Gidday Rob,

7 Ages is all ready apart from the rules typesetting, then off to the printers early next year with the kickstarter hopefully in march and the game released in the second quarter 2024. I apologise for the delay but like all ADG projects we really want them to be the best they can be prior to release, and this is the collector’s edition after all.

regards
Harry

Hi, any news on 7 Ages as the year comes to a close? Merci

Hi all! I am fan of 7 ages since i knew about it. I am really happy with the idea of the edition but many of the community fans played some homerules for improve it with these game aspect:

-Combat: i really like the new combat version: 13) Quick conflict resolution because it erase “the poker flavour” in big combats and the game is faster this way. Many people played one homerule with One Combat Round and all units committed in both sides… but the new version is more balanced.

-First Turn Order: The First player is too overpowered for just picking luckily a 7 card in the opening deal. In the Harvesting Glory Phase this is truly dramatic because first player wins all ties in Glory phase. Many civilizations of the same age have the same Glory categories… Example Shang (card 4) and Chou (card 108) are developed in Age 1, in adjacent areas, with China as a Glory objective. So, the first player is always in advance to win the China Glory points. Alternate first player turn does not work cause of clockwise turn order is still unfair for two tied glory players sitting inmediately together.
So ties in Harvesting Glory many people solve this way: Glory is Half rounded down for all players tied.

-Discard Empire: If the Discard Empire was the first action for empires, it could be possible to start a new empire and not lose a whole turn with an old empty empire you want to trash it. The game could be more dinamic and faster this way.

-Game Lenght: Some people play games from 1-3 ages, others from 5-7, etc. Greg Turner (A great 7 ages fan and designer of others games) proposed a Total History Accelerated variant in 6/7 hours that works fine: At the end of each turn, after scoring Glory and progress, one of these two options (A or B) will occur:

A) If there is at least one empire in the current age of the game: ¡Advance the game age by one! So Starting new empires of the new age will be possible in next turn (fast game)

B) If there are no empires in the current game age: Eliminate the empire lowest on the progress
track. If there is a tie of two or more empires, eliminate the empire with the lowest card value. If there’s still a tie eliminate all empires tied for lowest progress and lowest card value. This way, ancient and delayed progess empires leave room for a high aged more powerfull empire in the player´s hand. SETUP: Never setup a new empire’s progress marker below the current game age

All these homerules are widely tested by the community and game groups and i think they improve a faster and funny game.

Great work anyway with the Expansions :-)

Gidday Steven,

thanks for your query. If 4 empires in a row don’t halve their income then the climate clock goes down 4 spaces to the 1 box. 1 more and it starts getting very nasty. On the other hand 4 players working together only get the climate clock 2 spaces towards recovery. It’s a pretty good model of the prisoner’s dilemna requirements to fix the environment and I am very intrigued to see which wins out, whether players work together to make the planet better or selfish greed wins out. Where people lead, politicians follow.

Just done a big blitz on the rules, cards and maps and the latest rules are on the download section of our site. If there are any other queries, fun new rules, new empires and/or new artefacts you can think of, we have 3 months before we go to print to iron out any wrinkles.

thanks for your support.

regards
harry

Question on environmental sustainability:

“From now on, each time any empire does not halve its total income during Production, move the Climate clock down one space. After each two empires consecutively halve their income during any production action, move the Climate clock up one space (4 in a row up another space etc).”

Does this mean if 4 empires do not half their income all on the same Production step the Climate clock goes down 4 spaces? Or just 1?

Thanks for the heads up Mitchell, done. One of the first things I did for the Collector’s edition was to increase Europe by 5% in both the x and y axis, a total of just over 10% more area per area. But I also added 7 new land areas to Europe to allow a few new empires in the Collector’s edition. Most of them (like Achaea and Wales) are coastal areas which can overhang into their sea areas that still meant that overall the areas are tight.

So over the last couple of days have increased Europe and North Africa by another 5% in each dimension, or around another 10% in area (20% in total). I have checked them all with units in each area and they all fit fine even if all areas in Europe are occupied.

