Through the Ages (iOS and Android) by Vlaada Chvátil

One of my em-pee games (4-player) is currently crashed - Czech Games is looking into it. Don’t know what platforms people are using. Assume there is an Android user in there somewhere. You can send the crash screen to Czech Games and they can try to debug.

FREAKING FINALLY.

Two medium AIs defeated.

Your choice of leaders seems very warlike, though I guess with a name like spacerumsfeld that should be a given. Surprised you could bring yourself to build the Eiffel Tower or did you rename it the Cheney Phallus?

I’ve had single-player crashes. Been playing on android and Ipad. The Ipad is much less stable. It always autosaves the turn succesfully thought.

I still have yet to win on easy. But I just came in third out of four! I’m improving.

I’ve come to the conclusion that avoiding corruption must be a priority, particularly early on. Even -2 corruption.

Yes. If you’re consistently seeing corruption, it means you’re not optimizing and thus falling behind. It’s more of a marker of inefficiency than a crippling event in itself.

I get my ass kicked on easy too.

The few times I’ve won I’ve noticed a few patterns - I manage to stack the age I deck in my favor. I think some opening combos are important to think about.

Caesar + Colossus - means you can add more colonizing stuff and buy it. AI will usually grab navigation and screw things up. However, if you know strategy or developed territories are coming its ok let them bid over the less good stuff (vast and wealthy?)

A strong military early on is pretty good too. 4 warriors and then stack the deck with weakest gets weakened mode. This tends to screw the AI. I’ve certainly been in the other end of it…

By age 2 there aren’t as many military threats from the deck and it’s the AI that can screw you. The worst imo is getting raided and losing all your labs/happiness.

I suck.

For the first half of Age I you should be focusing on setting up your engines using what is readily available from the card row. Iron, Science, Civil/Military actions should be on your priorities. Setting up your military early is a bit of a gamble since you will be using your military actions for some turns to build and won’t be drawing military cards then. If you’re able to get more Military actions then you improve your chance to get the right cards to punish your opponents before they can catch-up.

Past the half point of the first Age, you have to start thinking about patching holes. Age II is approaching and you will be loosing 2 yellow tokens. Are you still producing only 2 foods? Are you behind on military? Will you be able to play a technology at least once every 2-3 turns in Age II?
How will you produce more rocks? And what about Culture…?

When you understand your weak point you can easily decide to sacrifice 3 civil actions to get the card you absolutely need to get things moving forward. If you are not asking those questions before you hit a wall you will be relying too much on your card row luck and might loose a few turns until you get the right card.

On the subject of corruption, it really should be avoided at all cost for the first 2 Ages. Take the time to try different set of actions using the undo option. Also, if you’re not sure about building a 4th or 5th mine/farm, you might be better off investing for science or culture since you never have too much of that.

I find it very important to get rid of despotism as quickly as possible. Being able to build a 3rd urban building can really improve whatever strategy you are pursuing. One thing I don’t spend many actions on are yellow cards. I’ll pick one up occasionally if I have a specific use for it but otherwise I don’t pick them up. The ones that take an extra civil action to get something out of them is the worst since that costs you a total of 2 actions. For instance rich lands is better than breakthrough because while both cost 1 action to draw the card, breakthrough costs a second action to generate the science, while rich lands is discounting the cost of building a farm or mine but the second action is being spent on building not using the card.

In a recent game I was constantly outbidding the three AI dudes for territories, sacrificing troops to do so, then rebuilding my troops the next turn. I thought I was so clever.

Then, one turn, I couldn’t afford a good rebuild of the now-departed troops, and two of the AI pounced, declaring war and inflicting crippling damage. I never recovered. You really do need to keep everything in balance, including military.

This is a humbling game.

GG to both @Brooski and @Thraeg, whose response to my war (gaining 20 military in one turn!) was the crucial play!

Yeah gg guys. I completely lost control of that one, probably due to a combination of playing too many games at once and also not being very good. How did I never grab a government?

GG guys. @Brooski I somehow failed to ever get a library or lab above age A. Was lucky to get just enough research from yellows.

vs 3 Hard AIs. Sigh…

According to this website, the game is coming to Steam - but no mention of how long the wait will be.

I don’t game much on mobile devices, so now I’m not sure if I should wait for the Steam version. I want the game for sure.

If its any consolation, I still can’t beat the easy AI. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I do come close. Each game I always seem to lag in one thing, a resource, or military, or culture, and the AI dudes just pounce on it.

The more I play, the worse I get.

I am seeing multiple crash-to-desktop bugs in m/p games, plus the server often seems to be slow and poorly responsive.

In other news, I am having some difficulty with the Challenges - I was finally able to beat Joan of Arc, albeit by only one point and only after numerous failed attempts.

I like the sound of this robust AI and these challenges. I think I’ll pick this up this weekend.