Through the Ages Learning Game Discussion Thread

GoodOmens

I'll probably eventually make a better OP than this, but for now:
The game ID # is 80267. It can be accessed here]
The obligatory Boardgamegeek link
Link to the rulebook

This thread is intended for both players in the game as well as bystanders. The intention is to trade ideas, strategies and such. If there is something that you don't want other players to see, put it in spoilers. Honor system and all that.

Same thing applies to advice from the more experienced players, Darian and myself. From my viewpoint, I promise to give honest advice for all questions. If my advice sucks, it will at least suck honestly.

How do we want to handle screenshots? Darian had a good idea, posting your previous opponent's board at the start of your turn, which will effectively hide the military cards and future events deck. Do we need screenshots for every turn, or only situations where there's a question?

Good luck, all, and may the devil take the hindmost!

Darian

Here's what we have available for our opening round, so we can use this to refer to when making our initial decisions.

GoodOmens

Pretty easy choice for Tayrun, I think. Same with Niall. I figure I'll just have to scarf up some useful yellows and hope for a decent leader on my next turn.

poshniallo

You're assuming I know what I'm doing. And, to be honest, I often play games in the spirit of exploration. If I'd had any other interesting choice than Hamurabi, who has been good for me in my few previous games, I might have tried that.

So what exactly do you want me to screenshot? I am far from a PC pro, but I do have GIMP to crop and resize stuff.

Darian

Tayrun went with the Gardens, as expected (sets up for "free" happiness through age I, which is solid).

poshniallo made a less obvious choice, taking Hammurabi and a Rich Land to accelerate his civil development. (I think GoodOmens and I were both expecting you to go Pyramids, there. They are considered the best early wonder, since they continue to be beneficial throughout the game.)

poshniallo

Ah well I didn't notice they were down in the 2pt section. Too far down the list. But, although he's not permanent, Hamurabi does give an extra civil action like the pyramids, and at much less cost.

Darian

"Less cost" is debatable; he costs you a military action each round (which means less card draw for tactics). Also, it can be useful to have a resource sink (wonder) early, since ancient events can produce so much they leave you suffering from corruption.

GoodOmens

I was definitely thinking the Pyramids, though I can understand your choice as well. Hammy is often regarded as the worst Age A leader (though Alexander is a close competitor) but the extra civil action right away might be helpful; it'll really depend on what comes up in the next round. That might allow you to grab one of the more important Age 1 techs (Iron, Alchemy, Knights) early . Rich Land will give you a nice bit of extra resources.

poshniallo

Why is Hamurabi so bad? Extra civil actions have always seemed great to me. Is it the lack of military?

Darian

Military actions are used for card draws (so you get tactics, defense/colonization cards, and events to play) as well as building up your military. It's dangerous to fall too far behind in the military race, and with fewer actions it can be tough to keep up.

GoodOmens

You essentially cede control of the military aspect of the game. Of course, you might be able to grab Warfare or something like that later. In the expansions that are playable on BGO, Hammy gets changed so that he only gives a civil action and that's it, which makes him ridiculously overpowered, essentially a free Pyramids for half the game. He needs some sort of malus to be balanced, but this is too much.

At any rate, I can't pass up the Pyramids (and I'm sure Darian would take it if I don't). Frugality will help, because I tend not to upgrade my farms to Irrigation, and having a little extra food around is useful for handling the wait to Age 2.

Darian

Leaves me with an odd decision. I can either take two out of the three cards at two actions (Alexander/Ideal Building/Engineering) or a three (Frugality/Library/Ideal/Rich) and the remaining one (Idea).
I don't feel like spending two actions for one science from Revolutionary Idea, so I'm going to go with the first option. Decide to keep flexibility and leave Alexander for now, taking the actions from the middle area.

On to round 2, and the rest of the ancient cards show up:

jakobagger

Here's a direct link to the game.

Tayrun

I'll be posting my thought process for most turns. Will be in spoilers. All constructive critique and advice will be appreciated.

So my first thought was "I should start building that wonder", but that'd lock me into 2 production for three turns as I get it built. Bad idea I think.

I decided I'll get some infrastructure sorted first, so I'm going to go with building a bronze mine first, then philosophy.

Once I built the mine, I figured I should pop another worker. I'll need it for the philosophy next turn and apparently there's some events that give you free stuff if you have spare workers, so seemed a good plan.

So left with two civil actions and all resources spent, I turn to the cards available.

I was thinking a leader, first. Alexander doesn't look too good to me. I've tried Homer before and I wasn't massively impressed. I have no idea how to use Moses well. So, no leader for now.

So I went with the Ideal Building Site and Frugality. Seemed to sync well with the plan to build philosophy and keep a free worker up.

Darian

Sounds solid to me, Tayrun.

jakobagger

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what I would do.

Moses is a good leader (my third favourite age A leader after Caesar and Aristoteles), but will sometimes make it hard using your food, causing corruption. Bit of a luxury problem though. Other than that, he's best when you can combine him with the Hanging Gardens.

