Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization FAQ
199 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup and the First Rounds
- How many cards are removed from the front of the Card Row at the start of a turn?
- How do you refill the Card Row each turn, and is the whole row always used?
- How many actions does each player get in the first round, and what can they do?
- Does the Starting Player card pass to another player each round?
- Does the starting player get the first pick from the Card Row every turn?
- When does Age I begin and what happens to leftover Age A cards?
- What if Civil Deck A runs out while refilling the row on the starting player's second turn?
- Do players draw military cards in the first round or during Age A?
- What is Age A for, and are all its cards used?
- What do the 3+ and 4+ markings on cards mean, and how do you set up a 2-player game?
- How many Age A military cards start in the Current Events pile?
- What is the Past Events space for, and is it reshuffled?
- Do I have to keep my civil cards hidden, or can they be played face up?
- When do production and maintenance happen during a turn?
Actions, Cards and Hand Limits
- Can you play an Action card the same turn you take it from the Card Row?
- How many Action cards can you play in one turn?
- Does an Action card that discounts a build cost an extra Civil Action for the build?
- Can you play an Action card and choose not to use all of its benefit?
- What is the civil card hand limit, and does it count spent actions?
- If I lose Civil Actions and hold more cards than my new limit, must I discard?
- Can I discard a civil card I no longer want?
- Does building or upgrading a Military Unit cost a Civil or a Military Action?
- When do I discard down to the military hand limit?
- When can my hand exceed the civil card limit?
Workers, Food, Happiness and Production
- Where does the worker go when a building is destroyed or disbanded?
- What is the difference between losing and decreasing population?
- If an event makes me lose population and I have no unused workers, do I lose a building too?
- What counts as a worker?
- Can I have more than one unused worker in the Unused Workers area?
- Can a Yellow or Blue Bank hold more tokens than it starts with?
- Do the Culture, Science and Strength indicators reset each turn?
- Does a strength icon on a Leader or Tactic add Strength every turn?
- Do one-time Culture or Science Points from cards change my per-turn rate?
- Is there a maximum on culture, science or strength?
- In what order are food, consumption, resources and corruption resolved?
- Does an event or card that gives food or resources trigger consumption and corruption?
- How much does the Foray event's 'and/or' of resources and food give?
- When I pay with a resource token worth more than the cost, do I get change?
- Can I move blue tokens from a lower mine or farm up to a higher one to avoid corruption?
- What does it cost to add a worker?
- How do discontent workers and uprisings work?
- Does the limit of 8 Happy Faces cap the happy faces that cards give?
- When an event says to produce and ignore corruption, how long does that last?
- Can discontent workers be used to build, and do they stop production?
- How many discontent workers do I have?
- What happens during an Uprising and what do I lose?
- Which yellow token is taken from or returned to the Yellow Bank?
- When a card says to lose yellow or blue tokens, where do they go?
Technologies, Buildings and Wonders
- Does playing a Technology card give me the building, or do I pay again to build it?
- What counts as a Technology card?
- Can I take a Technology I already hold, or two of the same type and level?
- Do I pay full price when a blue Special Technology replaces another, and do they stack?
- Where do Technology cards go on the player board?
- Is the urban building limit per building type or for all urban buildings together?
- Can I play several urban building technologies and how do I get their benefits?
- Does a building's icon work if no worker is on it?
- Is the technology card or the yellow token the building?
- Is a Lab an urban building, and how do you get Science?
- Can I build a low-level building and upgrade it later?
- What is a card's level, and do Age A buildings count as Level 1?
- Can I build more than one Wonder at once, and does a Wonder need hand space?
- What marks Wonder stages as I build them?
- If a card lets me build two Wonder stages for one Civil Action, can I take another action between the stages?
- Can I play a Technology on the turn I took it?
- Which cards count as Technologies?
- Does playing a military technology use a Civil or a Military Action?
- Do I get a Science discount when a technology replaces an older one of the same line?
