

Absolute Domination Challenge

Just finished all the challenges, and barely got the Total Domination challenge (2222 domination point)

Does anyone have the 3333 challenge ? This seems so impossible but anyway, beating all the challenges seemed impossible too and it was finally not that hard.

I would be intrested to see a breakdown of the domination points / challenge of someone with 3333+ points

According to Steam, 0.1% of the players have done it.


Online Play Opinions

After putting a few weeks in against the AI, I wanted to try online play. Is it just me, or is it painfully slow to wait for other players?

I mean, beyond the "I'm figuring out my turn". It seems like people take a really long time. It also feels more worthwhile to keep playing against the AIs instead.

Curious what others think.


New to TTA

I played Through the Ages: A New Story at PAX East and enjoyed it. I'll admit I prefer the Civilization Board game (2010) that includes map tiles and figures, but TTA has a lot of strategic depth despite the lack of a geographic dimension.

I have heard: 1) there is an iPhone app and an OSX app (through Steam); and 2) A New Story is a rebalanced version of the initial board game.

What I would like to know is: Do people recommend one digital game version over the other and does either digital game represent a "rebalanced" version of the game. I'm leaning towards the iOS game, but I haven't read info about whether it is rebalanced or not.



Strategy guide?

Anyone know of a good strategy guide?


Why do I lose on politics cards?

For example, I was playing the versus three hard AI challenge. Raiders was drawn. Red had four military power, yellow had two, blue had seven, I had four. The game says me and yellow are the weakest players.

Why is this? Is it like a 50/50 chance it’s me or red? Do I lose just because I’m not AI? Anybody know?


I feel like to focus on science appears the most promising strategy.

Science is just so universally useful and flexible that it allows to counteract a lot of other shortcomings.

There's no real too much of it, as can be with other resources. With more science comes more of everything else.

In my last game I got the Age I-labs before the Age I mines and it made me just so much more flexible and snowballed into an advantage across the board.

Science unlocks more of everything and reduces the amount of compromises required.


App Question/Genghis Khan

I have Genghis Khan, Swordsmen, and Phalanx. But the Phalanx bonus is not showing up on the app - it says I have a total strength of 4. If I do 1 warrior, 1 swordsmen, plus Phalanx, it says I have a strength of 3. How do I get Genghis Khan's ability to work?


Is military really that important?

So I've been playing only the boardgame-version, maybe around 50 games, probably less. In the 1st edition military was really OP with Napoleon being a gamebraker. However, playing with the newest iteration it seems I'm completely fine just trying to achieve culture and hanging in there military-wise. Reading the forums I get the impression that every guide over-emphasizes military for I've won many games against my pals without putting much effort to that. So my question is: Is military really that powerful in the games played by the really good players or are the rules for online playing somehow different? I would like to hear some strategic pointers to play really aggressively since most of the time that seems really pointless.


Quick App Question

Can single player games be paused and resumed at a later date , or so I have to play through it all in one go with the AI's?


A mini-guide to colonization for new players and intermediates

Preface: I'm currently rank 38 and #12 on the TTA app leaderboard. I have ~500 games under my belt from the app and BGO, so I'm pretty experienced. For simplicity, I won't go into the nuances between digital rules and boardgame rules. This is meant to be a mini-guide focussed solely on colonisation.


Without going into it too much, I should start off by saying that there are actually 5 resources in this game (culture being VP): rocks, food, science, CA and MA. Most new players may not explicitly recognise that CA and MA are resources as well so I need to mention this upfront. With this in mind, I will explain a few things to consider when making a decision on whether and how much to bid for colonisation.

  1. I'll open with a general rule - if you have to sacrifice more than 1 unit to win the territory, you are probably not coming out ahead. There are exceptions of course, but I find this to be generally the case.

