 |
 Box art for Age of Mythology: The Boardgame | |
| Publishers | Eagle Games |
|---|---|
| Publication | 2003 |
| Players | 4 |
Age of Mythology: The Boardgame is a board game created by Glenn Drover based on the video game Age of Mythology . It was released in 2003 by Eagle Games. Up to four players may play the game, but extra parts may be purchased from Eagle Games to allow eight players to play.
Like the video game it is based on, players control one of three civilizations: the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Norse. Up to two players may play any given civilization (with additional parts, up to three players may play any civilization), and players are situated so that players playing the same civilization do not sit adjacent to each other.
As with the video game, players must gather resources, build units, and attack other players. Unlike the video games, however, players play for victory points, which may be earned by winning battles, by trading resources for them, having the largest army at the end of the game, having the most buildings built at the end of the game, or by building the wonder.
At the start of the game, each player is given an individual board, which is divided into two areas: the Production Area and the City Area, as well as a limited supply of resources, units, and production tiles, which are placed in the Production Area. On each turn, players must allot three victory points to one of four special victory point cards: the "Largest Army", the "Most Buildings", and the Wonder, which are only claimed at the end of the game, or "Won the Last Battle", claimed during a player's turn. Afterwards, each player draws Action Cards from either their civilization's Permanent Action Deck (which is unique to each player, though each civilization has identical cards) or Random Action Deck (which is shared between players with the same civilization) until they reach a hand limit determined by their Age (with later ages increasing the hand limit). Players in turn may play up to three of their hand cards, resolving any effects, before discarding cards or resources (each player may keep at most five units of any resource, eight with possession of a special building, at the end of the turn), if necessary.
The core mechanic are the Action Cards: the Permanent Action Cards may be chosen as needed, but tend to have weaker effects compared to the Random Action Cards. These allow players to add production tiles to a player's Production Area, assign workers to production tiles, gather resources, build units or buildings, trade resources, advance in age, and attack other players. Certain Random Action Cards are also God Powers, which have an additional effect if resources are paid. Because Permanent Action Cards are always available each turn, they are typically discarded if unused at the end of the turn.
Buildings have secondary effects, which include receiving discounts for purchases, improved actions, or additional villagers to work the Production Area. With the exception of the House, which supplies villagers, players are restricted to one of any given type of building. Villagers are placed or moved about on production tiles in the Production Area whenever their owner plays a Gather action, which collects resources based on which production tiles a player's villagers reside. The Explore Action may be used to increase the number of production tiles a player has in their Production Area. Resources may be traded with the bank using the Trade action, and a building allows players to trade resources for victory points.
Units are purchased by using the Recruit action, and may be used to attack other players with the Attack action (some units may also act as villagers). When attacking, players may attempt to attack another player's Production Area, City Area, or their supplies. Players may only attack opponents seated adjacent to them (thus, players may not attack opponents sharing the same civilization). Before battle, players commit a fixed number of units. In each round of battle, one unit is chosen from both the attacking and defending sides, and a number of dice are rolled for each side based on their relative strengths and advantages against each other (for example, myth units may typically roll more dice compared to mortal units, but less compared to heroes). The player with the fewer "6"s rolled loses their unit. After each round, each player may choose to retreat. The winner of each battle wins any victory points allotted to the "Won the Last Battle" victory point card. If the attacker wins, there is also another effect: if the attack was against a Production Area, the attacker may take a production tile from the defender, while an attack against a City Area allows the attacker to remove a building (two in rare circumstances) from the defender's City Area. An attack against a player's supplies allows the attacker to take resources from the defender's supplies.
The game ends when either the Wonder is built (the Wonder is a special building which requires the player to be in the final Mythic Age before building) or when 30 victory points have been allocated or awarded. At this point the victory points allocated to the "Largest Army", "Most Buildings", and the Wonder are given to their respective players (If there is a tie for Largest Army or Most Buildings, or the game ends without the Wonder being built, the victory points therein are not given to any player. Similarly, any points allocated to "Won the Last Battle" at the end of the game remain unclaimed). The player with the most victory points wins.
| PC games |
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other platforms | |||||
| Board games | |||||
Catan: Seafarers, or Seafarers of Catan in older editions, is an expansion of the board game Catan for three to four players. The main feature of this expansion is the addition of ships, gold fields, and the pirate to the game, allowing play between multiple islands. The expansion also provides numerous scenarios, some of which have custom rules. The Seafarers rules and scenarios are also, for the most part, compatible with Catan: Cities & Knights and Catan: Traders & Barbarians.
Sid Meier's Civilization III is the third installment of the Sid Meier's Civilization turn-based strategy video game series. It was released in 2001, and followed by Civilization IV. Unlike the original game, Civilization III was not designed by Sid Meier, but by Jeff Briggs, a game designer, and Soren Johnson, a game programmer.
Civilization: Call to Power is a turn-based strategy game developed by Activision for Microsoft Windows as an attempt to capitalize on the success of the Civilization computer games by Sid Meier. It was ported to Linux by Loki Software, as well as BeOS by Wildcard Design, becoming one of the very few commercial games for that operating system.
