Roll Through The Ages: The Bronze Age

Roll Through The Ages is a game that combines strategy, tactics, and a reasonable degree of chance in a game of dice-rolling.

The game comes with a set of dice, a wooden peg board with with to record goods and food and a custom notepad with which to record how many cities and monuments you build. The idea is that you are each developing a civilisation, and how you do it depends on what dice you roll.

At the start of the game you have already ‘built’ three cities, and that means you’re permitted to roll three dice: you get up to two re-rolls each turn, and the dice show a variety of icons: workers, amphoras, food, coins, and skulls. Workers help you build either cities (which give you more dice to roll) or monuments, which give you victory points at the end of the game. Amphoras give you goods, which a recorded on the peg board- these will be traded in to get Developments (displayed on your notepad) which give you both points at the end of the game, and a benefit during play. Food is used to feed your cities (i.e., you need one food per die you roll for each turn) and not having enough food incurs penalties. Coins help you buy developments although it’s a less cost-effective way than goods, and finally Skulls incur penalties – possibly for you, possibly for the other players. The silver lining with skulls is they each give you two amphora, so if you can guard against the ill effects of them, rolling skulls can turn out to be a good move.

Play continues until either a single player has bought five developments or collectively all monuments have been built (oh yes – the monuments are essentially a race, as once one player has built a certain monument nobody else can).

It’s a game that’s easy to learn, plays quickly, and comes with rather lush components!