GoodOmens

I definitely agree with your decision to not start working on the Gardens. It's a strange Wonder, very powerful but you don't need it right away. 2 happiness is overkill early on, especially with the possibility of getting a free Temple from the event deck, and the Culture is not worth it early. Much better to establish your infrastructure (as you did) and plan to build the Gardens later on.

Niall has an interesting choice here, as the Library of Alexandria isn't a great Wonder, but being able to hold an extra military card will help to alleviate Hammurabi's downside.

poshniallo

Yeah that was why I took it.

Darian

Here's the tableau coming into GoodOmens' turn.

GoodOmens

Now I have an interesting choice. The usual turn 2 moves are, of course, Bronze and increase population. Lots of leaders available. I'd like to grab Aristotle, which will leave Darian able to get Caesar for 1 action. Moses and Homer have never been favorites of mine. Alternately, I can take Alchemy for 2 actions.

I think that taking Aristotle will allow me to not miss the loss of Alchemy for a while, and Patriotism will help me get a minor boost to military, hopefully enough to counter Julius for a bit.

I decided it was best to put Aristotle directly into play. Likely I'll burn all 3 resources next turn on the Pyramids, and the 1 extra that Patriotism would give isn't useful. Hopefully it'll be better to grab a few techs and snatch some early science as a result.

Darian

Allowing me to follow up with a Bronze while I grab Caesar and Alchemy. Having Alchemy this early will give me a resource sink to help stave off corruption for a while.

My choices for the last action were Bronze (+1 resource), elect Caesar (+1 card and take the military lead), or use my Ideal Building Site for Philosophy (+1 science). The science still wouldn't get me to Alchemy next turn without an event, so I decided to go for resources over military.

Darian

And we quickly see a downside to my decisions: I don't have a worker available for the Development of Warfare event that Tayrun just triggered, so I'm going to miss out on the free warrior.

Tayrun

So taking the free warrior has necessitated a change in my plan. Now I don't have the happiness to be able to build philosophy this turn. I could turn to religion, but we all know that's never the right answer. I decide the best thing is probably to get the hanging gardens built as soon as possible. Should be able to finish next turn and get the philosophy built.

Darian

Question: Do you want to keep your spoilers secret from the other players, or should I be reading that and commenting?

Tayrun

Oh go ahead and read/comment if you want to.

I'm keeping it spoilered incase any of the other players wants to play without knowing what I'm thinking. I don't mind who reads it.

GoodOmens

So, my choices here kind of suck aren't as bad as I was originally thinking.


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I can start the Pyramid and still use my actions semi-usefully.

GoodOmens

Tayrun wrote:

So taking the free warrior has necessitated a change in my plan. Now I don't have the happiness to be able to build philosophy this turn. I could turn to religion, but we all know that's never the right answer. I decide the best thing is probably to get the hanging gardens built as soon as possible. Should be able to finish next turn and get the philosophy built.

I understand your thinking, and it sounds solid. My advice would have been to not take the Patriotism, and instead increase your population. There's a chance that the Development of Religion event will happen and give you a free temple. If not, the discontent worker can sit there for a while. Getting Knights was a good move. I'm not sure how you're planning to build the Gardens and Philosophy next turn, though.

Darian

Infrastructure turn for me; I've got an event, and it triggers a bit of food, science, a resource for each of us. Leaves me struggling to avoid corruption, but I get Caesar in place, grow pop twice and build a philosophy. Should be set for alchemy next turn, but I'll be hurting for food for a while having already grown into unhappiness.

Tayrun's start of turn:

Tayrun

Something of a meh turn for me. My two aims at this point are to get the HG+Philosophy finished and get an army up. Can't do both in one turn, and focusing on just one led to corruption. So I'm taking half of both paths, intending to finish them next turn. Risky, as it leaves me with a lower military score than I'd like, but otoh there's no corruption and I have a free worker up in case of events. Darian will doubtless read this and raid me in response.

GoodOmens

Boring turn for me too. Finished the Pyramids, grew pop, debated whether to take Irrigation or Warfare for 2. I usually don't take Irrigation, holding off for Selective Breeding instead. I would have grabbed Iron but I don't think it's worth 3. I think that taking Code of Laws was a bad idea, with the Pyramids that's too many civil actions to invest in. I think Warfare was the better choice, a cheap military action is definitely useful.

I thought about Plundering someone, but thought it was too likely that they had a Defense card. Risking 2 military actions on a 1 point military advantage isn't worth it. One of these days I have to start getting more aggressive about sacrificing troops in Aggressions.

Sorry, no screenshot because I'm on a work computer. Darian's got some really good choices available here.