In tabletop games and video games, game mechanics are the rules or ludemes that govern and guide the player's actions, as well as the game's response to them. A rule is an instruction on how to play, a ludeme is an element of play like the L-shaped move of the knight in chess. A game's mechanics thus effectively specify how the game will work for the people who play it.
Mare Nostrum is a board game for 3 to 5 players, designed by Serge Laget and published in 2003 by Eurogames. It was also the name of a 1983 board game in the Fronte Mare series.
Alhambra is a 2003 tile-based German-style board game designed by Dirk Henn. It was originally published in Germany by Queen Games in a language-interdependent version; an English-specific version was released in North America by the now-defunct Überplay. The game is a Muslim-themed update, set during the construction of the Alhambra palace in 14th century Granada, of the 1998 stock trading board game Stimmt So!, which in turn was an update of the 1992 mafia influence board game Al Capone; the original version was subsequently released as Alhambra: The Card Game. Upon its release, Alhambra won numerous awards, including the Spiel des Jahres award. Its success has led to the release of numerous expansion packs and spin-off games, and is becoming Queen Games' flagship franchise.
Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization is a computer edition of the Advanced Civilization board game. Both the board and computer game portray the same basic concept: the players manage ancient Mediterranean civilizations in an effort to move them from the early Bronze Age to beyond the Iron Age. It was published in 1995, shortly before Avalon Hill was bought out by Hasbro in 1998.
Twilight Imperium is a strategy board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games in the genre of science fiction and space opera. It was designed by Christian T. Petersen and was first released in 1997. The game is in its fourth edition (2017), which has large changes over previous editions. It is known for the length of its gameplay, and its in-depth strategy.
StarCraft: The Board Game, published by Fantasy Flight Games, is a game inspired by the 1998 computer game StarCraft. Players take control of the three distinctive races featured in the video games, the Terrans, the Protoss, or the Zerg, to engage in battle across multiple worlds in order to achieve victory. Each of the three races features a fairly different playing style. A prototype of the game was shown in BlizzCon 2007, with pre-release copies sold at Gen Con 2007 and Penny Arcade Expo 2007. It was publicly released in October 2007.
Starship Catan is a two-player card game, loosely based on the Starfarers of Catan board game. As a member of the Catan family of games, it is designed by Klaus Teuber, and distributed by Kosmos in German and Mayfair Games in English.
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties is the second expansion pack for the real-time strategy video game Age of Empires III developed through a collaboration between Ensemble Studios and Big Huge Games, and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The Mac version was ported over, developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The game is the second expansion pack following The WarChiefs. The game introduces three new civilizations; China, Japan, and India. It also introduced minor people, campaigns, maps, and game modes.
Civilization: The Card Game is a card game designed by Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson, based on Civilization IV. It was developed in 2006 by Firaxis Games, as a bonus in the Sid Meier's Civilization Chronicles boxed set, and is not available independently.
Armageddon Empires is a 4x turn-based strategy video game for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It was released internationally for Microsoft Windows on July 16, 2007, and for Mac OS X on October 9, 2007. The title is the first game released by independent game developer Cryptic Comet.
Catan: Traders & Barbarians is the third expansion to the Settlers of Catan games, developed by Klaus Teuber. It contains a series of new scenarios and small variations, which are meant for two, three, or four players, with limited compatibility between the other two expansions, Catan: Seafarers and Catan: Cities & Knights. Three of the modules had been previously offered as "mini-expansions", though two have new rules in Traders. The expansion itself is named for one of the scenarios therein.
Glenn Drover's Empires: The Age of Discovery is the first of the Glenn Drover's Empires board games, created by Glenn Drover.
Warcraft: The Board Game is a board game adaptation of the Warcraft series of computer games, created by Kevin Wilson and released in 2003 by Fantasy Flight Games. It takes elements primarily from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, but also incorporates elements from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame is a 2002 board game created by Glenn Drover based on the Civilization series of video games, in particular, Civilization III. Drover himself was a sales manager at Microprose during the original development of Civilization, though he was not directly involved in the creation of the video game.
The Rivals for Catan is an updated revision of the Catan Card Game, a card game adaptation of The Settlers of Catan. The game was released in 2010. It is a member of the Catan series of games, and is published by Kosmos in German and Mayfair Games in English. Like its predecessor, The Rivals for Catan is a two-player game. As with the Catan Adventures series of games, the theme is based on the Rebecca Gablé novel The Settlers of Catan, a novel based on the original board game.
7 Wonders is a board game created by Antoine Bauza in 2010 and originally published by Repos Production. Three decks of cards featuring images of historical civilizations, armed conflicts, and commercial activity are used in the card drafting game 7 Wonders. The game received critical success upon its release, and won numerous awards, including the inaugural Kennerspiel des Jahres connoisseurs' award in 2011.
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game is a 2010 board game created by Kevin Wilson based on the Sid Meier's Civilization series of video games and published by Fantasy Flight Games. While the previous board game based on Sid Meier's Civilization, published by Eagle Games in 2002, was based on Civilization III, the 2010 version takes its primary inspiration from Civilization IV. Its expansions, Fame and Fortune and Wisdom and Warfare, also began to incorporate concepts derived from Civilization V.