  2. Number 1 is because the analysis to be made when colonising is always this - how much is it going to cost me to win that territory? And when you think about this, you need to take into account ALL the 5 resources that it's costing you. Example: when you send one unit to colonise Wealthy Territory 1, your reward is 6 rocks (on the app. It's 5 in the BG) and 3 blue cubes. I find that 3 blue cubes is nice to fend off corruption, but the benefit is usually minimal. So essentially you are getting 6 rocks. But what have you spent to get these 6 rocks? If you sent a Age I unit, that's probably 2-3 food plus 3 rocks (the raw cost of the unit), plus 1 MA (to construct the unit) and 1 CA (for increasing pop). So effectively, you are trading in 1MA, 1CA and 2-3 food for 3 rocks and 3 blue cubes. Is it worth it? Sometimes the immediate 6 rocks is going to be very helpful (I find it most helpful when it allows me to immediately finish a wonder), but often, it's not immediately useful. The value of a MA is hard to judge (new players in paticular tend to underestimate the value of MAs, but I would value it at maybe roughly half a CA). I'm not providing any definite answers here, but this is the analysis you should be making whenever you bid for a colony. If you analyse it like this, you'll find that it's often not worth sending more than 1 unit to colonise.

  3. Another very important consideration (maybe the most important) is - will I still be militarily stronger than my opponent(s) after I sacrifice the units to colonise the territory? This is particularly important in a multiplayer game as it may be 2-3 more turns before you get a chance to rebuild your military. During those 2-3 turns, you might have been weakened sufficiently to be vulnerable to aggressions from the other players. Or (more likely) your military strength might have been lowered so that you become one of the two weakest (or worse - the outright weakest) and are now susceptible to negative events like raiders, border conflict, reign of terror or refugees. This consideration is less important in a 2p game as it immediately becomes your turn afterwards even if the territory is triggered by your opponent (your opportunity cost is not getting to seed an event if you are worried about triggering a negative event), but it is still important because...

  4. The next consideration (linked to the above) is - can I in fact rebuild my army immediately? Sometimes you can't because you don't have enough food to trigger an immediate population increase. Or you don't have enough rocks to build the unit you want. Of course, you may make a calculated risk/decision that it is ok to not immediately rebuild your army and that the benefit you gain from the territory outweighs the disadvantages.

  5. Sometimes colonisation can be a useful way to help you reshape your army. One good example is if you had built an army of 4 swordsmen in the early game. You probably don't want to be stuck with 4 infantry (I use the term infantry to refer to that entire line of units - warriors, swordsmen, riflemen, modern infantry) the entire game (why? This is for another topic, but basically it's inefficient). And yet you don't want to disband them - so you send them off to colonise territories. This allows you to then reinvest those precious yellow cubes into other more efficient units.

  6. How important is the territory to me at this particular point in the game? Or to my opponent? (The latter consideration applies more to two player games, but can also be a useful consideration in multiplayer games). Some examples of moments when a territory can be crucial - (a) When the rocks from a wealthy territory can help to finish a key wonder (b) When the happy faces from a historical territory can help to stave off revolt (c) When the science from a developed territory can help to develop a key technology (one of the worst things in this game is to be science-locked and forced to do nothing or close to nothing for an entire turn). These situations are probably the exceptions to #1.

  7. Of couse, there is the minor consideration of Impact of Colonisation. If you have it, you can probably be slightly more liberal in gaining territories.

That's all I have for this topic at the moment. Hope you guys find it helpful. Let me know if I've missed out anything or if you agree/disagree with anything I've said! I hope to learn a few things too.


‘Easy’ AI is impossible to beat. Game bugged?

Accomplished strategy player. Have tried 10 times to beat the AI, the best I’ve come is a draw.

There must be something wrong with the game. The AI is far too difficult.

Please fix, dev. Have given a 1 star review in iOS, and 4/10 in metacritic.


Barbarian Achievement Unlocked!

This took a while. I'm usually culture-heavy with little focus on colonization or aggression, so shifting those gears was a difficult process.


Issues with chatting in the app - keyboard doesn't come up

Anybody else has this problem? Makes it difficult to communicate, for obvious reasons. I'm on Android, Samsung Note 8.


Skill vs randomness

Just starting to get into this fine game, and am progressively getting better. Stil getting my ass handed to me vs the AI on medium, though, so I no doubt have a lot to learn still. Those that know this game intimately: how much is down to luck (ie, sequence of cards) and how much is skill? Will a very good player be able to beat a medium player 9 out of 10 times, or is it more like 5? I know that's not a scientific way to describe it but you know what I mean. Comments please!

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