Rise of a Kingdom: My Time with Era of Kingdoms

Hello everyone!

Today I’m taking you to the Era of Kingdoms, where you’ll build your domain, attract people to it, and go head to head with rival kingdoms. Who will come out on top as the strongest realm? Let’s find out how to play!

Game Overview

Era of Kingdoms is a 2019 release for 1 to 4 players, ages 14+, with a playtime of 30 to 45 minutes. It was designed by Michael Erisman and illustrated by Jeff Porter and published by KC Games.

Era of Kingdoms box cover — The Era of Kingdoms box

Theme

In Era of Kingdoms, you compete to bring your kingdom from the dark ages into the age of enlightenment. You’ll cultivate your lands, build up your military strength and defences, and strike up trades along the way. You’ll also attract people to populate your lands and help carry you to victory.

Gameplay

The rules are simple. The game is played in turns, and each turn gives you 3 actions to spend. You can use them to play a card from your hand, draw a basic card from the deck, or draft a basic card from the Trade Route board if you’re using that expansion. On top of that, at no action cost and with no limit, you can remove cards from your board (except plague cards) and use a Riches card to borrow resources from another player, once per turn.

Every card has resource requirements it needs met before it can be played, drawn from the lands and people already in your kingdom. Once you have 3 level 2 cards in play, you place your town centre card to show your kingdom is growing. Get 3 level 3 cards on the table and you can flip your card over to the castle side, the highest kingdom level there is.

Upgrading is genuinely worth chasing, not just for show. Once you reach town centre level, you can draw or draft 1 card from the intermediate deck each turn on top of your basic cards. Reach castle level and you can draw or draft 1 advanced card and 2 intermediate cards each turn. This is where the game really opens up, since better cards mean better options.

The game ends when the Age of Enlightenment card appears, which happens once players start drawing from the advanced deck. Whoever draws it gets one final point, and everyone gets one last turn to grab as many Victory Points as they can before scores are tallied.

Era of Kingdoms — Player board with a full kingdom

How to Win

The winner is whoever ends the game with the most Victory Points. You earn these mainly through era 2 and era 3 cards, which can be land cards, people cards, or “Play Immediately” cards. The Age of Enlightenment card, which signals the last turn of the game, also gives one point to whoever draws it.

Components

The game is packed with cards, along with a handful of boards. You’ll find components for the base game plus all 3 mini expansions inside the box, with no tokens to speak of. The card quality is good, and the illustrations are beautiful and thematic throughout. The boards match that same quality, nicely illustrated too.

The box cover fits the theme with its dark colours echoing that journey from the dark ages to enlightenment, but it’s also a bit faded, which means it can easily get lost on a shelf next to other games. The rulebook, on the other hand, is well explained, with a good typography size that’s easy to read without straining.

Setup

Setup is quick. Shuffle the 3 card decks (basic, intermediate, and advanced), then place the Enlightenment card at a set position from the top: 9 cards for a 2 player game, 11 for 3 players, or 13 for 4 players. Each player sets up their own board with 3 Riches cards, 1 town centre card, and 1 player turn guide, then draws 5 basic cards.

If you’re already familiar with deck builders, I’d recommend adding the Trade Route expansion straight away, solo or multiplayer. This adds a river of cards: for setup, place 6 basic cards, 3 intermediate, and 1 advanced face up on the Trade Route board.

Era of Kingdoms Trade Route mini-expansion board with a river of cards — The Trade Route mini-expansion in play

Solo Mode

The solo opponent, the Shadow Kingdom, is refreshingly easy to manage. Each turn, the Shadow Kingdom draws cards based on your own kingdom’s progression, not its own, so the better you’re doing, the more it draws too. These cards go straight into its play area. At the end of the game, you total up both scores and compare. The trick is staying attentive to what the Shadow Kingdom is collecting, so you can try to optimise your own cards along the way.

Era of Kingdoms base game kingdom board setup — A kingdom taking shape in solo play

My Experience

I’ve played Era of Kingdoms solo 3 times so far. My first game was the pure base game, and the next two included the Trade Route mini expansion, which for me is a must have.

Game 1: 21 vs the Shadow Kingdom’s 31 (Shadow Kingdom won)
Game 2: 27 vs the Shadow Kingdom’s 14 (I won!)
Game 3: 26 vs the Shadow Kingdom’s 32 (Shadow Kingdom won)

One thing that stood out in my first game was having a good people card in hand but my person tiles already full. In that moment I had to decide whether the new card was worth discarding an existing one for, or whether I was better off sticking with what I had. The start of the game can also be a bit tricky solo, since you sometimes need a specific land card to build on and it can be hard to find in the deck. Luckily the basic deck has a lot of duplicates, so it’s not too bad, but you can still struggle a little, and changing direction isn’t always possible depending on what’s in your hand.

As for the Trade Route expansion, playing without it didn’t feel like real deck building to me, since there’s no card river. You’re stuck with whatever random cards you draw, with no control at all. That’s fine for newer players, but for anyone with more deck building experience under their belt, it’s not quite satisfying enough. Adding the Trade Route brings back that deck building feel and really rounds out the game.

Most cards don’t have a lot of text or effects beyond their base function, aside from event cards and “Play Immediately” cards, which I really appreciated. It keeps things simple to track, and the main thing to manage is resources, whether for building stronger cards or boosting attack and defence. When events call for a fight, it’s simple to resolve too, just compare attack and defence points. That lack of clutter makes this a great pick for introducing new players to deck building without extra rules to juggle.

All three plays were enjoyable. This was a game I’d never even heard of before, and I’m glad I got the chance to put it on the table and try it out. I’ll definitely be bringing it to the group to see how it plays with others.

My Rating

Note: 7/10

There are other deck builders I enjoy more, like Ascension, Legendary Encounters: Alien, and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Those are more complete and complex games. But Era of Kingdoms is a lovely way to introduce new players to deck building, and it’s worth it for the illustrations alone.

Final Thoughts

It’s still an enjoyable game that deserves to be better known. It’s a solid option for anyone who enjoys lite deck building with beautiful illustrations.

Your Turn

Have you played Era of Kingdoms, or do you have another lite deck builder with gorgeous art that deserves more love? Come share them on Mastodon and *Facebook