Age of Gods is a cross between a wargame and a betting game, designed by Croc and published by Asmodee Editions. This is a review of the new "Revised Edition", which is the first edition released to the American market.
Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 90-120 minutes
The Compnents
Age of Gods comes with:
The Board: A six-panel board, though somewhat curiously two of the panels are just half the normal width. The board depicts the realms that you'll be warring over. It also has conveninent spaces to keep all unused armies, and lists tons of rules--such as what you do on each turn and what happens on a Divine Wrath roll. It's overall got great utility, but I'm not too found of the artwork. It's all competent-enough cartoony artwork by John MacCambridge. Looking at it closely now I even see some cute little details. However it's also very, very busy which makes the whole board look to me like a kind of garish mash when I'm playing.
Play Components: Most of the components in the game are cardboard bits. This includes army units for all of the 24 peoples of the game, each of which is two sided. One side includes icons for the race as well as their names--which look nice but tend to blend together when all placed on the board. The other side includes colored backgrounds and pictures of the races--which are easier to distinguish on the board, but which include no names, make them just about unusuable. There are also cardboard bits for numerous special powers and other things found in the game.
A pile of gray wooden discs make up the other main play component. They're used for fortifications on the board, or to note increases in a race's technology in the "well of souls".
Cards: There are 72 different action cards, three for each of the 24 races. They're actually split into regular action cards (which just exist to be played for their effect) and destiny cards (which tell you which races you're rooting for). The card art is generally attractive. Each card also has a pile of text which explains what it does. It'd be nice to have some icons to make their use more intuitive, but the text is generally well-written and makes it easy to see how to use the cards.
There are also 12 god cards, which like the various action cards have attractive artwork and feature textual power descriptions.
Rules: The rules are notable because, besides the glossy, full-color rulebook you also get a glossy full-color player's guide which lists out every special power and special effect in the game, so that you can easily refer to them if you have any questions.
Overall Age of Gods has good quality components with good usability and varying beauty. I've given it a high "4" out of "5" for Style, and it'd probably be a "5" if I found the board or army units more attractive.
The Game Play
The object of Age of Gods is to achieve maximum success for the four (or more) races that you take under your godly wing.
Setup: Each player chooses a god card from among two choices that he's dealt. This god card will give him certain benefits in the game, such as being better in combat, being able to protect certain races, etc. Thus a player could play the Goddess of Love, the God of Trickery, or one of ten others.
Each player is given eight action cards from the main deck of 48 cards, which contains two for each race. A card can be used to either increase the tech level of its race or to use the race's special power, which could benefit anyone in the game. For example, the dwarf card lets you build a well-protected dwarven fortress, the lizard man card lets you launch an attack from one city to another, etc.
The 24 races are laid out on the board in their starting position. Each race has a total size of 2, 4, 6, or 8 tokens. Half of those tokens are placed on the board in pre-designated spaces, while the other other half are placed in a supply.
Finally, each player is given five fortification pieces (except the god of fortification who gets ten).
Order of Play: The game is played over nine rounds, during which the following phases occur:
- Destiny Phase
- Fortification Phase
- Combat Phase
- Action Phase
Destiny Phase: This is a special phase where different things occur in different turns. In turns 1, 3, 5, and 7, races are distributed. In turns 2, 4, and 6 minor races revolt. In turn 7 predictions are made.
Race Distribution. This is when the gods find out what races they're supporting. This is done by dealing out special "destiny" cards. They work exactly like action cards, allowing you to use them for tech gain or the race's special power, but they also secretly identify the race as yours. Each god gets one new race at the start of each of turns 1, 3, 5, and 7. During the first turn he gets one of the largest races (with eight tokens), during the third turn a smaller race (with six tokens), etc.
Note that these cards are held secretly unless the player decides to play them during the action phase. This is a crucial element of the game: you usually don't know which races the other gods are rooting for. Instead everything is done secretly and (hopefully) with subtlety.
