In one paragraph
Each Age, 20 cards are laid out in an overlapping pattern between you. On your turn you take one card that isn't covered and either build it into your city, sell it for coins, or use it to build one of your Wonders. Red cards push a shared military pawn toward your rival's capital. Green cards collect science symbols. If either of those goes far enough, you win on the spot. If nobody does by the end of Age III, the higher score wins.
The basics
| Players | 2 |
|---|---|
| Play time | 30 min |
| Age | 10+ |
| Ages (rounds) | 3 |
| Cards in play per Age | 20 |
| Starting coins | 7 each |
| Wonders per player | 4 (only 7 of the 8 can be built) |
Setup
- Board. Lay the board between you. The Conflict pawn starts on the middle space, and the 4 military tokens sit face up on their marked spots.
- Progress tokens. Mix all 10, lay 5 of them face up on the board, and box the other 5.
- Coins. Each player takes 7 coins from the bank.
- Draft Wonders. Shuffle the 12 Wonders and turn 4 face up. The pick order is first player (1 Wonder), second player (2 Wonders), then first player takes the one left. Turn up 4 more and run the same order with the roles swapped. You each finish with 4.
- Prepare the decks. Pull 3 random cards from each Age deck and box them unseen. Then pick 3 of the 7 purple Guilds at random, mix them into the Age III deck unseen, and box the remaining four.
- Lay out Age I. Deal the 20 Age I cards into the pattern shown at the back of the rulebook. Some go face up and some face down, so check the diagram as you deal.
Your turn: three ways to use a card
Pick any card that has no other card overlapping it. Then do one of these:
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Build it | Pay its cost and place it in your city. Sort your cards by color so you can read your city at a glance. |
| Discard it for coins | Put it face down in the discard and take 2 coins, plus 1 more for each yellow card in your city. |
| Build a Wonder | Pay the Wonder's cost (ignore the card's own cost) and tuck the card face down under the Wonder. |
After you take a card, flip any face-down card that is now fully uncovered. Some Wonders give you another turn straight away.
Wonders don't need a matching card. Any card you can take will do, which is a handy way to use up a card your opponent wants. It gets tucked under the Wonder and does nothing else. If a Wonder's extra turn would happen after the last card of an Age is gone, it's lost.
When the seventh Wonder gets built, whichever one is still unbuilt leaves the game. So one of you will end up with only three. Racing to build your best Wonders early matters.
Paying for things
Brown and gray cards produce resources, and so do some yellow cards and Wonders. Resources work like permanent income rather than currency: building with Stone doesn't use any up, so the same Stone card helps pay for something every turn.
If you're missing a resource, you buy it from the bank. The price depends on your opponent:
| Your opponent's brown/gray cards make… | You pay per unit |
|---|---|
| None of that resource | 2 coins |
| 1 of that resource | 3 coins |
| 2 of that resource | 4 coins |
| Each extra one | +1 coin |
The coins go to the bank, not to your opponent, unless they own the Economy progress token. Resources from yellow cards and Wonders don't raise the price. Some yellow cards fix a resource at 1 coin for you.
Chains: some cards in Ages II and III show a small white symbol in their cost. If you already built the earlier card with that symbol, you build the new one for free.
Three ways to win, compared
Most new players only chase points. The two instant wins are what make the game tense, because you have to watch your rival's red and green cards as closely as your own.
| Military supremacy | Scientific supremacy | Civilian victory | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How | Push the Conflict pawn into your opponent's capital | Collect 6 different science symbols | Have the most points after Age III |
| Built from | Shields on red cards and some Wonders | Green cards, plus the Law progress token | Everything in your city |
| When it ends the game | Immediately | Immediately | After the last card of Age III |
| Side rewards | Military tokens make your rival lose 2 or 5 coins | Each matching pair of symbols lets you take a progress token | None. It's the default |
| How to stop it | Build your own shields to push the pawn back | Take or discard the green cards they need | Score more points |
Every shield nudges the pawn one space toward your rival's capital, and their shields pull it back, so it can swing both ways all game. When it crosses into a zone that holds a military token, the player who moved it applies the token and takes it off the board.
The game has 7 science symbols. Each time you collect a second copy of a symbol, take any progress token still on the board. Six different symbols wins on the spot.
Moving between Ages
An Age ends when all 20 cards are gone. Lay out the next Age's pattern. The player with the weaker military (the one the pawn sits closer to) chooses who goes first in the next Age. If the pawn is dead center, the player who took the last card of the previous Age makes that choice.
Age III has no brown or gray cards, but it has the 3 Guilds you shuffled in. Guilds score based on which city has the most of a certain card type, and you can choose either city.
Civilian scoring
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Military position | 0, 2, 5 or 10, based on how far the pawn sits on your rival's side |
| Blue, green, yellow and purple cards | As printed |
| Wonders | As printed |
| Progress tokens | As printed |
| Coins | 1 per full set of 3 |
On a tie, the player with more points from blue cards wins. If that's tied too, you share the win.
Common mistakes
- Paying your opponent for resources. Trade money goes to the bank. The opponent's cards only set the price.
- Taking a covered card. A card is only available when nothing overlaps it, not even a corner.
- Forgetting to flip. Reveal newly uncovered face-down cards before the next turn starts.
- Ignoring the science race. Two greens can look harmless. Count your rival's symbols every Age.
- Leaving a card that sets up your opponent. Every card you take may uncover one for them. Look one step ahead before you choose.
- Selling cards too rarely. Discarding for coins is a real move, especially when the only cards open would help your rival.
If this one lands with your group, our best 2-player board games guide lists the other duels worth owning.
Corin Ashdown is the pen name of the editor who writes and checks every guide on Vorbelutrioperbir. How we write and check guides.