Darian

Easy start to my turn, researching Alchemy and upgrading one philosophy (all I can afford). Tough decision with my last two actions, though; I can grab Theology and Efficient Upgrade (setting up for easy happiness through Age I and saving resources as I get the rest of my Alchemy online), or I can pick up something at the two action level: Harvest (2 food), Irrigation, Iron, or Cartography. I could research Irrigation or Cartography next turn, making them immediately useful, and I would even have enough resources to upgrade both Alchemy and Irrigation next turn, setting myself up for food for a while. If I go the Iron route, I'd need to get lucky with an event granting research, and I wouldn't be able to afford both the iron and the Alchemy. Still, I'm a big fan of solid early resource production, so I'm going to go that direction.
Iron it is.

Looking at opponents, Dan is set to explode militarily, with 8 science, Warfare, and Swordsmen in hand. He's also set to already switch governments, essentially, via the Pyramids, Code of Laws, and Warfare giving +2 civil and +1 military actions.

Here's Tayrun's setup coming into his turn:

Tayrun

Continuing the plan I use two cards to get another Philosophy up for cheap. Two actions left which I could have used along with 1 military action to get a knight up and take advantage of phalanx. I'm certainly not behind militarily though, and Irrigation is right there, so I elect to grab irrigation and save the military actions for some additional cards.

GoodOmens

I decided to risk Enslaving Niall, given that he only has 1 military card and likely wouldn't sacrifice a Warrior to defend; why kill a warrior when you'd just end up killing a population instead? That actually left me in an odd place; to do everything I wanted to do would result in corruption, losing 2 of the 3 resources I got from the Aggression.

Grabbed Alchemy (Aristotle is great for a science boost, but he'll be dead soon), researched it and built one with my slave-rocks, grabbed an Efficient Upgrade for next turn, and grew pop in order to avoid corruption (and because I've forgotten whether both the "build a free thing" events have taken place...playing too many games at once). I wanted to also put Warfare into play, but that will have to wait, which hurts because Enslave ate both my military actions, so no new cards for me. Even with the 'Mids there's never enough actions. I resisted getting Cartography; usually I grab that almost instinctively because it was key to me winning the first game I ever played.

When is the rest of the frakking Iron going to appear?

I suspect Darian is going to have a boring but productive infrastructure turn.

Darian

Trigger an event hoping for the science I need to get my iron online this turn, but it doesn't show up. Instead we get Development of Markets, so everyone gets two food or two resources this round, then gets to try to avoid corruption next round. I've got options: could grab the Basilica to make use of the engineering genius card I picked up earlier or I can go for a useful yellow card (Breakthrough, frugality, and Efficient upgrade are all sitting at the two action level).

I get some time to think about it while the rest of you are picking your food/resources from the event. (I decided to go for food, since that lets me grow pop each of this round and the next.)

Darian

Interesting; everyone else decided to go for the resources instead of the food. In the end, I passed on the Basilica to instead grab a Breakthrough for next turn's research of Iron.

Once again, here's Tayrun's setup and the available cards:

Tayrun

Military finally up, and I have enough to get Irrigation running fine. Simple, simple.

GoodOmens

I'd really love a better Tactic, but such is life.

Simple turn. Upgraded to Alchemy, got Warfare for another military action (I generally don't go for the higher level military techs). I'm not confident that Knights was a great choice, when I already had Swordsmen, but having cavalry opens up more Tactics options.

Darian's got:



I'm assuming a Breakthrough into Iron, upgrading a mine, and then grabbing Swordsmen, or else SPB and an Efficient Upgrade.

Darian

I went with the Breakthrough to Iron, upgrading a mine, but then snagged the Efficient Upgrade and a Frugality. Wanted to keep the bread flowing through the end of the age.

Tayrun

Iron's too far down for me to grab right now. First priority was sorting my military out after spending it on somethingorother. Beyond that there was little to do but grab cards. Masonry was tempting, but I don't see myself building too many urban buildings right now, so Circus+Ideal Build Site seemed better.

Thoughts? I don't feel too happy with this one.

GoodOmens

I agree. Masonry (that whole line of techs, actually) is pretty meh; I'll grab one if I have an excess of science sitting around, but there's usually a better choice. B & C is a nice happiness source, the military is usually more useful than the tiny bit of culture of temples.

I can't pass up Iron for 2. Nothing interesting to the turn after that. I considered gambling on Columbus this close to the end of the age; grab him, grab a territory, then replace him quickly with a nice Age 2 Leader. But that would have left me with corruption, and my luck with Columbus is really bad; if he's sitting in my hand, I'll go 4 turns without drawing a territory.

I'll need a source of happiness soon, something to prioritize on my next turn. Still hoping for a better Tactic.

poshniallo

I can't say my thoughts are as careful as yours, and of course my civ is suffering as a result.

My last few turns have felt quite forced - I had lots of resources but no population, so I got iron and irrigation, used my resources to upgrade to iron, will get the irrigation out next turn.

I need a better leader so that I can get back into the military side of things. I have only played 2p up until now, so I am still learning about Agreements etc.

Tayrun seems to be doing very well at this point, but perhaps I am missing something.