Vendor: Ares Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 129.95

ETA Q4 2024

Eastern Empires is a board game for 3 to 9 players and covers the development of ancient civilizations over 8000 years of history. Eastern Empires can take up to 12 hours to complete, and still yet, it has a simple mechanism and is easy to learn. The players lead their civilizations, as they expand and collapse, from the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. Eastern Empires provides a full day of fun for larger groups.

Culture
Though it may seem at first glance, Eastern Empires is not a wargame. Yes, conflict may be involved, but rather it is a game about history, culture, trade, development, and... calamities. The civilizations involved are all situated along the Silk Road and the Arabian Peninsula. The Babylonians, The Indus Valley civilization and The Nubians. Players develop their own unique civilization in arts, crafts, science, civics and religion. Each player starts his civilization with a single population token, 8000 BC, but grows and grows over time, and eventually cities can be built. Cities of course bring wealth and fortune, but also… natural calamities such as epidemics, famine or earthquakes, or civil calamities such as pirate attacks, slave revolts and civil disorder.

Trading
This wealth is expressed in trade cards. The more cities, the more cards a player gets. These cards provide both trading commodities, and calamities. Trading is the heart of the game. A real social experience, where all players simultaneously trade with each other during a limited time. As soon as trading has ended, the players that end up with calamities will suffer them.

Develop advances
And then, of course, it's time to do something about it. Build walls, give your citizens music and architecture. Develop religion, democracy, improve science… 51 different advances can be developed in five different categories.

Maybe a player can even construct a wonder of the world, or scatter their people all over the map, and gain cultural ascendancy. The player that knows best how to work together, trade or battle for territory, defend his people against nature or enemies like barbarian hordes, and stand the test of time, eventually will win the game. After up to 12 hours of playing that is.

Additional components
Compared to its counterpart Western Empires (2019), Eastern Empires game adds additional components and scenarios that enable games with less than 5 players. Though the base game is especially designed for interaction between larger numbers, these new rules and components provide a well balanced smaller game that can even be used with its counterpart Western Empires. The game can be expanded with Eastern Empires: The Special Buildings Expansion (2019).

Mega Empires
When combining the board games Western Empires (2019) and Eastern Empires (2021) this forms: Mega Empires (2021), an 18-player experience. A full game of Mega Empires takes up to 13 hours to complete. This bundle contains both stand alone games, each of which can be played by 3-9 players and can be expanded with the two Special Buildings Expansions (2019) for either game or the combination of both games. Where Western Empires has a focus on sea travel and trade on the Mediterrainean Sea, Eastern Empires follows the Silk Road to India and trading is done through the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula.

—description from the designers

Vendor: Ares Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 129.95

ETA Q4 2024

Western Empires is a board game for 5 to 9 players and covers the development of ancient civilizations over 8000 years of history. Western Empires can take up to 12 hours to complete, and still yet, it has a simple mechanism and is easy to learn. The players lead their civilizations, as they expand and collapse, from the Stone Age, through the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. Western Empires provides a full day of fun for larger groups.

Though it may seem at first glance, Western Empires is not a wargame. Yes, conflict may be involved, but rather it is a game about history, culture, trade, development, and... calamities. The civilizations involved are all situated around the Mediterrainean Sea. The Romans, The Egyptians, The Celts and The Minoans. Players develop their own unique civilization in arts, crafts, science, civics and religion. Each player starts his civilization with a single population token, 8000 BC, but grows and grows over time, and eventually cities can be built. Cities of course bring wealth and fortune, but also… natural calamities such as epidemics, famine or earthquakes, or civil calamities such as pirate attacks, slave revolts and civil disorder.

This wealth is expressed in trade cards. The more cities, the more cards a player gets. These cards provide both trading commodities, and calamities. Trading is the heart of the game. Develop religion, democracy, improve science… 51 different advances can be developed in five different categories.

Maybe a player can even construct a wonder of the world, or scatter their people all over the map, and gain cultural ascendancy. The player that knows best how to work together, trade or battle for territory, defend his people against nature or enemies like barbarian hordes, and stand the test of time, eventually will win the game. After up to 12 hours of playing that is. The game can be expanded with Western Empires: The Special Buildings Expansion (2019).

When combining the board games Western Empires (2019) and Eastern Empires (2021) this forms: Mega Empires (2021), an 18-player experience. A full game of Mega Empires takes up to 13 hours to complete. This bundle contains both stand alone games, each of which can be played by 3-9 players and can be expanded with the two Special Buildings Expansions (2019) for either game or the combination of both games. Where Western Empires has a focus on sea travel and trade on the Mediterranean Sea, Eastern Empires follows the Silk Road to India and trading is done through the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula.

—description from the designers

Vendor: 999 Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 179.95

Vendor: 999 Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 209.95

Vendor: 999 Games
Type: Board Games
Price: 344.95

Mega Civilization, a huge version of the legendary development game Civilization, is a game of skill for 5 to 18 players covering the historical development of ancient civilizations from just after the last Ice Age to the dawn of the new era at the end of the Iron Age — a time span of almost 8,000 years. Each player leads their own civilization as it tries to expand its culture over a map board that stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to India.

Although battles and territorial strategy are important, Mega Civilization is not a wargame as you might expect when looking at the map board. Instead, the objective of play is to gain a level of overall advancement involving cultural, economic, scientific, political, civic, and religious factors. The player who most effectively balances these various goals will achieve the best scores and win.

In more detail, the objective of Mega Civilization is to acquire the highest number of victory points (VPs) by building cities and developing Civilization Advances. This will be done over various phases and turns, some of which will be performed simultaneously by the players. After each turn, a check is made for each player to move forward on the Archaeological Succession Table (A.S.T.). Each step on this timeline represents a certain period of time in history reaching from the Stone Age. Advancement there will provide even more VPs. The winner will not necessarily be the first player to reach the end of the A.S.T. or the player with the highest number of cities or Civilization Advances, although these are the key factors in determining the winner.

Each civilization begins with a single population token, and every turn each player increases their population by adding tokens to each area they occupy. These tokens can be moved over the map board by land or (using ships) by sea. As each area has a population limit, a good strategic overview will give players advantage in occupying more and more areas. If a player manages to move sufficient tokens into an area, they can build a city there. These cities generate trade cards which will eventually lead to wealth. During trade sessions, players receive not only the commodities they need to complete sets; they might also receive calamities which will remove population or cities. Specific Civilization Advances will protect the players from natural or civic calamities. The development of these Civilization Advances is symbolized by turning in sets of trading goods, as the wealthier civilizations will acquire more Civilization Advances.

As civilizations develop, it will be harder for their rulers to find the right balance between future population growth, maintaining enough support for their cities, and increasing their treasury. If they cannot manage their token population, their cities might eventually revolt during the tax collection phase. The civilizations with the strongest economy traditionally score the highest.

A game of Mega Civilization can take 10-12 hours to complete. Players can also choose to play the beginner scenario — "The First Game" — which takes only 1-2 hours. Another scenario — "The Short Game" — provides the same excitement as the full game, although the game starts in a later age; by doing this, games can be played in "only" 6-8 hours.