# Rules Of Age Of Heroes
PlayPalace team, 2026.

## TL;DR
Age of Heroes is a civilization-building card game for 2 to 6 players. Each player leads an ancient tribe -- Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Babylonians, Celts, or Chinese -- competing for dominance through resource management, construction, trading, and dice-based combat.

We find no evidence to suggest it existed before it was implemented by Ivan Sebekin for his gaming program, OnToys, at an unknown time but probably around 2013. Whether he is the creator of the game is unclear.

There are three paths to victory: build an empire of five cities, complete your tribe's monument of culture by collecting five special resources, or simply be the last tribe standing after eliminating all your rivals.

## Gameplay
A game of Age of Heroes is structured into repeating "days", consisting of three phases: Preparation, Fair, and Play. Before the first day begins, there is a one-time Setup phase to determine turn order.

### Setup
When the game starts, every player is randomly assigned one of the six tribes. Each tribe has a unique special resource tied to their monument (for example, Egyptians need Limestone, Romans need Concrete, Greeks need Marble, and so on).

All players roll two dice (2d6) to determine turn order. The highest roller goes first. Ties are broken by rerolling among the tied players. Each player is then dealt an initial hand of 5 cards.

### Preparation Phase
At the start of each day, mandatory event cards in players' hands are resolved automatically:

* **Population Growth**: You receive a free city immediately. This is always a welcome sight.
* **Earthquake**: On Day 1, this simply gets discarded. From Day 2 onward, you can play it against another player to disable all their armies for one turn.
* **Eruption**: Same as Earthquake on Day 1 (just discarded). From Day 2 onward, you can play it against another player to destroy one of their cities.
* **Hunger**: On Day 1, discarded harmlessly. From Day 2 onward, ALL players lose one Grain card from their hand.
* **Barbarians**: On Day 1, discarded harmlessly. From Day 2 onward, the player holding the card loses 2 conventional resource cards (non-Gold resources).

The Fortune card can block Hunger, Barbarians, Earthquake, and Eruption effects when held by the **victim**. The Olympics card can also block Barbarians and Eruption.

### Fair Phase (Trading)
After preparation, each player draws cards based on their road network. Everyone draws at least 1 card, plus additional cards for each tribe connected to them via roads. If you have roads linking you to two neighbors, you could draw up to 3 cards (or more in a fully connected network).

Then the trading auction opens. Players can offer cards from their hand and specify what they want in return (a specific resource, their special monument resource, any card, etc.). When two offers match -- each player wants what the other is offering -- the trade executes automatically.

You cannot trade your own tribe's special resource (you need those for your monument!), and special resources can only be received by the tribe that actually needs them.

When you are finished trading, you must explicitly stop, and the Fair ends once all players have stopped.

### Play Phase
Players take turns in order, and on each turn you:

1. **Draw a card** from the deck (if you draw Hunger or Barbarians during the Play phase, their effects trigger immediately).
2. **Choose one action** from the following:

#### Tax Collection
You draw cards equal to your number of cities. If you have no cities, you exchange one card from your hand for a new draw from the deck. This is your primary way to stock up on resources for building.

#### Construction
Spend resource cards from your hand to build things. Gold cards act as wildcards and can substitute for any resource. You can build multiple things in a single construction action as long as you have the resources. The buildings and their costs are:

* **Army** -- 1 Iron + 2 Grain
* **City** -- 2 Wood + 1 Stone
* **Fortress** -- 1 Iron + 1 Wood + 1 Stone
* **General** -- 1 Iron + 1 Gold
* **Road** -- 2 Stone (requires permission from the neighboring player you want to connect to)

Buildings come from a shared supply pool (12 armies, 12 cities, 9 fortresses, 6 generals, 6 roads), so if the supply runs out, nobody can build more of that type.

Roads connect you to adjacent players in the circular seating arrangement (you have a left neighbor and a right neighbor). Building a road requires the neighbor's approval -- they can decline. Roads provide extra cards during the Fair phase and allow armies to return home immediately after war instead of being delayed a turn.

#### War
Declare war on any other player. You must have at least one army (or a Hero card) to attack. You choose a target and a war goal:

* **Conquest** (available from Day 3 onward): Capture cities from the defender. Win with 3+ surviving armies to take 2 cities, or 1+ armies for 1 city.
* **Plunder**: Steal cards from the defender's hand. You steal 2 cards per surviving army.
* **Destruction**: Damage the defender's monument progress. Win with 3+ surviving armies to destroy 2 progress, or 1+ armies for 1 progress.

