Civ Meets Dice in Roll Through the Ages
Civilization crossed with a dice game? To some, that concept might sound like the ludic equivalent of bacon chocolate-chip cookies, but until you taste it, you’ll never know for sure how good it might be.
One of the titles that FRED Distribution plans to present at Spiel 08 is Roll Through the Ages, the aforementioned cross of Civ and dice which is designed by Pandemic‘s Matt Leacock.
At heart, the game is played Yahtzee-style, with the active player rolling dice three times on a turn, setting aside any dice he wants to keep and rerolling others. The dice are specially marked, and the various combinations give players workers, food or goods. Workers help you build cities or monuments; food keeps your workers from starving; and goods can be stored, then cashed in for developments, which are worth points and give you certain bonuses. You can try to roll catastrophes to affect other players – but that plan can backfire and push down your development instead.
Unlike its spiritual grandpappy, Roll Through the Ages plays in 30-45 minutes. The game is for 1-4 players, ages 8 and up. No word on the price yet, although I do know that the player boards and goods markers – and possibly even the dice – will be all wood. (Dale Yu has a pic of the prototype and score sheet in the first part of his Origins 2008 coverage.) This game has been added to Gone Cardboard.
Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 2, 2008 at 12:00 AM in Game News, Game Announcements / 1685
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Just checked the date. It’s not April 1st. ;) Posted by Jim Cote on Jul 2, 2008 at 12:39 AM | #
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No way, Jim! I played the prototype a couple of times and it was fun. Game play was solitaire-ish as no one took advantage of the trade rule, but you could try to attack other players’ standing through the dice. I hope other designers will try their hand at the “you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter” style of game design as it can lead to unexpectedly successful results. (It might also lead to disaster, but most creative endeavors fail more often than they succeed, so nothing new there.) Eric Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jul 2, 2008 at 12:46 AM | #
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Yay, it’s finally announced so we can talk about it. However, it seems that they stuck with this title and it’s going to be released from FRED… >.> Posted by Jason Cheng on Jul 2, 2008 at 07:13 AM | #
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I see a subtitle “The Bronze Age” in the graphic. Does that indicate there will be multiple sets/expansions to this game? (And if you play with multiple sets, does it still play in ~1 hour, or would it be 1 hour per set?) -Mark Posted by Mark Johnson on Jul 2, 2008 at 12:14 PM | #
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Based on one game at Origins, this is fun! Posted by Scott Russell on Jul 2, 2008 at 01:30 PM | #
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I’ve been hoping this would get picked up. Congrats to Matt on getting another great game published! Posted by Derek Jung on Jul 2, 2008 at 01:59 PM | #
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I played 3-4 games at Origins, and it definitely has a lot of potential. I’m looking forward to playing it more. Posted by Ed Bryan on Jul 2, 2008 at 04:31 PM | #
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I think the game was not intended to be played with multiple sets. I know Matt has considered the possibility of expansions, but whether or not they materialize will, I imagine, depend on the success of the base game. There are some cool possibilities for doing interesting stuff, like adding variant dice. I think the game has a subtitle because that’s the format. Through the Ages (A Story of Civilization), Hannibal (Rome vs. Carthage), etc. I’m a little surprised people thought the idea of a Civilization dice game was odd? The Settlers Dice game exists, which is a building/development game. Dice have been used for all sorts of interesting things, and there were a bunch of interesting collectible dice games back in the 90’s, including Kris “GIPF” Burm’s Dicemaster, plus Dragon Dice and that Star Trek ship combat dice game. I’m more surprised nobody has done it before now. Posted by Chris Farrell on Jul 2, 2008 at 05:41 PM | #
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I agree with Chris. When I heard that Matt had designed a Civ-based dice game, my first reaction was “I have to play this NOW!” Posted by Larry Levy on Jul 2, 2008 at 06:00 PM | #
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