll more dice? Or do you want to sacrifice growth to be able to rush-build monuments for double points before others have a chance to complete them? Or do you prefer to go on the offensive and make an effort to create disasters that will cripple your opponents? Or do you want to invest the early game in getting goods and coins for powerful developments? With the developments, you also have a choice in concentrating on commerce-related developments, or ones focusing on food or disasters. As you can imagine, there are so many methods to play this game.
The only drawback is that the game is really quick (around half an hour) and doesn’t feel as epic being an empire-building game should. The developers have taken this on board, and have released a free mini-expansion called The Late Bronze Age which contains adjustments to the game mechanics and objectives. This expansion can be downloaded from their website, and contains new mechanics such as for example shipping and trading goods with other players. This adds more complexity and player interaction to the game. The endgame conditions are also adjusted, with games now lasting a more fulfilling one hour.
Roll Through the Ages is really a simple and elegant game that captures the feel of an empire-building game, but with just a fraction of the time investment. And since its name contains the words ‘The Bronze Age’, it is fair to assume that more expansions will undoubtedly be coming along to create you through the Medieval, Industrial and Modern ages for more empire-building fun. Roll Through the Ages is fantastic for you if you want empire-building games like Through the Ages or Endeavor, but prefer something that is quick and simple.