Age of Civilization

Age of Civilization is one of those small civilisation games that does not ask for your entire evening before it lets you feel as if you have built something. With three or four players, the table wakes up; with fewer, I suspect some of the charge goes missing.

Its core is deliberately lean: you can teach it in about ten minutes and finish a game in 20 to 30, without carrying the weight of a full-scale civilisation epic. The flow is short and clean, yet there is enough to think about that it never feels like something you play on autopilot.

Then the other players get involved. There is bustle, there is the pleasing pressure of making choices while everyone else shares the same table, and at a full table that is where the game earns its keep. If the base recipe feels too simple even for a filler, the scenarios and small variants provide extra excuses for messing about. Want a little more of the same? There is your hook.

If you want that same pattern one click higher, Age of Galaxy from the same KS is the obvious next stop. Age of Civilization does not pretend to be bigger than it is: it is a quick, lively filler that does its job very well with the right crowd.