- How does Scientific Cooperation change technology costs?
Leaders and Governments
- Can I take two Leaders from the same Age?
- Can I replace my Leader with one from an earlier Age, such as an Age I Leader in Age II?
- Can I get rid of my Leader voluntarily?
- What is the difference between a Revolution and a peaceful change of Government, and does it end my turn?
- Is a replaced Government card kept or removed from the game?
- Can I declare a Revolution if an event or other effect took some of my Civil Actions this turn?
- Can I change Leader and then declare a Revolution in the same turn?
- Can Breakthrough be used to declare a Revolution?
- How do Isaac Newton and Robespierre interact with a Revolution?
- Can I use extra actions gained after a Revolution this turn?
- Do I still produce and pay consumption in a turn I change government?
- How do I track Civil and Military Actions after changing government?
- Do I keep bonuses from my old government after changing?
- If my Leader would expire when an Age ends, do I still get his production first?
- What does Iconoclasm do to Leaders?
- If my Leader is removed, can I take another Leader of the same Age?
- Can I play or replace Hammurabi when I have no Military Actions or the replacement reduces my actions?
Events, Military and Wars
- What happens to the military deck when an Age changes?
- In the last round, can I declare Wars or play Aggressions?
- When is an Age III bonus event resolved if it is revealed during the game?
- How do ties work for events about the strongest, weakest, most or least civilization?
- Can I leave the game while a War I declared is still unresolved?
- What happens when a War ends with equal strength on both sides?
- Can Defense Bonus cards be played in a War?
- Do I lose anything from a War if the strength difference is only 1 or 2 and the card says 'per 3 points'?
- In War over Technology, can the winner take a technology they already own?
- Who chooses what is lost after a War or Aggression, or to an event like Border Conflict?
- Can I upgrade a unit into a different type, such as infantry to cavalry?
- Can Patriotism's military resources be used to upgrade units?
- Are Pacts used in a two-player game, and how do they work?
- How many Pacts can I be part of at once?
- Does attacking a Pact partner end the Pact, and how do I cancel one?
- Does declaring a War count as attacking a Pact partner, and when does it resolve?
- What kind of action does it take to play a Tactics card?
- Does the Tactics bonus count when I sacrifice units for an Aggression, Defense, War or Colonization?
- If losing a unit means a Tactics card's requirement is no longer met, is the Tactic removed? What about older units?
- Are military units discarded or weakened when an Age ends?
- How does Air Force interact with Armies and Napoleon?
- How do bids for a New Territory work and what pays them?
- Can bids tie, and how long does bidding continue?
- Where does the yellow token go when a unit is sacrificed or disbanded?
- Can strength go above 60 when sacrificing units?
- Who chooses the target of a Raid, Plunder or Annex, and when are the spoils chosen?
- Can the attacker use bonus cards, and does defending cost anything?
- Is there a limit on aggressions or wars one player can face, or on who can be targeted?
- What does a failed Aggression do?
- How many military cards can I draw each turn?
- What does a New Territory give me?
- When a Colony gives both tokens and resources, or a Strategic Territory gives cards, what order applies?
- How can I lose a Colony, and what do I lose?
- If everyone passes on a New Territory, where does the card go?
- Are events applied immediately and what happens to them after?
- When an event says decrease or lose population, which worker is removed?
- When an event, raid or aggression destroys my building, does the worker die?
- What does Impact of Population count, and can events give workers to other players?
- Where does a blue token lost to Crime Wave go?
- How do Future Events work and what happens when the Current Events deck runs out?
- When does the Civil Action loss from an Age I Rebellion event apply?
- In a Holy War, how does losing population work?
- In a War over Territory, what if the loser has too few yellow tokens in the Yellow Bank?
Ages, Scoring and End of Game
- When does the Simple Game end after the last Age I civil card is placed?
- What bonus points are scored at the end of the Simple Game?
- When does an Age end, and what becomes obsolete?
