Monday, September 13, 2010

Military advantage = win (Through the Ages)

Life's become real busy lately, so writing this blog is tougher than it used to be. Sorry if things are getting sporadic.

Last week we played Through the Ages, a game I like some aspects of but which ultimately is not one of my favorites. One of the reasons is because I dislike the aggression system, and another is related to the first: In my experience, the player who gets the lead in military strength wins and the player who is in last has a really rough road ahead of them.

Now, I should add that in the games I've played, we have often truncated the game for lack of time. It's entirely possible that something in the third age balances out trying an idea strategy or a culture strategy against the advantage of going military in the first two ages. Maybe those strategies require longer to mature, for example.

Anyway, I was the lucky beneficiary of a winning military strength strategy. I started with Homer and tried to focus on always being in the lead for strength and also having solid culture generation. I built the railroads and discovered professional sports and enlisted James Cook to give me massive culture through the many colonies I had controlled (using the aforementioned military advantage). Shemp got beat up on a few times. Sorry about that buddy.

Kozure did mention when we wrapped up that his engine was just starting to ramp up and he would have benefited greatly from playing out the third age. Who knows?

1 comment:

  1. Even though my engine was "ramping up" and I might have narrowed the gap somewhat, your combo of territories and culture points from having territories would've kept you well in the lead.

    I'm amused that even though I was specifically aiming for a military strength strategy, you not only consistently were stronger, but by a large margin. Conclusion: Ah'm bahd aht this.

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