Age of Mythology: The Boardgame is a combination of war gaming and European design. It's by Glenn Drover, who has been the mind behind all of the wargame designs at Eagle Games.
Players: 2-4*
Time: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: 5 (of 10)
* 5-8 players theoretically possible if you buy more components.
The Components
Age of Mythology: The Boardgame comes with:
- 6 player boards
- lots of building and resource tiles
- 6 colors worth of plastic units
- 150 wooden cubes
- 3 decks of cultural cards
- 4 victory point cards
- 8 dice
- 1 rulebook
- 1 reference card
Although I've included a few specific comments about individual components, my most substantive comments are general, and thus saved for the end.
Player Boards: There's no central gameboard in Age of Mythology; instead each player has his own player board, printed full color on very thick, textured cardboard. There are two each of three different types of boards: Greek, Norse, and Egyptian. Each board contains: a 4x4 grid for buildings; a 4x4 grid for resource tiles, with each space marked as a specific terrain; a holding area for troops and resource cubes; a list of costs for various buildings; and a list of advantages for the four ages. The list of buildings makes it easy to see the costs for building things, though it's not organized in a particularly useful manner, as it could have been. The main thing missing from this board is some way to actually mark what age you're currently in. Other than that, it's colorful and simple to use.
Building and Resource Tiles: These are each printed on medium-weight square cardboard tiles. They're a bit of a pain to punch and leave hanging bits on the edges when you do. (I've been thoroughly spoiled by German printings where the die-cutting is usually so well done that the pieces practically slip out.) Each resource tile shows a colorful background that matches the terrains on the player board as well as a number of colored cubes which depict production. Each building simply names the building and gives an abbreviated description of what it does (too abbreviated in many cases). Overall these tiles, particularly the buildings, are very plain, and the only real disappointment in a game that's otherwise graphically strong.
Plastic Units: Conversely, these are the clear winners among the packaging. Each of the three mythologies (Greek, Norse, and Egyptian) comes with a unique set of plastic figures. You get Egyptian mummies, Greek medusae, Norse frost giants, and lots more--11 or 12 unit types per culture, some of them human, and some mythical. They're all very well sculpted and great to play with. Each culture comes with two full sets, each in a different color, so that two different players can play each culture.
Cleverly, different base shapes (round, square, or triangular) are used to denote different types of units (mortal, myth, and hero).
Technically, the figures aren't required for the game. There's no map to position them on, and you do final unit selection with cards. I've heard a number of people complain about this. However, I think they add a lot to the game. The group of figures positioned on your board says a lot about your current military power (though I will admit the fiddly need to dispose of both cards and plastic units during a battle is a bit annoying).
Wooden Cubes: These are simple wood cubes in 5 colors: red for victory points, green for food, blue for favor, brown for wood, and yellow for gold. They're another nice visual representation and have a nice weight to them.
Cards: There are three types of cards in Age of Mythology: each culture has one deck of Battle cards, two decks of Permanent Action cards, and one deck of Random Action cards. In addition there are four Victory cards which are used to mark Victory Points. All the cards are printed on a thin, glossy card stock with rounded corners. They're printed full-color are have very high-quality artwork on the front, particularly for the god Random Actions. Each card also does a good job of representing various attributes of the card by simple numbers or icons.
The Battle cards each correlate to one of those plastic units. Some of our players had a bit of trouble seeing which card matched which unit, primarily because a number of the human units tended to be very similar. Each card lists the name of the unit, its combat value, its cost, and its special attributes. Some players commented that they wish the base shapes from the units had also been used on the cards to quickly distinguish between mortals, myths, and heroes (it would have been easy to do, as each picture on these cards is currently contained in a circle, and other shapes could have been substituted). There's also a bit of a problem where the pictures on the Battle cards (and the matching plastic units) don't match the attributes that have actually been given to the unit. The Medusa, for example, is clearly shown with a bow, yet is not an Archer. The Wadjet, meanwhile, is pictured with wings yet doesn't fly.
The Permant and Random Action cards each list one of the 7 Age of Mythology actions, sometimes with a number to show how powerful the card is. Some are "god" cards which also list a special power which can be accessed by spending a listed amount of Favor. It would have been nice if these cards listed a bit of addition information as to what the action actually does, particularly to help out first-time players.
The Victory cards simply list one of the 4 victory conditions. Again, for first-time players, it would have been nice if they included additional information on what the victory condition is, exactly, and when the victory cubes are collected.
Dice: These are plain white six-siders, with the pips painted black.
