Through the Ages is a game of building civilizations. When I think of civilization I think of governments that maintain law and order. I think of the computer I’m typing on, the foods I eat that come from all over the world, the vehicle in my driveway, the medications I have access to, and the art that hangs on my living room wall. The story of how all these things came to be is a long and complicated one, quite an ambitious undertaking for a game to try and reproduce. A game that seeks to reproduce this experience must be deep enough to capture the intricate development of all these things without becoming so detailed and lengthy that the fun is squeezed out of the game. What I wanted to know before buying this game is whether or not Through the Ages had the right combination of depth versus playability. The answer is an unqualified yes!

Before delving into the game design, let me first describe what appeals to me about a civ-game. If you don’t like civ-building then obviously this game is not for you. There are three things that make a civ-game great. First, there is the aspect of building. I love building things. Through the Ages lets me make an empire (even though there is no map). I can construct temples, labs, theatres, farms, mines, wonders, arenas and libraries. I can invent new technologies and institute new forms of government, and at the end I can look at it all with enormous satisfaction in having spent all that time accomplishing something, even if I didn’t win the game.

Second, there is variety. The thing with civilizations is that they are all unique. The Chinese, the Romans, the British, the Zulus, the Egyptians all were unique in the civilizations they built or contributed to. So it is with Through the Ages. There are no historical nations in this game, just generic Red, Blue, White and Yellow nations. But every time you play, you can build differently. You will always have a different end result, which reflects all the many different decisions you made during the game.

Third, there is the scope. A civilization encompasses so many different aspects. There is politics, warfare, diplomacy, technology, production, corruption, population. A successful civilization needs to combine many different ingredients into a complicated formula. A civ-game needs to have this scope, or it is a failure. The genius of Through the Ages is that it lets you tinker with all the ingredients of a civilization while still managing to keep the game relatively simple. A complex theme is captured whole in a simple way. There are endless variations to be explored and so many choices to make. Should I build a mine, a farm, one stage of the Library of Alexandria? Or should I claim a card from the card row? Which one? Or should I upgrade my government? Should I go to war, make a pact, put an event in the future events pile? Choices, choices and more choices. This is the most appealing thing about the game.

Through the Ages is essentially a card game. There is no map. You place cards in front of you to represent the technologies that your civilization has discovered, and you put tokens on the cards to represent the buildings or military units that result from those technologies. The buildings and units allow you to produce resources, food, technology, military strength, happiness and culture. All of these are essential to a successful civilization. Resources are needed for constructing more buildings. But you need technology to get more effecient buildings, and food to increase your population to inhabit those buildings and happiness to keep those workers happy. And you need culture. Culture is the measure that will be used in the end to determine the victor.

Besides buildings and units, you are allowed to build wonders and raise leaders who will assist your civilization in producing any of the above commodities. Moses will help you increase your population by giving you food. Isaac Newton will increase your technology. Winston Churchill will make it easier to build an army. Etc.

The amount of things you do per turn is determined by your government. A gov’t provides you with a certain amount of civic actions, to be spent getting new technologies, putting them into play and building on them. A gov’t also provides a certain number of military actions to be spent building military units, joining them into armies and attacking. Military cards can be obtained, which are used to cause events, start aggressions, colonize new lands, etc. You can increase the number of actions available to you by getting a better form of government.

The components in Through the Ages are ho-hum, nothing to get excited about. There are a few printing errors. The card stock is of average quality, the tokens are small and fiddly, and the artwork is plain. But it doesn’t matter. This game is about the playing. I love a game for the decisions that it faces you with and the fun moments that it provides, and Through the Ages is so crammed with both that the time flies by. A two player game through all three ages takes 2 ½ - 3 hours to play, but it doesn’t seem that long at all. On average it seems that you can expect the game to take ½ hour per player per age. 2 players for 3 ages will take 3 hours. 3 players for 2 ages will take 3 hours, etc. The game length can be set by the number of ages that you play. You will want to play at least to the end of Age II. Age III beckons with more fun yet. (I have so far only played this game with 2 or 3 players. I do agree with the concerns of others that a four player game produces a bit too much down time between turns).

Different games produce fun in different ways. Fun, in Through the Ages comes when you overcome the obstacles to build something. Fun is achieving a new technology, upgrading a mine from bronze to iron, inventing cannons or building a wonder that will give you 4 more culture per turn. Fun is increasing your civ actions by replacing your despotic government with a constitutional monarchy and adding a justice system. Fun can also come by bringing about advantageous events, or by successfully carrying out a raid on your opponent.

Yes, there is player interaction in Through the Ages. Even though there is no map, players can use their military units to carry out aggressions against their opponent or to colonize new territories. To do either of these things requires that you spend your strength by sacrificing units. You will have less military strength after an aggression than before. This is a nice, realistic mechanic which helps to balance the game. A good military helps you, but it does not give you unlimited power. If you do a lot of things with it, you will give your opponent opportunity to close the power gap.

The fun in Through the Ages is enhanced by the fact that nothing comes easy. Resources and food must be used wisely. You can’t do everything at once. Everything must be juggled carefully. Sure, you can go nuts building mines, but then you will throw out the balance and find yourself lagging in technology and weak politically. Or you can get an early lead in culture, but without more efficient means of production you will soon fall behind. If you aren’t careful, corruption will eat up your resources and famine or unrest will consume your food and halt all production.

In the end, if you did your juggling act well, you will have a full-grown civilization with wonders, buildings, technologies, new territories and an army. And you will have a story to look back on in which perhaps you first trailed miserably in culture before beginning a massive Renaissance that catapulted you into the lead. You will be able to look back on a story in which Michelangelo led your nation to new heights before being assassinated. You will remember the heady days when Captain James Cook helped you to colonize new lands. You will think about the dark ages when corruption swallowed your production before the invention of coal technology. The game designers rightly included the word ‘story’ in their title for this masterpiece of a game. Each play is a story. There is the story of how your civ grew. And there is the story of how it compared to the others.

A game that uses civilization building as its theme will never - by definition - be a game that everyone will want under the Christmas tree. No matter how good a civ-game is, not everyone will like the length and detail that comes with a good civ-game. That having been said, I cannot say strongly enough how good a game Through the Ages is. It captures all the greatness and grand scope of civilization building without the need for hours and hours of your time. It is a giant of a game which succeeds in being manageable because it has one of the most inspired and efficient designs of any game I have played. It is not a simple game, but it is a game that does everything in the simplest and most efficient way possible. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking to savour the experience of building a civilization and pitting against the inferior products of his opponents.

As a final note, let me add that I have not played other games from the civ genre. I have not played 7 ages or Advanced Civilization. Both of those games scared me off because of the playing time. Through the Ages can be played with 2 to 3 players from start to finish in an evening. It has all the complexity in a decent amount of time. This game has instantly become my favourite, and it will get a lot of playing time. And I can add my wife's enthusiastic endorsement as well!