Revolt of the Minor Races. During turns 2, 4, and 6, each player gets to attack with one of the races of a size which hasn't been distributed yet, otherwise following all the normal rules for the Combat Phase.
Predictions. During turn 7 each player gets to make predictions. He does this by laying face-down up to two action cards for races which he doesn't hold the destiny card for. He'll get bonus points if these races are doing great at the end of the game.
The other phases occur just the same on each turn, unlike the Destiny Phase.
Fortification Phase: Each player may take one of his fortification pieces and put it in a territory, giving the territory extra defensive protection.
Combat Phase: Each player may make an attack with a race that he has not revealed his control of.
The attacks are really simple. You choose a territory and you attack from that territory to an adjacent territory with a different race on it. You then roll a die, and on a 3 you win: the defender's piece is removed and a new piece of the attacking race replaces it. If you roll a 2-, there are no consequences for either side.
This roll can be modified by tech-level differences, by cities, by fortifications, and by various special powers which can give permanent modifiers to races. Each of these tends to modify the roll by a 1 or -1.
If you rolled a "6" and it was your first roll, you get to make another attack with your advancing force.
Note again that there's no "ownership" per se. You can attack with any race on the board. It could be a race you secretly control, or you could just be making an attack to try and foil your foes.
Action Phase: Now each player plays a card either to give the race depicted a tech-level gain (essentially, a permanent bonus in combat) or to use the power of the card. Note that you can be using your normal action cards or your special destiny cards, but the latter has two deficits because it reveals a race you're backing. First, you can't attack with that race any more in the combat phase (though you might still be able to attack with certain cards' special powers). Second, everyone knows who you're supporting and piles on that race. However, since you only have eight standard action cards, you must reveal one of your races by the end of the game, and if you want to make predictions in phase seven, you must reveal more (because doing so eats up two of your action cards).
Winning the Game: The game ends after turn 9. Each player gets one point for each territory occupied by one of their chosen races. In addition each player gets a 3 point bonus for each race they made a prediction for, if the race has expanded to its maximum possible size (e.g., is using all of its tokens).
Relationships to Other Games
On the one hand, Age of Gods is a fantasy war game, and thus you could compare it to your favorite in that genre, whether it be War of the Ring or Divine Right. It's generally a pretty war game with clean, easy-to-remember rules.
On the other hand, Age of Gods incorporates elements of bluffing, secret control, and bidding, where no one ever knows quite what is to each player's advantage. Some of the tactics are thus reminescent of Leo Colovini's classic Clans or to a lesser extent Reiner Knizia's Titan: The Arena (aka, Colossal Arena).
The Game Design
Overall, Age of Gods is a fun game. With a colorful set of races, tons of special powers, and a board to war across, it's easy to enjoy, especially since it plays quickly and simply.
I could see it playing very differently with different groups. A more casual group might just push hard on the wargaming aspect, making obvious attacks and defenses with their preferred races, and the game works OK in this aspect. However I think it really shines when you add in all the potential for bluffing and second-guessing. Some of the more successful players in both games that I played did a good job of hiding some of their races, perhaps even purposefully misleading in the process. There's also a lot of potential for setting up good tactical situations where other people might help you out, based on your guesses about their gameplay.
However, I should further that by saying the game is chaotic. There are large random factors based upon the roll of the dice and the draw of the cards. You can offset the cards somewhat, since you see most of them at the start of the game, but you're only going to roll the nice 15-20 times in the course of the game, and that's not going to average out. If you're luck-adverse, you should thus avoid Age of Gods: in this way it's a very typical French game.
However, for everyone else I recommend Age of Gods quite a lot as a fun and original hybrid between wargaming and more Euro-mechanics. I've given it a high "4" out of "5" for Substance, and that could go up to a full "5" if I felt it stayed fresh through more plays (which I can't yet comment on since I've played it just twice).
Conclusion
Age of Gods is a colorful fantasy wargame with elements of both tactical warfare and bluffing. It's overall a great entrant to the light wargaming genre that should appeal quite a bit to players from the roleplaying side of things.
Review Summary