If playing option 10, Neutral Kingdom units, most areas in Europe will remain fully occupied from age 4 onwards. We could provide more space by making kingdom units 1/2" (13mm, marker size) rather than 5/8" (16 mm, unit size) if 7 Ages gamers would prefer space to same size kingdom units as empire units (if not playing neutral kingdoms its not an issue as empires are regularly folding for better empires elsewhere, leaving many vacant areas).

regards
harry

Looking forward to the game being released. Hopefully there is a bigger foot print for the European Empires, as currently the provinces are very tight and hard to read with the dark woods, and during the mid ages to late there start to appear quite a few, added to any Older empires that existed it becomes easy to lose focus of who is where.

Sorry, I missed the question about feudalism. It has now been replaced by autocracy wwith hich allows us to extend the age to age 7. You can still have it with universal suffrage (autocracies can’t choose universal suffrage but an empire with universal suffrage could convert to an autocratic government) but US gives you no benefit while autocratic.

regards
harry

Gidday Andrew,

thanks for this and your kind words. Please feel free to give your ideas a go in your current game and get back to us with how it plays out.

The only thing I’d say at this point is that in the case of 1) our experience has been the exact reverse, how difficult it is to establish a new empire in an already well established one. The original 7 Ages had 33.07 units per empire. In our first playtests we upped this to 39.67 units per empire (6.6 extra per empire) but found this made it too easy for the big empires to have enough units spare to snuff out any nearby nascent empires, so in our latest testing we have dialled it back down to 34.33 units/empire, just 1.27 more than the original game.

Basically you don’t necessarily want Romans still jousting with Carthaginians in the 21st century. There are a few ways to stop this (eg by giving later empires on average more glory than earlier ones) but its all a matter of balance.

regards
harry

I have only just been introduced to this game and I am only part way through my first foray (2P, approaching Age 4, 10 absorbing hours so far logged – to be continued another day). I love most everything about it, especially the broad swath through history.

The one thing that does trouble me is the birth of new empires. This is too sudden, especially when they arise from within an existing empire. I understand that each round represents over a century, but a new proto-empire emerging from the heart of an existing extended one is just a bit too Alien for me. So some suggestions:

1) New Empire starts with a restriction on the units that it may acquire at outset equal to 2 + its starting Age; it may also buy a Fort and 1 (extra) Elite. This gives it a strong presence, but more in keeping with its neighbours – rather than a towering skyscraper stack! Any remaining start-up Money is held.

I note that your current focus is more on conflict. IMHO, this is too much of a snapshot of history, rather than the usual course of drawn out skirmish/attrition/absorption. But I would like to add one (more) suggestion:

2) Post Conflict: let the victor be able to buy defeated enemy units at half-price (paid to supply). This is more in keeping with conquest by “cutting off the head but keeping the body”, and enables new empires to grow more dynamically.

Also a thought that may speed up the game:
3) Progress Catch-up. Every time you conquer a land area of a more advanced empire, gain an award (relic?). At End of Turn, surrender awards equal to your current Age to advance one extra space on the Progress Track (even from Dark Age).

The game is awesome, and I look forward to trying the new version.

Thanks for all your feedback guys, I have now streamlined it all down to one simple option.

13) Quick conflict resolution

When Resolving conflict in each area each side secretly places their units into 2 stacks, committed units and reserves. Each side must commit at least one unit.

Conflict is resolved normally but there is only one round. If your conflict total in the area is at least three times greater than your opponent’s, you lose no units in the area while they lose all their units there.

Otherwise, the loser loses all their committed units in the area and the winner loses half the units (their choice) that they or their opponent committed, whichever is fewer.

The loser now loses a number of their remaining units in the area (their choice) equal to half the number of the winner’s reserves there. The remaining loser’s units (if any) must retreat to an adjacent friendly area and are lost if there is no such area.