Rulebook: This book is sixteen pages, printed in full-color on glossy paper. It's full of diagrams, strategy notes, and examples. I found it a very well-written rulebook with some slight deficiences in looking up specific points in-game ("Do you add together multiple bonuses in battle?" [dunno]; "How many buildings can be destroyed in a single battle?" [2]). Oddly, one other player found the rulebook quite well done, while two others found it difficult to read. Given the split, I'll stand by my assessment.
Reference Sheet: This full-color, double-sided reference is printed on heavy cardstock. It has a bit of information on setting up the game, but the core of the reference is full info on the three cultures' army units. This is entirely critical for battle, so that you can look up your enemy's units, and only having one of these in the box is a real problem. There should have been at least two, and ideally one per player.
Overall, I had two general annoyances with the components of Age of Mythology, each of which I've touched upon a bit already.
First, there are numerous places where components aren't used to their fullest advantage to explain and summarize rules for new players. This is worst on the buildings, where a couple of buildings just don't list what they actually do on the tiles. There also could have been short explanations of building powers on the individual game boards. Likewise, improved text (or use of good icons) on the cards could have added a lot to the game. Generally, most things in Age of Mythology are fairly simple, so this problem will go away within a full game, but not offering better support for a beginner is a shame.
Second, the game really isn't well laid out for more than three players, one per culture. For example, you get enough figures for six different players, but only enough battle cards and random action cards for three. (If two players play the same culture, they have to share.) Likewise, though you have enough boards and units for six players, you need more tiles and resource cubes to play with five or six. I understand there were real costs involved here, to figure out what could be put in a box for a reasonable price, and I definitely have no complaints about the volume of stuff included, but expanding the game out to four, five, and six players (let alone seven, eight, or nine) feels very awkward.
Overall, I've given Age of Mythology a "4" out of "5" for Style. This is mainly on the basis of the beautiful plastic units, though I think the rest of the components are of at least average quality, even with textual annoyances (or the lack of the same text), and I find the player boards generally pretty and sturdy.
The Game Play
In Age of Mythology: The Boardgame you are trying to achieve victory through building up an army, winning battles, expanding a city, and building a Wonder of the World.
Setup: Each player is given a game board which has spaces for 16 production tiles and 16 buildings. He'll fill up to 6 of these production spaces with resource producing tiles during setup. In addition he starts off with 6 mortal army units from his culture and 4 each of the resources: food, wood, gold, and favor.
He'll also start of with a deck of 7 Permanent Action cards--Gather, Explore, Trade, Build, Recruit, Attack, Next Age--11 or 12 Battle cards (one per potential unit) and a shuffled deck of Random Action cards.
Order of Play: The general order of play for each turn goes as follows:
- Place Victory Point Cubes
- Choose & Draw Action Cards
- Play Three Rounds of Action Cards
- Spoil Resources
- Discard Cards
- Rotate Starting Player
Place Victory Point Cubes: There are four Victory cards which are placed in the middle of the table: The Most Buildings, The Largest Army, The Wonder, and Won Last Battle. There are also initially 30 (red) Victory Point cubes.
Each turn, starting with the starting player, each player places one victory cube on one of these cards, to three cubes maximum. The cubes will later be claimed at the end of the game by the player meeting the criteria (or, in the case of Won Last Battle, when the next battle is won). This is probably the most innovative system in the game, allowing players to somewhat control what is defined as victory.
Choose & Draw Action Cards: Each player has a deck of 7 Permanent Action cards. These cover the 7 basic actions, but are relatively weak. Each player also has a much larger deck of Random Action cards. This deck contains variants of those Permanent Action cards, but generally much more powerful, sometimes including special god powers.
Each round each player gets to select between 4 and 7 Action cards, depending on the current age he's in. First he must choose any Permanent Action cards he wants; this gives him an opportunity to ensure that he has certain cards for specific actions that he wants to take. Then he fills his hand out with random draws from the Random Action deck. This is another neat system in the game, that offers a balance between risk and reward.
All players conduct this action at the same time.
Play Action Cards: The real heart of the game is in the Action Card play rounds. Starting with the first player each player plays one Action card at a time, and takes the appropriate action. If a player doesn't want to take an Action related to one of his cards, he must discard a card instead. After each player has used three cards, this portion of the turn ends.
Each Action card allows a different action to be taken:
Explore. Player randomly draws a number of resource tiles usually equal to the number of players plus one. Each resource tile is a specific type of terrain (e.g., mountains, hills, swamp, desert), which restricts where it can be placed on a player board. Each resource tile also shows one or two resource cubes of a specific type (e.g., food, wood, favor, gold), which is what it generates during Gathering.
