When the final unconquered castle is taken from the play area, the game ends, and players tally their points by adding the point values of conquered clans and individual conquered castles. The player with the most points succeeds in uniting Japan under his banner and wins the game! The player begins his turn by rolling all seven dice. Then he decides to either start conquering a castle or to reroll his dice. To reroll his dice, he must lose a die by setting it aside for the rest of the turn. When a player fills all battle lines on a castle card, he has conquered the castle. He places that card faceup in front of him. There are five stages of evolution in Age of War. You can advance to a new age when you’ve earned enough XP from killing your enemy’s troops! The five ages are: Castle cards belong to various clans, as indicated by the color and clan icon shown on the card. When a player has conquered all the castles that belong to a clan, he has conquered that clan; he flips those cards facedown and arranges them in a pile with the card showing points on top of the pile.

The theming of this game is almost irrelevant. While I do appreciate what the symbols represent regarding military requirements to conquer the various castles, I doubt that many people will appreciate this or even care. I do however enjoy this game. When played in the context of a light easily accessible filler game, it succeeds. There is some player interaction but that too can be avoided and can feel a little like a dice rolling competition at times. To start conquering a castle, the player selects a faceup castle card and fills any one of its battle lines. To fill a battle line, the player must place dice on the battle line that match all the symbols of the line. Then the player rolls his remaining dice. After each roll, the player must either fill another battle line on the selected castle or lose a die and reroll his remaining dice. I originally was interested in this game mainly because I wanted a simple game that has a samurai or feudal Japan theme to it. The story behind this game is that each player represents a Fuedel Lord that seeks to overcome other clans and their respective castles. This is accomplished through players rolling 7 dice that have been designed with graphics to represent Infantry, Cavalry, Archers, and a Daimyo (sp?). Through rolling the dice (and susequent rerolls) players amass the military units required to conquer a chosen castle based on the military requirements listed on the card. A sinmple but effective mechanic in this game has players reducing the number of dice they roll based on achieveing the miliatry requirements for each castle. You are either able to conquer a single castle in a single turn or you aren’t, its that simple.As is in the case of any other Fantasy Flight game that I own, I have found that the components are of the highest quality. In this case, thats not saying a whole lot given that the components boil down to 7 dice and (I believe) 14 cards. The dice themselves are some of the nicest dice I have ever used. Whatever polymer they used almost has a bone texture and appearance. The embossings are clear and the coloration of the markings is uniform and distinct. The dice have rounded corners and roll beautifully. Age of War is a fast moving, Japanese themed game of castle conquest using a dice pool to assemble your conquering army. Designed by the legendary Reiner Knizia, for 2–6 players, Age of War is a clean, fun game which won’t take much time to finish. Rules

When a player conquers the last castle from the center of the table, the game immediately ends. Each player adds up all the points in front of him, which includes each faceup castle card and the topmost card of any conquered clan piles he has. I also admit my first impression was one of surprise and disappointment. The box is tiny – just 5 inches square. How can a great strategy game on par with Fantasy Flight’s many offerings fit into such a small parcel? Castles conquered by your opponents aren’t permanently out of reach, however. You can besiege castles in your opponent’s play areas in the same way that you would besiege an unconquered castle. However, you must treat the red daimyo symbol in the upper left hand corner of the castle card as an additional battle line, which makes stealing castles from your opponents harder than conquering them for the first time. So the game feels extremely repetitive which gets you quite bored but it only feels that way on the more difficult cards to capture. The 1 point cards are easy to moderately easy to capture. But everything else above that is super difficult and you will find yourself rolling and rolling and rolling. Each dice face has a symbol for cavalry, archery, daimyo, or 1–3 infantry denoted by swords. Each castle has one or more battle lines of these symbols, all of which must be completed for the castle to be conquered. A single roll of the dice pool must provide all the symbols required for a single battle line for it to be completed. If a battle line cannot be completed the dice pool can be re-rolled having set one die aside. A turn ends when the castle has been conquered or the dice pool has been exhausted.

Conquering a Clan

Age of War was originally released as a Flash game by Louissi in 2007. It was one of the first base defense games and helped popularize the genre. The game has certainly stood the test of time; it’s still hugely popular today. Nowadays, you can play Age of War in HTML5 for free! More Games Like This Important: Once a player fills his first battle line for the turn, he cannot fill battle lines on other cards during that turn. All battle lines that he fills must be on the same castle card. Conquering clans and castles adds another level of strategy to Age of War. Clans with a few castles may be easy to conquer, but you’ll receive more bonus points if you attempt to unite a clan that possesses many castles.

This continues until the player either successfully conquers the castle by filling all battle lines or loses his last die. This concludes the player's turn and play moves to the player on his left. At the end of the game, each player scores the points shown on each faceup castle card in front of him. I was at a board game night at a local pub and I was excited to play it and then as I rolled dice and rolled some more dice and then rolled some more dice again, my excitement level got lower and lower and lower to the point where I was just forcing myself to have fun. If the symbols on one or more rolled dice match all the symbols of a battle line, the player may fill the battle line. To do so, he places those matching dice on the card, covering up that battle line. Dice used to fill a battle line are not rolled by the player for the remainder of his turn. This may all sound a little complex but the single sheet of rules with illustrations are very clear. It will take minutes to learn. How it PlaysEven Zombie Dice has more depth. I love Zombie Dice and can play it again and again but this game is a game where I feel that it asks for too much for a dice rolling game. It is just really really tough to roll for certain items such as 10 swords. I think we got it once out of 50 rolls but we rolled it when we didn’t need it. Each conquered castle grants you the number of points printed on the front of the card, but if you manage to unite a clan, you’ll gain a number of points greater than the sum of each individual castle. For example, the Tokugawa clan in Age of War consists of three castles: Inuyama, worth one point; Kiyosu, worth two points; and Edo, worth three points. But players clever enough to conquer all three castles and secure the loyalty of the Tokugawa clan receive two bonus points, for a total of eight points. Battle lines with a number and a \ symbol are infantry battle lines. An infantry battle line is filled with one or more dice showing any \ symbols (\,\\, and \\\). To fill an infantry battle line, the total number of \ symbols must be greater than or equal to the number shown on that battle line. When the central pool of castles is empty a tally of castles is taken and the highest point total wins.