Age of Renaissance

About this board game

Age of Renaissance is a strategy board game for 3–6 players, with games lasting about 300 minutes, set during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods. Often described as a semi-sequel to Civilization, it challenges each city-state to build up its culture and pursue technical advances.

A central card deck contains events, payout cards, and famous leaders from the eras represented in the game. Although every card will appear somewhere during play, its timing and position can make a crucial difference, helping ensure that each game develops differently.

The main objective is to gain points through technical advances while keeping your culture’s misery level as low as possible. Payouts follow a structure familiar from Civilization and Advanced Civilization: collecting more resources of the same type produces increasingly valuable payouts.

• Develop a city-state’s culture across the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• Use events, payout cards, and famous leaders as they enter play.
• Seek technical advances while managing misery.
• Compete for province and resource control through the game’s combat system.

Particular payouts are triggered by card play and affect every player at once, creating moments in which a single card can reshape the opportunity for the whole table. Careful attention to when and where cards are played is therefore an important part of the game’s strategic challenge.

Control of provinces determines access to resources, and an ingenious, smooth-working combat system resolves those contests. With its combination of cultural development, escalating resource payouts, card timing, and competition for territory, Age of Renaissance offers a substantial experience for groups seeking a long-form historical strategy game.