This is an all-player action. Typically the player who played the Explore action takes a production tile, then each other player takes one in turn, if they wish. (I say typically a lot in this section because the Random Actions and/or the god powers can slightly vary all of these rules.)
Gather. Player typically selects a terrain type or a resource type, and then all of that resource or terrain produces, based on the number of cubes shown on each tile. (There are also random Gather cards which cause everything to produce.)
This is an all-player action. The player who played the card gathers first, taking cubes for the production shown, then each other player does in turn. Cubes are a limited resource, so this order can be very important.
The rest of the actions are single-player only.
Trade. Player may exchange any of his resource cubes with cubes in the bank on a one-for-one basis. There is typically an initial cost to do so (2 resources cubes for the Permanent Trade Action, less for Random Trades).
Next Age. Advances the player to the Next Age. There are four in all: Ancient, Classical, Heroic, and Mythic. Starting with the Classical Age, new Heroes become available, which are potent military units. In addition, each new age lets a player select more cards for his hand at the start of the round. Playing Next Age has a cost, typically between 3 and 6 of each resource cube, depending on the Age that's being advanced to, and whether a Random or Permanent card was used.
Build. Lets a player build buildings, with the maximum number of buildings shown on the card (1 for the Permanent, more for the Random). Each building has a cost in resource cubes, which is shown on the player board, and has a special ability. Some improve production, other affect battles, one even allows Favor to be traded for Victory Points. Only one of his each building can be built per player, other than the special "House" building, which improves production and instead has a limit of 10 per player.
Recruit. Lets a player recruit army units, with the maximum number of units shown on the card (2 for Permanent, more for the Random). Each unit has a resource cost shown in resource cubes. Powerful hero units can only be built when a player has advanced to certain Ages. Once a player has built a unit, he shows this by placing a plastic figure on his board's holding area.
Attack. Let's a player attack one of the players sitting adjacent to him. Each player selects a small attack force, its maximum unit number listed on the Attack card (4 for Permenent, more for the Random). The attacking player will also decide where he's attacking: city, countryside, or holding area.
Once the troops are determined, each round of combat each player secret selects one of those units to fight. This is done secretly with the Battle cards. Each unit has a strength, typically between 3 and 8. It also has a couple of attributes and bonuses versus units with specific attributes. For example, the Valkyrie is a "5" Myth Cavalry with +4 vs. Archers. The Centaur, meanwhile, is a "5" Myth Archer Cavalry with a +3 vs. Archers and a +3 vs. Flyers. (Overall, this creates a sort of rock-scissors-paper system which affects the ultimate success of the battle.) Some units also have special powers. The Centaur has none, but the Valkyrie grants its owner Favor whenever she eliminates a unit.
Once the two opposing units are selected, a modified strength total is then calculated, based on attribute bonuses. The new total strength shows how many dice each player gets to roll. Each player now rolls a number of 6-sided dice equal to the total strength. Whomever rolls more "6"es wins; ties are rerolled.
The losing unit is eliminated, each player gets a chance to retreat, and if needed another two units are selected for a new round of combat.
If the defender is either eliminated or retreats, the attacker now gets to collect the spoils of victory. Depending on where he attacked he may: take 5 resource cubes (holding area), take 1 production tile (countryside), or destroy 1 or 2 buildings (city).
All surviving troops then return home.
There's one other potential result of a battle: if there were any Victory Point cubes on the "Won Last Battle" Victory card, they're given to the winner.
Spoil Resources: Each player may only keep 5 of each resource at the end of the turn (8 with a special building). Any excess must now be discarded.
Discard Cards: Any Permanent Action cards are now returned to the Permanent Action deck. A player may choose to either keep his Random Action cards for the next turn (where they count toward his limit) or discard them.
Rotate Starting Player: Finally, the starting player rotates one seat to the left.
Winning the Game: The game continues until a player builds a Wonder (at a cost of 10 of each resource, only in the fourth age) or until the end of the turn wherein the last 3 Victory cubes are placed on cards. Since there are 30 cubes, this will occur after no more than 10 turns.
At this point, whomever built the Wonder is given the Wonder Victory cubes, if there is one. The players with the largest City and Army are also given those cubes; if there's a tie, no one gets them. (Other players will already have some Victory cubes from winning battles or a certain building which allowed Favor to be converted to Victory.)
All the Victory cubes are then added up, and the player with the most VP cubes is the winner.
