Through the Ages

Through the Ages board game is a ton of fun, but it also has a lot of rules and a lot of triggers you can forget. The app does a truly excellent job smoothing this over. The tutorial is excellent at teaching you the game, and has a nice personal tone to keep the tutorial engaging. While playing, you can undo all the way back to the last-revealed piece of information (pretty much a whole turn). The app tracks what cards you submitted to the event deck and if that’s the only one left, it warns you that you “know” that event is coming. If you try to pass your turn, it will remind you about military tactics you can play or copy and when you might lose resources because you didn’t use enough of them that turn. When taking actions, a dialog pops up that lets you choose how to take that action (e.g. submit this colony to the event deck or colonize it by removing Christopher Columbus from play). Everything is just very smooth. I don’t have a single suggestion on improvement.

I loved the board game and I think the app is a great adaptation. Works on both iPhone and my IPad. No complaints at all, if you are used to friendly games where no one uses military you might be in for a surprise, but after a few games you figure out you better keep up especially in the last age. Basically if the other players are not trying to add culture even by age 2 its clear they are waiting for Napoleon. It’s hard once you fall behind on military or government to recover. So if I had a complaint it would be that. However you can find a few friends that all agree not to be obnoxious. Just like anywhere else on the internet. If you don’t know the game there is a steep learning curve. That isn’t new to the app, the game always takes a little to get used to. I found that the first few games I would lose track of certain things that happened previously. But after a while got used to not seeing the score or so the other players screens on a table in front of me. It’s all there you have know where to look. I say get the game and enjoy.

I wrote a review before that wasn’t complementary. Truth is though, I continued to play after a bit of time passed. Was still met with some frustration. But I did start to learn how to play the game better. And I have to say that it does play like a board game. Which is to say that sometimes you lose because of bad luck or poor decisions. Yet I keep playing. The challenge is addictive. The only thing it’s missing from a board game is the goofing off and silly banter exchanged between friends and family. Which I find is half the fun of a good board game. In short, I will reprise my earlier review, and say that this game can be fun. If you don’t mind losing some. But that just makes your victories that much more satisfying. I left my earlier review below, in case anyone can relate to how I felt before. I've been playing this game for a few days now a lot. But no matter how hard I try, I have a hard time winning against one easy opponent. Maybe I'm missing something since I've never played the board game. I usually do pretty good at strategy games, but this game doesn't click with me. Now I'm just passed I spent ten bucks on it.