Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
User review Set up: The game contains twelve map tiles. Each map tile is made of one hexagon surrounded by six hexagons.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Auction/Bidding
Bid against other players to determine who receives an item, action, or priority.
Card Play Conflict Resolution
Resolve confrontations by choosing and comparing cards rather than only statistics.
Grid Movement
Move pieces between adjacent spaces on a regular grid.
Catch the Leader
Rules give trailing players tools to slow or challenge the current leader.
End Game Bonuses
Earn additional points for meeting conditions evaluated when the game ends.
Read the full game description
User review Set up: The game contains twelve map tiles. Each map tile is made of one hexagon surrounded by six hexagons. Each tile will have a mixture of any or all of five types of terrain: grasslands, farmlands, mountains, woods, and hills. Each player gets a Player Aid card, selects a color of people tokens and places the era cube of the matching color on The Era Starting Box on the Progress Column part of the game board. A starting player is selected. Some tiles are placed contiguously on the game board (the number of tiles depends on the number of players) one at a time in turn order. Each player, in turn, places three of their people tokens on the game board contiguously. The game is now ready to begin. Game play: Players should note which terrain will be worth Progress Points at the end of the era. Progress Points are the number of hexes occupied of the scoring terrain by one’s token plus the number of city tiles plus the value of all eligible Idea Cards. The player or players with the most Progress Points will advance to the new era and get an advantage over the other players. In turn, a player may: - Move people - Have babies (increase the number of people tokens on the game board) - Have a fight (initiate the diceless combat system against another player) - Have an idea (draw chance cards) - Build a city (replace people tokens with a city tile) After all the players have used all of their turns the era has ended. If this not the first round then all the players’ Era Cubes are advanced to the level of the leader(s). Progress Points are then compared and the leader(s) advance to take advantage of one’s newest ability. The game is over after ten eras. Victory Points are the total of number of non-mountain hexagons occupied by one’s tokens plus the values of one’s cities plus three points for advancing to the final era. The player with most Victory Points is the winner.