Relationships to Other Games
Age of Mythology: The Board Game (2003) is one of a long line of Anglo-American war games.This family of design runs back to classics such as Diplomacy (1959) and Risk (1959). In the 1970s it was pushed by Avalon Hill and releases such as Kingmaker (1974), while in the 1980s it was epitomized by the Milton Bradley gamemaster series, which includes Axis and Allies (1984). In more recent years, Hasbro is keeping a number of classics in print, and releasing variants such as Axis and Allies: Europe (2000) and Risk 2210 A.D. (2001), while Eagle Games had previously released fairly traditional war games such as Attack! (2003). Finally a few notable companies are making more innovative expansions of the genre including Fantasy Flight Games, most notably with A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (2003), and English company Warfrog, with games such as Empires of the Ancient World (2000).
Age of Mythology is a very interesting game because it, more than any other game I know, combines Anglo-American wargames with German designer games. (A Game of Thrones also did, to a lesser extent, by incorporating a few well-done auctions.) Age of Mythology includes ideas about production, resources, and building which you could find in any number of German games, running back to at least The Settlers of Catan (1995).
I've seen some people call Age of Mythology deriviative of Puerto Rico (2002). The similarities are clearly there, as each game allows players to take specific actions only when certain roles/cards are choosen. The fact that some cards actually allow all players to take actions, and that both games have production tiles and buildings, are other similarities. However, the games play very differently, and thus I wouldn't consider the relationship any more than an influential one.
I was very excited about Age of Mythology when I first got it, because it did combine these two streams of game design in a very thorough way. Even if the game doesn't entirely work, as I discuss below, i still find the approach innovative and exciting.
The Game Design
Here's some of the best of the design of Age of Mythology: The Board Game:
Innovative Design: As just noted, the design of Age of Mythology is new and innovative in the way that it matches up German-influenced production and building systems with a strong Anglo-American combat system.
Innovative Systems: The Victory Point allocation system is new, innovative, and interesting (though ultimately, I think, problematic as I discuss below). The action card system was also very interesting and different, whether derived from German games are not.
Action Cards Promote Hard Choices: Further, the Action card system promotes my favorite thing in game design: hard choices. You constantly had to measure the surety of selecting the cards you wanted versus the chance to draw something really good that could put you ahead of your opponents. It promotes interesting strategic choices (and occasional swearing).
Varied Systems Provide Depth: Finally, there's a lot of depth in the system overall. As I discuss below, I think combat overshadows everything ultimately, but the fact that you can build your city up, increase production, build up your army for defense, or attack provides a lot of options in the game; if the combat was a little better balanced, there would be a lot of exciting different paths for victory.
Nicely Thematic: The game does a very nicely thematic job of representing its three cultures, and also is a very nice match for the computer game, with many familiar units, gods, and buildings making a reappearance.
Despite all of the good things I've said, I did find Age of Mythology ultimately flawed in a number of different ways. Here were some of my problems:
Combat Deeply Flawed: The largest problem I have with Age of Mythology: The Board Game is that the combat is deeply flawed, unfortunately in just about every aspect.
First, you have the battle card selection. The rock-scissors-paper interaction implies a real level of strategy. There are a few exceptional cases where this is indeed true, such as when an opponent has a gap is his unit types (e.g., if he has no Giant Killers, a Giant is a pretty safe play; likewise a Hero is almost always a safe play). However, the majority of the time it's a real crap shoot: because every unit has an advantage against some other unit, how the two selected units interact produces a fairly random result as to which player actually ends up with the benefit (e.g., if I played my Frost Giant at 7 dice, I could end up with +2 dice, for a total of 9, when fighting a 5-dice Minotaur; or I could remain at my normal 7 dice, and face a 5+4 die giant-killer Manticore). Except in exceptional cases, there's no way to make a best decision, because it depends upon both players' arbitrary plays. Unfortunately the long chart of statistical bonuses for each unit type implies a level of strategy and thus players spend long minutes poring over their units and those of their opponents; this time is ultimately wasted because the strategy is entirely illusory.
(Perhaps the intent was to allow players a chance to "read" their opponents and figure out what they're going to play. Serious rock-scissors-paper players can indeed beat opponents more than a third of the time. However, in this game, a player would be foolish if he didn't just start randomizing his cards when he discovered that another player was figuring him out. I can't have a lot of respect for a combat system where a random choice will always improve an underdog's lot in life.)
