Date: 29th April 2011
Game played: Through The Ages ( Czech Board Games ) BGG Id: 25613

This week, four of us were at Nige's hoping to avoid coverage of a certain royal wedding so, with a whole day to fill, Through The Ages seemed like a good choice, particularly as I had not had the chance to play the full game before.

It ended up as a marathon 8 hour session and, although I found the game captivating, it was way too long for me. I suspect three player is best as it would cut down on the downtime quite a bit and the total playing time. Mark W seemed to keep threatening militarily so I tried to keep a reasonable military presence although I still got hit by both him and Nige in the final turn. Nige switched to a massive military presence during the third age with a view to warring with Steve but he ran out of time and needed one more turn than there actually turned out to be. Steve seemed to use his greater knowledge of the game to race out to what seemed a massive lead but he kept reminding us that there were lots of bonuses to be had at the end of the game. On the other hand, I had no idea what was going to come up in the card deck and played to make the most of opportunities as they arose. Snagging Einstein as my leader pushed me down the route of building technologies as much as I could and when space flight appeared as the last wonder right at the end, I grabbed it knowing that I could just about complete its construction in time and it would get me a bunch of points (32 to be exact). And this combined with some good end game bonuses were enough to see the 'newbie' player overtake Steve for a hard-fought win. An enjoyable game, which would have been rated much higher by me if it had taken half the time. As it was, I could only give it a 7.

 
Player
Rating
Score
Position
Winner
Garry
7
202
1
Steve
174
2
Nige
150
3
Mark W
137
4

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