Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization rules refresher

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You win by having the most culture points at the end of the game. You get there by taking cards from the card row into your hand, then spending civil and military actions to put technologies, wonders, leaders and units into play, balancing food, resources, science, strength and happiness as you go.

A reminder on setup. There are eight decks: a civil and a military deck for Ages A, one, two and three. With three players, remove the marked cards from civil decks one, two and three. With two players, remove those and the other marked cards as well, and remove every pact card from the military decks. On your player board, put a blue token on each of the sixteen blue bank squares, and a yellow token on each of the eighteen yellow bank squares, on each of the six squares on your initial technology cards, and one in your worker pool. Despotism gives four civil and two military actions, so set four white and two red tokens beside it, not on it. Science rating starts on one, strength on one, culture and happiness on zero, and both points counters on zero. Your tactics standard goes in the common tactics area. For events, shuffle the Age A military deck, take cards equal to the number of players plus two as the current events deck face down, and return the rest to the box unseen. Shuffle the Age A civil deck and deal thirteen cards into the card row. On the first turn only, the starting player has one civil action, the next player two, and so on, and nobody has military actions.

Play goes clockwise, and a round is one turn each starting with the starting player. Your turn has four parts. First the start of turn sequence: replenish the card row, resolve a war if you have one, and make an exclusive tactic available if you must. Then the politics phase, where you may take at most one political action. Then the action phase, where you spend civil and military actions in any combination and order. Then the end of turn sequence: discard excess military cards, check for an uprising, produce, draw military cards, and reset your actions. Your very first turn is different: you skip the start of turn sequence and politics, and in your action phase the only things you may do are take non wonder cards from the row, or take a wonder and put it into play unfinished, each for its usual civil action cost.

Replenishing is the same every turn. Discard whatever is still sitting in the leftmost spaces: three spaces with two players, two with three players, just the leftmost with four. Then slide everything left so there are no gaps, and deal from the current age civil deck into the empty spaces from left to right. Age A ends the first time the row is replenished, which is the starting player's second turn. Ages one, two and three end when the last card of that civil deck is dealt. When a new age begins, cards two or more ages older become antiquated: discard antiquated cards from hand, and remove antiquated leaders, unfinished wonders and pacts from play. Everything else in play stays. Each player loses two yellow tokens. Swap in the new civil and military decks. Age four is the game ending age.

In the politics phase you may prepare an event, play an aggression, declare a war, offer a pact, cancel a pact, or resign. Preparing an event puts your event card face down on the future events deck, scores you culture equal to its level, and reveals and resolves the top card of the current events deck. For an aggression, pay the military action cost and name a rival. You cannot attack someone whose strength equals or exceeds yours. The defender may play military bonus cards for their defense values, and discard cards face down for one strength each, but the total number of cards played or discarded cannot exceed their military action total. If they match or exceed you, nothing happens. A war is placed in your play area and resolved at the start of your next turn, comparing raw strength with no bonus cards allowed, and you cannot declare a war in the last round. Pacts are not used in a two player game.

The action phase is the heart of the turn. For one civil action each you can increase population by paying the food shown under the rightmost occupied section of your yellow bank, build a farm, mine or urban building by paying its resource cost and placing an unused worker, upgrade to a higher card of the same type by paying the difference, destroy a building, play a leader, build one stage of a wonder, develop a technology by paying its science cost, or play an action card. Taking a card from the row costs one, two or three civil actions depending on the space, and taking a wonder costs the actions shown plus one extra for every wonder you have already completed. You may never have two unfinished wonders at once, and you may only take one leader per age.

A revolution costs your entire civil action total and pays the lower science cost on the government card. Your civil card hand limit equals your civil action total, and you cannot take a card if you are already at or above it.

Military actions build, upgrade or disband units, each for one action. Playing a tactic from your hand costs one military action and makes it your exclusive tactic in your play area; copying a tactic already in the common area costs two. You may only play or copy a tactic once per turn, and an exclusive tactic must be moved to the common area at the start of your next turn.

At the end of your turn, discard military cards down to your military action total. If your discontent workers outnumber your unused workers you face an uprising and skip production entirely. Otherwise produce in this order: score science and culture equal to your ratings, lose resources to corruption, produce food, pay food consumption, and produce resources. If you cannot pay food consumption you lose four culture per missing food. Then draw one military card for each unused military action, up to three, and move your red and white tokens back to your government card so that all your actions are available again.

When a territory event is revealed, everyone may bid a colonization force, clockwise from the player who revealed it, each bid a whole number higher than the last. The winner sacrifices military units summing to at least the bid, adding tactical strength from armies, the colonization modifier, and colonization values from military bonus cards. At least one real unit must be sent. The card then becomes their colony.

If Age four begins during the starting player's turn, that round is the last; otherwise the following round is the last. Anyone who resigns is out, and players who had declared war on them remove those cards and score seven culture. Once the last round finishes, evaluate all Age three events remaining in the current and future events decks in any order, then apply end of game bonuses. Most culture points wins, and tied players share the victory.

A turn, played out

It is Age two, three players, and your strength is 9. The player to your left sits at 6 with 2 military actions. Your government gives you 4 civil and 3 military actions. In politics you play an aggression from your hand and name them. Its military action cost is 2, so 2 red tokens come off your government card. They are allowed as a target because 6 is below your 9. They answer with a military bonus card worth 2 defense, then discard 1 card face down for 1 more strength. That is 2 cards, their full military action total, so they cannot add a third. 6 plus 2 plus 1 makes 9. They match you, so nothing happens. Now your action phase. You hold 3 civil cards. For 1 civil action you take a card from a space costing 1. That puts you at 4 cards, equal to your civil action total, so for now you cannot take another. With a second civil action you develop a technology from your hand and pay its science cost. You are back to 3 cards. Your third civil action raises population. The rightmost occupied section of your yellow bank shows 3 food, so you pay 3 and a yellow token joins your worker pool. Your last civil action builds a mine. You pay its resource cost and place that new worker on it. You have 1 red token left. You could build a unit, but you keep it. At end of turn you hold 2 military cards, under your 3, so none are discarded. No uprising. You produce, draw 1 military card for the unused action, and reset your tokens.