Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Setup: 2–4 players. The FRED 2009 printing lists 185 civil cards, 155 military cards and one starting-player card. Use all ages for the Full Game, removing marked 3+/4+ civil cards for lower counts and pacts for two players. Each civilization begins with 25 yellow and 18 blue tokens: six workers on cards, one unused worker and 18 tokens in its yellow bank.

Actions and row: in round one, players only take cards, receiving 1/2/3/4 civil actions in seat order. Later turns remove cards from the first 3/2/1 row positions for 2/3/4 players, then slide and refill. Taking a card costs 1/2/3 civil actions by region. Despotism normally supplies four civil and two military actions.

Development: increasing population costs food and takes a worker from the yellow bank. Building costs resources and an action and uses an unused worker. Research separately costs science; upgrading within a type costs the construction-cost difference. Governments limit urban buildings per type. Wonders require stages, and taking another wonder costs one extra civil action per completed wonder.

Politics and military cards: before regular actions, take at most one political action to seed an event, attack, offer/cancel a pact or declare war. Seeding an event earns culture equal to its age and reveals a current event. Colonization bids require sacrificing at least one unit, supplemented by bonuses. Draw one military card per unused military action, maximum three, at turn end; discard excess after your next political action to your total military-action limit.

Original conflicts: aggressions resolve immediately and succeed only if attack exceeds defense. Both sides may sacrifice units; defenders may also use defense bonus cards. Wars resolve at the start of the declarer’s next turn, allow sacrifices but no defense bonus cards, and apply effects by strength difference. Unit sacrifices are forbidden in the last round; defense bonus cards may still resist aggressions.

Production and risks: without an uprising, gain science and culture, produce food and pay consumption, then produce resources and assess corruption using the resulting blue bank. Corruption costs resources, never food; each missing food costs four culture. More discontent workers than unused workers causes an uprising, skipping production and maintenance, including military-card draws.

Ages: placing the last civil card of Age I, II or III ends that age. Hand cards, leaders, unfinished wonders and pacts from the preceding age become obsolete; technologies, tactics, colonies and completed wonders remain. In the Full Game also remove two yellow-bank tokens to the box, or as many as remain there.

Ending: Age III gives way to cardless Age IV. If this happens at the start of the starting player’s turn, the current round is last; otherwise finish it and play one full additional round. Score remaining Age III current/future events, then highest culture wins. Event-ranking ties follow turn order from the current player; final events assume the starting player’s turn. This manual gives no separate final-culture tie-breaker.