We initially wanted to play a different game for this Holiday (Thanksgiving) week but as we reorganized our game room shelves so we could find games and know where they are, The Age of Atlantis by El Dorado Games kept catching my eye.
On the day we decided to play our new game for the week, my wife was taking care of dishes while I set up the game. She walked into the game room and said “I thought we were playing X game.” I responded that this one just looked more appealing to me for the night, and she agreed.
THE AGE OF ATLANTIS (2022)
For hundreds of years, the city of Atlantis was a self-sustained, booming civilization in the middle of the ocean. According to actual Plato writings, Atlanteans had discovered a new powerful element called Orichelum within their city. Orichelum advanced their technology faster than any civilization the world had ever seen. The Atlanteans were able to create and power giant machines called Myths to defend the city from relentless attacks from the outside world trying to take their precious Orichelum.
The Age of Atlantis is a highly competitive, engine-building, civilization-like game. You and your friends are each an asymmetric noble house trying to become the most politically powerful. You’ll grow your house’s population, discover new technologies and cultures, and defend your city. All while trying to keep Poseidon, the God watching over the city, from flooding the city. The noble house that has the most political power at the end of the game will be the winner and rule the city.
—description from the publisher
Weight 3.32/5
A Little More Info
The game takes place over three Age Periods. However, this does NOT mean three rounds (years) of play unless you meet the requirements for advancement on the first attempts at each Age. To advance the players collectively need to meet the number of required achievements for each age based on the number of players.
This game is a competitive game that does have co-op element to it in which everyone needs to help defend the city of Atlantis. There is also a fully co-op mode as well. The Kickstarter version does include a 8 game mini-campaign scenario book that adds even more “adventure” to the game.
Each player belongs to a specific House which has a unique 5th building and there are four different Myths to pick from.
There are 10 steps that you take in every year (round) in the game. They are the following:
1. Place Workers: Where you take turns building buildings, researching upgrades, and taking various other actions. Each time you place a worker you can take 1 (or 2 if Blessed) free actions and pay morale points to take more. More details of what you can actually do in the rule book (we will let you look that up). After placing all your workers (if you want) you will then Pass ending your Place Workers phase (once you Pass you cannot place anymore workers or take actions). This is the turn-based element in the game.
2. Atlantean Charity: Where you retrieve your workers from the board and for the player who is behind on the Political Power track one of their workers gain a morale point.
3. Morale Status: If you have some technology bonuses from the Town Hall, do this first. Then this is where you lose a Favor point for each of your workers that have a negative morale.
4. Achievement Pause: Where you run down the list of achievements in the current Age and earn point for fulfilling them. This is where you also check to see if the group has met the number of required achievements to move into the next Age.
5. Rest Workers: Each worker gains a morale point (if possible).
6. Military Advance: Where each of the cards that are on the game board moves one level closer to the center of the city. This is also where if an enemy breaks through into the city, every player loses 3 Favor points and that section floods.
7. Poseidon’s Fury: This is where you check to see if you made Poseidon mad. If you have lost all Favor you take a Fury Card and loose 10 Political Points. If you hold a Fury card for the round, you can not take blessed actions (the direction where Poseidon is pointing)
8. Change Blessing: This is where you roll a die and change the direction the spear is pointing. That section allows whoever places a worker in it to take an extra free action (see #1).
9. Place New Cards: Depending on what age you are in, you will roll 1,2, or all three dice and place new cards in the outer-most circle on the board.
10. Change First Player: The first player marker moves to the next person clockwise and the new year begins.
This seems like a lot but as mentioned above, only the Place Workers step is turn based. Steps 2-10 get done very quickly. The winner of the game is the player who have accumulated the most Political Power at the completion of the 3rd Age.
What we like about the game
Once the basic rules of the game are understood, the game is really easy to play. We do like that in subsequent rounds you can go to the locations that have your opponents buildings (unless it is the house specific one) and still take actions as if it were your own building.
We love that the components of the game are of high quality. They are built to last and be useable for hundreds of plays. The game board is also double sided with an alternative set of achievements which allows you to mix up the game play a bit. However, see below for the only thing in this category we have issue with.
As for the game play itself, we love that once all workers are placed then the rest of the steps are done together. So overall there is little downtime in the game.
Even though the game is on the larger scale, it leaves a great table presence. If it was smaller it would not have that “larger than life Mythical” feel to it.
Last thing to mention is that we like that each House has a specific focus which can benefit the player and possibly the other players too. Also, the Myths in the game are not House specific so at the beginning of the game you can pick the one you want use.
What we don’t like about the game
The only exception to the components is that the three resource trackers are small, a bit too small.
Other than that, one thing, we like the game a lot.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This game takes you to a time when stories of mythical beasts were around to help defend a soon to be lost civilization.
It is a fun and engaging game that no two games will be alike.
El Dorado Games created another hit in our books.
We loved The Island of El Dorado and its expansions. We would not be surprised if there will be future expansions to this game too.
FAMILY GAMER VERDICT
We give this game a 9 out 10.
Big, beautiful, and fun. This game just might make it to next year’s 10x10 Challenge. It is a game that will keep seeing our game table and many other players will be introduced to it too.
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