Gaming at Snoozefest's: Through the Ages

March 17th

I got out to Snoozefest's a little late due to morning commitments. When I arrived, they had a five player game of Leonardo DaVinci going. I sat and watched a while. When they were finished, two of the players had to leave. The rest of us decided to play Kevin's homemade Through the Ages set.

Through the Ages is a currently hard to find card game of civilization building. It's a new game, that sold through it's initial printing quickly. Kevin has a copy, but decided to upgrade it a bit by making the cards and components bigger. It said a lot to me that he liked the game enough to put that much time into it.

This game uses an interesting card drafting mechanic, taking cards from a changing tableau made from different decks, to simulate the progress of years. I grabbed a victory point machine that Mary pointed out to me as being very powerful, and spent the next several turns ramping it up. As a result, I was making a lot more points than the others early on. I shifted gears a bit, trying to build up military strength, as it seemed that I would otherwise become a target for aggression, being so far out in front. However, this distracted me from progress, and the others caught up with me in vp production. I was still in the lead when the end of the game came, but, having not paid attention to the endgame bonus scoring, I faired poorly at the end, and Mary was able to pass me up for the victory.

I thought this game was a pretty interesting implementation of the civilization theme. However, it seems very long - 4.5 hours just for the simple game, and it also seemed a bit solitaire to me - it didn't feel like we really interacted too much. It may be, though, that since it was my first play, and there was a lot going on, I was just too busy trying to figure out how my own civilization worked to pay attention to what anyone else was doing. I'd like to try it again, in the odd circumstance that I have 5 hours free and a copy of the game sitting around...

GG, GL,
JW