Once you get past the card selection, you have the actual die roll, which is highly random too, because the die roll mechanism produces a large variance. Just to offer an example, on 6 dice you're most likely to roll 1 success of "6". However, the odds for rolling 0 or 2 "6"s is very similar: 33% chance to roll 0 "6"s, 40% chance to roll 1 "6", and 20% chance to roll 2 "6"s. When you add up all the numbers you discover that a weaker unit still has a decent chance of defeating a much stronger unit: if a "9" strength unit where facing a "6" strength unit, the "6" would still win about a third of the time.
Putting together the high level of randomness implied by both the Battle card selection and the die roll, the odds of success in most battles is about 50/50 for either side, unless one side is missing some unit types or there's an imbalance in hero power levels.
Another problem that I have with the combat system is that there's very little way to give yourself any advantage in combat by building up armies. Once you've got a spread of units, adding in more really doesn't do a lot. it might protect you from multiple attacks, but it doesn't give you any advantage in winning against a singular opponent. The only real option to increase the power of your overall army once you've got all the main categories of units is to get as many heroes as you can through Age escalation. That a game with so much apparent depth would fall back upon such a singular method of advancement is sad.
One final problem I have with combat is that it's overpowered as compared to other systems in the game. Through taking resource cubes, destroying city tiles, and stealing production sites, it's pretty easy to badly harm everyone else's victory conditions. The city is the worst off, because there's no defense that can't be countered, and as a result a determined warrior can destroy two of his opponent's best buildings whenever he feels like it (or, rather, whenever he gets lucky).
Most people I've seen lauding this game seem to fall into one of three categories.
Some change the combat system. The most common variants seem to be: allowing hits on rolls of "5" or "6", which will decrease variance; and rolling 2D6 + the unit bonus, which will likewise better accentuate differences between unit values. Unfortunately I haven't seen any fixes for the Battle card selection system, which I feel is at least as bad of a flaw, just a better hidden one.
Other people who like the game simply state that it's "not about combat" or "you shouldn't fight", which I can't respect a lot, since any game system is there to be used.
A third category says that the combat is purposefully random so that it won't be too powerful versus other systems. Maybe, but that doesn't add a lot to my enjoyment, and I still think combat overpowers everything else in the game.
If you put together some house rules for Age of Mythology combat, or if you decide to avoid fighting altogether, you might well have an above-average gaming experience, but as usual I'm reviewing a game largely as it exists. I'll be getting back to that in a bit
Pick on the Loser Syndrome: There's an unfortunate tendency in this game to pick on the loser. if someone's army gets knocked out, that person is likely to get hit again and again and again. The problem is that they still might be doing OK in other areas: they'll still have production tiles and will still be generating resource cubes. This means, ultimately, that's it's more valuable to hit losers than winners, because you can get just as much reward with little risk; a well-designed game should balance this in the opposite direction.
Balance Questions: I have real questions about the balance of the game, such as the fact that the Norse seem to have better myth units than the other powers. I'm sure real work has been done to balance things out via other methods (e.g., the Greeks have a huge number of hill production spaces, given them real Gather power), but there's no info within the rules as to what that balance is, thus leaving new players to flounder. Some simple discussions of cultural strength and strategy suggestions would have helped a lot.
Victory Points Anticlimatic: Because almost all of the VPs are awarded at the end of the game, it can feel a bit anticlimatic. In particular, you can have a whole game's worth of planning ruined by a bit of bad luck in the final round as to what cards are drawn, what other players do, etc. If things were less fluid, this would be less of a problem, but there's chances for large ebbs and flows in Largest City and who can actually build a Wonder in the last round, and this makes the VP system somewhat problematic.
Overall, I found Age of Mythology a somewhat below-average playing experience. It was too long, too random, and had too many other troublesome design quirks. Even our player who usually loves war games, and won, wasn't impressed. However, I'm also aware that players who might not mind a largely random game enjoy Age quite a bit. Further I do really think the game has opened some interesting and innovative doorways through its thorough mixing of European and Anglo-American design, and that the resulting depth of the game could be very interesting if combat weren't so powerful.
Thus, in the end, I've decided to let the game barely eke in an average "3" out of "5" Substance rating. If the combat system were thoroughly revised, it could easily have rated a "4" or better.
Conclusion
As it stands, Age of Mythology: The Boardgame is a somewhat odd bird. I'd call it a beer & pretzels war game with heavy German influence. It's a long and complex game, but on the other hand it has a high random to strategy ratio. If you take your gaming less seriously than me, you might like it; I know a lot of peopel do. Personally, I just couldn't get over the lack of control implicit in the combat system, especially since much more control was implied.
Review Summary