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In an ancient world forgotten by time, enormous titans terrorize the land. Five tribes have been fleeing from the titans for centuries, but things are about to change. Growing city-states pledge to end the reign of terror, determined to take on the titans and make the world a safer place for all. Each city-state competes to attract the tribes, eager for the strength of the combined peoples, who are now leaving behind old traditions with the hope that the titans can be defeated once and for all.
In The Ancient World, players compete to grow the largest and most influential city-state by managing citizens, treasury, and military and by defeating titans. Players take turns sending citizens to take special actions or using military cards to attack titans. One of the actions a citizen can perform is to build Empire cards, which give more citizens, money, and abilities.
A city-state's influence in the world is measured by sets of tribe banners that it owns. Each Empire card has one or more tribe banners, and tribe banners can also be gained by defeating titans. Players gain victory points (VPs) for sets of tribe banners. After six rounds, the player with the most VPs from sets of tribe banners wins.
This page includes videos and mentions from the whole The Ancient World (Red Raven Games) family. Drill into a specific game below.
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- Wonderful art style and great looking game.
- Solid worker placement game with an interesting, compelling theme.
- Large variety of civil cards offer depth and good replayability.
- The pay-a-coin mechanic when workers share a space feels odd and somewhat in-between.
- No particularly standout or amazing mechanics; it's good but not great.
- Suffers from comparison to Above and Below.
- Nomadic tribes under threat from titans must join forces with fledgling towns to defeat them.
- ancient land
- Above and Below
- Lords of Hallows
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Area Control — Implied by the competitive nature of building the first great city and controlling tribal areas.
- Card Drafting — You can use an Explorer to look at the next five empire cards and store one for later.
- Combat — Challenging Titans requires selecting military units and paying coins to match their strength.
- Set Collection — Collecting matching tribe banners is the key to victory.
- Worker Placement — Actions are taken by placing workers on the board and claiming associated benefits.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Terrible titans stride across this ancient land destroying all they come across.
- The single best thing about the game is the art and I kinda hate saying that a little as it undercuts Ryan as a game designer who makes games it would be good without his great art.
- There's also no particularly standout amazing mechanics in the game it's good but it's not great.
References (from this video)
- Good worker placement design
- Likeable theme and art style
- Did not 'wow' the players
- We like the theme.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Worker Placement — this is a pretty good worker placement design.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is like a polyomino game, which you may know that I really love.
- The production quality is great. The art style is great. The theme is pretty cool, but the game somehow didn't work for us at all.
- This one really, really surprised me. This is good.
- And I think it's very well designed, but that's almost a given with Ryan Lockett games.
- Parks always gets an S tier, especially the first edition.
- Spirit Island is rising up in rank higher and higher. It has always been S tier game for me, but it's like rising up my like list of most favorite games.
- This game is very polarizing. I understand that some people really love this and some don't like it at all.
- Deal of merchants. Always Srank. This is like one of my most favorite deck builders ever.
- It can be kind of broken, a little bit unbalanced, very luck heavy, but it's a very, very good design as well.
References (from this video)
- thematic depth and strong narrative cohesion
- rich combination of buildings and military options
- high complexity and long playtime
- steep learning curve for new players
- mythic, tableau-based civilization development
- ancient civilizations / city-building
- epic, thematic
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- combat and defense against mythical threats — ward off attacks with military and cards
- Tableau Building — build a city with buildings providing powers and resources
- tableau-building / card-based engine — build a city with buildings providing powers and resources
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- board games are tactile they're made to be played with
- it's such a thematically rich fun experience
- this game is about attracting different types of birds into your habitat
- I love word games because not only do they represent a lot of IDs that we have in everyday life
- the tension points of the trail ... there's weather that plays into it