- When an Age ends, how is the Card Row refilled?
- Do I lose yellow tokens at the end of an Age?
- Are cards or military cards drawn in Age IV?
- When exactly is the last round of the Full Game?
- Can I sacrifice units to win a colony in the last round?
- Does the last turn include production, and what if I have an uprising?
- Which events are scored at the end of the Full Game?
- How are ties broken when the game ends?
- When and how can I leave the game honorably?
- When a player leaves, are cards removed from the event piles?
- Is there a penalty for an unfinished Wonder at game end?
- Is the end-of-game round different in the German edition?
- How is the final score worked out in the Advanced and Full games compared with the Simple Game?
- If International Agreement empties the Age III civil deck, does Age IV begin?
Explanations of Selected Cards
- What can Christopher Columbus do with a New Territory in hand?
- How do the Kremlin and St. Peter's Basilica affect happiness, and can it go below 0?
- Do effects that count Happy Faces, like Michelangelo or Joan of Arc, stop at 8?
- Does Michelangelo's culture bonus stop at 8 happy faces?
- Does St. Peter's Basilica combine with Michelangelo?
- What does Michelangelo give culture for?
- Does St. Peter's Basilica double unhappy faces from the Kremlin or Communism?
- How many resources does a Raid produce and who picks the building?
- Can Breakthrough be combined with Robespierre's Revolution?
- Can a Leader whose ability needs its own action be combined with a yellow Action card?
- Does Frugality still work when Moses discounts the population increase?
- Does Frugality apply when Ocean Liner Service adds population?
- What is the Science discount on Breakthrough in Age I and Age II?
- How do Masonry and Engineering Genius work with Wonder stages and upgrades?
- Can Engineering Genius build any Wonder stage or be played with no Wonder?
- How does Isaac Newton's refunded Civil Action work?
- Can Ideal Building Site be used to upgrade a building?
- What exactly does Patriotism or Nationalism give for military units?
- Does the sword symbol on the Colossus add Strength?
- How does Napoleon's bonus combine with an Air Force and with sacrifices?
- How does Fast Food Chains score?
- Does the Great Wall add +1 Strength per unit?
- Which strength bonuses count when I sacrifice units for a colony bid or war?
- How much culture does Elvis (or Rock and Roll Icon) add?
- How do Shakespeare's Library and Theater bonuses combine?
- Do Einstein, Newton and Leonardo da Vinci boost every lab or only one?
- After Ravages of Time flips a Wonder, what does it still do?
- Does Winston Churchill double the Colonization value of a Defense/Colonization card?
- Do unfinished Wonders count for International Tourism?
- Can I use the Civil Action Newton returns after declaring a Revolution?
- Can I decline a Leader's ability, such as Moses's, to avoid corruption?
- What counts for First Space Flight?
- How does Robespierre's Revolution work?
- Does Open Borders stop me from attacking my partner or break when I do?
- How do Nikola Tesla's Labs work?
- How does War over Technology work with Special Technologies and tokens?
- How does the International Agreement event work with hand limits and action cards?
- If my new government has a lower Urban Building limit, must I destroy buildings?
- What does Politics of Strength do?
- How much culture does Assassinate score and does it force a sacrifice?
- With Hanging Gardens, St. Peter's Basilica and Michelangelo, what do the Gardens give?
- How do the Age III Impact cards score?
- How does Impact of Progress count special technologies and governments?
- Who wins a tie for Impact of Strength or Impact of Science?
- Who destroys buildings with Terrorism?
- Does Loss of Sovereignty stop a war already declared?
- How do Hollywood and Internet score?
- How does Homer work?
- Do icons on Wonders and other cards score every turn?
- How do Architecture and Engineering change building and upgrade costs?
- How does Impact of Industry count mines?
- Can I use only part of Frederick Barbarossa's ability?
- Does the Library of Alexandria change hand limits?
- What happened to Elvis, Bill Gates and Sid Meyer in the American edition, and how do their replacements work?