If both sides tie, they both lose all their committed units in the area and the empire carrying out the action must retreat all their remaining units there to an adjacent friendly area. They are lost if there is no such area.

If playing option 6) Pursuit, only reserves may pursue but all pursuit losses are in addition to those caused by the reserves above.

Solitaire

If you are playing solitaire we recommend you play without reserves, committing all units in the area.

For your consideration.
regards
harry

Our playtest team has come up with a couple of ideas for quick conflict resolution systems:

1) Simple conflict resolution

When Resolving conflict in each area, both sides secretly place their units into 3 stacks, front, support and reserves.

Conflict is resolved normally but only with the committed front and support units. The loser loses all their committed units. The winner loses no units if they win by a modified conflict value of 3:1 or greater. They lose half the unmodified conflict value of the conflict value of the units that the loser lost if they win by at least 2:1 and less than 3:1. They lose committed units with at least the same unmodified conflict value as that of the loser if they win by less than a modified 2:1. In all cases the winner cannot lose more units than they committed.

The loser now loses all their reserves in the area if they lost by a modified conflict value of 3:1 or greater. Otherwise they lose reserves in the area equal to the number of reserves controlled by the winner in the area. The remaining loser’s reserves must retreat to an adjacent friendly area and are lost if there is no such area.

If both sides tie, they both lose all their committed units and the empire carrying out the action must retreat all their remaining units in the area to an adjacent friendly area and are lost if there is no such area.

2) Solitaire conflict resolution

When Resolving conflict in each area, both sides place all their units into 2 stacks, front and support units.

Conflict is resolved normally. The loser loses all their units in the area.

The winner loses:

(a) no units if they win by a modified conflict value of 3:1 or more;

(b) half the units that the loser lost if they win by a modified conflict value of at least 2:1 and less than 3:1; or

© the same number of units that the loser lost if they win by a modified conflict value less than 2:1.

If both sides tie, they both lose all their units in the area.

Both are single round conflict resolution but the first requires more decision making similar to the standard rule and is thus recommended in multi-player games. Feel free to try either and tell us what you think.

regards
harry

Thanks for your input guys. As to some of the specific queries -

First all the take that cards have been watered down and now are mitigatible (if that is a word) by how many leaders you have as well as a dramatic increase in bad auguries and specific counter cards (eg floods and fires can counter each other instead of having a bad effect) so the net effect on playtesting is that the take that cards are nowhere near as dominant as the original 7 Ages. Also populists get rid of disorder as do some artefacts and events as well as money or troops. Losing a T & P gives you money now and you can use that to pay off disorder so there are now lots of way to get rid of disorder.

As to combat, 90% of them are one round affairs against 1 unit that are quick to play. Secondly the few battles that do see major armies facing each other are important as often the loser’s empire is finished so they should have some care involved. Thirdly happy to change it if a better system is presented but so far none has that integrates land air sea and space, with multiple unit types developing over 6000 years that allows all results between pyrric victories and cannae. If someone presents an alternative that does all that better and faster, we’ll jump at it.

As to T & P Mitchell I think you must have misread the new rules in the downloads section of the site. Trade has been dramatically revamped and the loser now gets money (currently equal to the cards received but that might be too much and may be halved). Also the initiator can play up to two cards dramatically increasing the chance of winning (altho this is still being tested and may be scrapped if it is too powerful). Also if two people pick T & P they don’t have to play each other and as you don’t turn over the markers until its your go, you don’t even know who else is going to trade & progress this turn.

We have increased the size of Europe by 10% (5% in both dimensions) and the rules are being edited to make them as clear as possible (they are already massively superior to the original 7 Ages and as they are compatible with them can be played today). If there are specific changes to the rules players would like please post them and I’ll bung them in the rules.

Not too many changes to the rules recently but will post up the latest version today.