Both sides commit armies, generals, and any Hero cards to the battle. Combat is resolved in rounds: each side rolls one die (1d6), adds bonuses, and compares totals. The side with the higher total destroys one of the opponent's committed armies. Draws cause no losses.

**Combat bonuses:**
* Having at least one general gives +2 to your roll.
* The defender adds their fortress count to their roll.

Combat continues round by round until one side runs out of armies. If the attacker wins, the war goal is applied. If the defender wins, nothing happens.

After combat, the defender's surviving forces return home immediately. The attacker's surviving forces return home next turn -- unless there is a road connecting the two players, in which case they return immediately.

**The Olympics card** can be played by the defender to cancel a war declaration entirely, preventing the battle from happening.

**The Fortune card** can be used during combat to reroll your dice.

**The Hero card** is versatile: it can be committed to battle as either an additional army or an additional general.

#### Do Nothing
Skip your action this turn.

### End of Turn
After your action, if your hand exceeds 5 cards, you must discard down to 5. Then, any of your tribe's special resources in your hand are automatically collected toward your monument.

At the start of your next turn, any armies that were returning from war arrive home, and any armies disabled by an earthquake recover.

### Example Turn
It is Day 3. You are playing as the Romans and it is your turn. You have 2 cities, 2 armies, 1 fortress, and your monument is at 2 out of 5 Concrete collected.

You draw a card -- it is an Iron. Your hand now contains: Iron, Iron, Wood, Stone, Grain.

You can't really build anything with that. Instead, you choose Tax Collection. With 2 cities, you draw 2 more cards: a Gold and a Stone. Now your hand has Iron, Iron, Wood, Stone, Grain, Gold, Stone -- 7 cards total. But that is over the hand limit of 5, so after this action you will need to discard 2 cards.

You discard the two Irons (figuring you have better uses for the rest) and end your turn with Wood, Stone, Grain, Gold, Stone. Next turn, you could build a City (2 Wood + 1 Stone) if you pick up another Wood, or use Gold as a wildcard to substitute for Wood and build the City regardless.

### Scoring
There is no point-based scoring in Age of Heroes. Instead, the game ends when any player achieves one of three victory conditions:

* **Empire of Five Cities**: Be the first to accumulate 5 cities (the default victory threshold, configurable from 3 to 7).
* **Carriers of Great Culture**: Collect all 5 of your tribe's special resource cards to complete your monument.
* **The Most Persistent**: Be the last tribe remaining after all others have been eliminated (a player is eliminated when they have 0 cities and 0 cards).

### The Deck
The standard deck contains 84-108 cards depending on player count:

* **Standard Resources** (48 cards): 12 each of Iron, Wood, Grain, and Stone.
* **Gold** (6 cards): Acts as a wildcard for any standard resource when building.
* **Special Resources** (6 per tribe in the game): Limestone, Concrete, Marble, Bricks, Sandstone, or Granite -- only the types matching active tribes are included.
* **Event Cards** (18 total): 2 Population Growth, 2 Earthquake, 2 Eruption, 2 Hunger, 3 Barbarians, 2 Olympics, 3 Hero, 2 Fortune.

When the draw pile runs out, the discard pile is reshuffled to form a new deck.

## Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcuts specific to the game of Age of Heroes:
* S: Check the status of all players (tribe, cities, armies, monument progress).
* Shift+S: View detailed status (includes generals, fortresses, roads, recovering/returning armies).
* H: Check the cards in your hand.

## Game Theory / Tips
* Cities are your economic engine. More cities means more cards from Tax Collection, which means more resources to build with. Prioritize getting to 3 cities early.
* Roads are easy to overlook, but the extra Fair cards add up over time. If a neighbor is friendly, building a road benefits both of you. It also means your armies return from war against that neighbor immediately -- a significant tactical advantage.
* Gold is precious. It can substitute for any resource, so save it for when you truly need it rather than spending it on something you could build with standard resources next turn.
* Fortresses are quietly powerful on defense: they add to your roll every round of combat. Even one fortress can tip a battle in your favor without costing you any armies.
* Keep an eye on opponents' monument progress. If someone is at 3 or 4 out of 5, a Destruction war or an Eruption card can set them back significantly.
* The Olympics card is your insurance policy against war. If you are sitting on a vulnerable position with few armies, holding one can save you from disaster.
* Hero cards are extremely flexible -- they can serve as an extra army for attacking or an extra general for the +2 bonus. In a close battle, a Hero can be the difference between victory and defeat.
* Do not neglect defense. Having at least 2 armies and a fortress means attackers need a significant force advantage to reliably beat you, which discourages opportunistic wars.
* Conquest wars are only available from Day 3 onward, so use the first two days to build up your economy and military without fear of losing cities to combat.