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Roll Through the Ages: The Iron Age, a sequel to the highly-awarded Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, lets you build an Iron Age civilization in under an hour! Do you build provinces, raise armies, and conquer barbarians or build ports and ships to gain trade goods? Explore the strategies of Greece, Phoenicia, and Rome as you erect monuments, fend off disasters, and strive to feed your people.
Roll Through the Ages: The Iron Age gives players different ways to build their empires: the Trade and Naval strategies of the Phoenicians, the conquests of Alexander the Great, and the engineering prowess and gradual absorption of new provinces by the Roman Republic.
Grab those dice — including the Fate die — and prepare to build the greatest empire as you continue to roll through the ages!
Roll Through the Ages: The Iron Age games that include the Mediterranean Expansion have their own game entry at Roll Through the Ages: The Iron Age with Mediterranean Expansion.
- civilization theme
- backed early and excited
- felt unbalanced between ports and provinces
- two-player game felt long and not enjoyable
- concerns about balance that might differ with more players
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- port vs province balance with push-your-luck dice — Civilization theme with dice mechanics; two-player experience noted as unbalanced for longer plays.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's just too random too quick
- the game played itself
- I bought it because of the crazy art and you've got that crazy cover and it's just wonderful stuff and ideas in the box
- it's so busy
- the four player colors are gray black tan and brown they're the same colors so you're like is that a player color is that a resource
- backstabby
- incredibly abstract and really not engaging for me at all
- the idea of this just totally blew my socks off
- but ultimately it is a big old area majority game
- I've actually just posted before this video a full run through of this game, including that run through I played it three times and I'm just really into it
- grabbed it for only $20.9 bucks
References (from this video)
- quick, approachable civilization sim
- presents a compact, faster alternative to longer RoR titles
- older Roll Through the Ages has a different weight; the Iron Age version is a variant
- roll-and-write civilization growth
- ancient civilization progression
- historical progression with tech and monuments
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Flip/Roll and Write — roll dice to obtain resources and build or upgrade civilizations
- militaristic combat / defense — combat and defense elements appear via dice-driven actions
- roll-and-write — roll dice to obtain resources and build or upgrade civilizations
- tech/monument development — technologies and monuments grant scoring and benefits
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This was a fun trick-taking game that wasn't too hard to learn.
- I like the predictive puzzle of not only guessing how much you will win but also where to play certain numbers.
- The game has that factor that there is a high skill level and high ceiling of play for this game.
- I would play it again if someone else brought it out.