Thanks for all your help.

regards
harry

Looking at how to remove disorder from provinces. How can you generate income to build units to then move to remove disorder (since those provinces do not allow units to produce income)?
Now it seems you hit an empire with a fire etc, and the player cannot counter the effects that empire is finished in any real sense to generate income or glory. It seems to make disorder extremely powerful as once hit with this almost impossible to remove, unless a empire is small with lots of units or has enough income saved in the bank.
And if you do use units to remove disorder then you lose a unit.
Seems extremely harsh and sets that empire back at least 2 to 3 turns.

Combat is still too taxing and tedious , if we could use a combat chart, would be quicker.

Trade and progress still very much a all or nothing approach, if both player initiate trade then they are forced to trade with each other and loser gets no benefit for the action. Loser should still progress by one maybe lose the gold generated.

Hope the map makes Europe bigger as to small fall all the counter in the area, last game we had Austria- Hungary, England, Dutch, Scotland, Germans, Sweden and Italy in play

Better definitions on the cards of some of the abilities as some are fairly ambiguous.

I think a little clean up on all the little rules which can be lost as in unit leader abilities, cavalry fighting in woods etc. It does become so much and you keep forgetting.

A cheat sheet for every player would be very handy as well.
.
Read through the draft rules, and it needs be better edited, then currently is, not worried about 10 pages of rules, would rather have 20 pages if it meant better clarity of example, definitions and layout.

I am hoping you have modified Japan. It is too easy for the controlling player to harvest a great deal of glory with liitle effort required to defend itself. The combination of easy glory, no land bridge and no successor state(s) is too much.

>For each issue, which is the more historical? Which is the more fun? If they conflict, which wins?

I admit, I have not read the new rules. Let’s just say that the war in Ukraine shows that the environmental sustainability driven by the environmental organisations active in western Europe has had the opposite effect on the environment than what is good. Much higher dependency on coal and russian oil (so Russia thought they could invade Ukraine with impunity) and also higher environmental costs (wind power makes large concrete holes in virgin nature and kills a lot of birds, a lot). We are also looking at high inflation and possible food shortages. In two years we will know more.
That said.
No, everyone should not lose if it is not in play at the end of the game. It would not be fun, and it would be ahistorical. In fact, maybe whoever played it should maybe lose glory for playing it (I am looking at Germany here, their Energiewende is a total flop, and an expensive one at that and also impacts Germany’s willingness to act against Russia).

Another thought on Environmental Sustainability. Once it is in play – maybe each time a player moves the Climate Clock by not halfing their income – that player loses one glory. Just to make the decision tougher.

Gidday Rob,

thanks for this interesting. We are testing now so it will be intriguing to see what the results are (it’s a classic prisoner’s dilemna situation).

To your questions,

1) the reason the removing disorder is half in the example in 6. removing disorder is because they are playing with temples (option 12) and a temple in an area loses half the income to the church (generating religious points).

2) The card picked after combat in the combat resolution example (page 16) is to see if the elite marker is removed or not as per 4. Resolving conflict with other empires: to wit

“If an empire with an elite marker lost 2 or more units in this conflict (including Pursuit), pick a card from the deck. If its value is less than the number of units lost by the empire in this conflict, remove 1 elite marker. Discard the card.”

As is pointed out in the example, as the French lost 8 units, no matter what card is picked, the French elite marker is lost (the highest value cards are 7s).

regards
harry

First – artifact questions: 1) Social Media should be red – because it stops a nation from ending the game with the internet (as most artifacts that prevent actions are red). 2) Environmental Sustainability – Everyone should lose if the environmental clock runs out and turns the world to desert. Will it get played? 50% of income is pretty hefty – answer is like most in 7 Ages – depends on the circumstances of the empire it would get played on – but for me I would play this artifact on the largest enemy economy so as to slow them down.

Second – rules issues: 1) The Net Income for removing Disorder in civilize is not defined where does the divide by 2 come from – wouldn’t income gained be easier to calculate? (7+7+5) = 19 to remove, a wheat with a 3 city an 8 to remove. 2) The combat example has the elite force (even though it got wiped out) drawing a card after the combat. Could not find anything in the rules where elite markers give this ability.