New Leaders and Wonders FAQ
The release of the Through the Ages expansion New Leaders and Wonders is getting closer, so we decided to answer some of your most pressing questions, so you can stay up to date and prepared for the arrival of new courageous leaders and their great creations!
When is the expansion coming out?
Great question! Its digital release date is set for September 12, 2019 and if everything goes right, we should release it on this day to all supported platforms (Android, iOS, PC/Mac).
The board game expansion is due to launch in Europe in Essen on October 24, 2019, and should arrive to the US by the end of November/early December.
Why are the digital and physical expansion not coming out at the same time?
Even though we’ve been developing the digital and board game expansion simultaneously, we still need to send everything to print and ship all those beautiful boxes all over the world – and we didn’t want to keep our fans waiting and delaying the digital version as we know how excited you all are (thank you for your support!).
I’ve heard about your pre-order campaign – what is that and how can I get the package?
Some brick and mortar stores will be offering a pre-order package for their customers – each player who pre-orders the printed expansion from the participating game stores will get a special coupon that will include a universal code for the digital version of the expansion for free! Remember to keep that coupon because once the printed expansion is out, you will exchange it for the copy you’ve pre-ordered ;)
The pre-orders should start rolling out slowly from September 12, 2019, up until the release of the physical expansion. If your friendly local game store doesn’t offer this package, you can ask them to order it for you from their distributors.
The digital expansion requires online activation. Both printed and digital expansion require ownership of the base game in order to play it.
What does the New Leaders and Wonders expansion contain?
Well, obviously, lots of new leaders and wonders. But not only that! The military deck will also get new cards, including new events, tactics, aggressions, and wars.
Also, using data from hundreds of thousands of online games, we rebalanced some cards from the base game. Both the app and the physical expansion will contain new versions of these cards. On top of all that, the digital game will bring new challenges and achievements to put your leadership skills to the test!
How will the expansion play?
The expansion includes a complete new set of leaders and wonders, so you can play your regular civilization-building session only with these cards. However, in our playtests we saw that the most played and loved format is random mix – for each age, you randomly choose a certain number of wonders and leaders from both the expansion and the base game. This way, you get a unique setup for each game, allowing many interesting interactions and combos.
What languages will be supported?
The first print run of the board game expansion will be available in the following languages – English, French, German, Polish, Italian, Russian, Korean, and Czech. Release dates may vary, so please, check with your local game stores and distributors :)
As for the digital game, with the September release, unfortunately only English, German, and Czech should be fully localized – but don’t worry, other languages will follow soon in later updates!
What if I own the base game on more digital platforms – do I need to buy the expansion for each of them?
No! Unlike the digital base game, digital expansion will be cross-platform – meaning that you can play it on any device or platform regardless of the store of purchase! You’ll just need to connect the expansion to your online CGE account and this will allow you to enjoy the expansion anywhere you have the base game installed, only by logging in to that specific CGE account :)
What about the single-player content?
You can of course try out the new cards in custom games against our AIs, but that's not all. All challenges from the base game (or their modified versions) can be played with expansion or random mix settings, and there are also brand new challenges, some of them really epic! Also, there are many new achievements to collect.
Do I need to own the digital expansion to play with the rebalanced cards?
No, you just need to own the base game app. The upcoming update will bring those rebalanced cards to everyone so all can play with the rebalanced cards in custom and online games. There will also be an option to play with the original card set, if you prefer.
But this question is rather theoretic, right? How could you miss all those awesome new cards from the expansion? :)
How was the expansion playtested and balanced?
The first versions were playtested on table by Vlaada, our team, and our friends. Later, we used the app to finetune and balance everything, and we also asked some of the best Through the Ages players to help us with that. We’ve let them play the expansion for several months, regularly asking for their opinions, constantly checking the statistics of thousands of games they played, and updating the cards, until we were really happy with the result.
We are really grateful for the help of our playtesters – without them, it would be impossible to balance such a complex thing. Also, we really enjoyed playing against such great TtA players during our playtesting sessions :)
How many versions of the expansion were there during internal development?
Many…
How many coffees did Vlaada drink while designing the expansion?
Hmm… as far as we’re aware of, Vlaada doesn’t drink coffee :) Surprisingly enough, most of our digital department doesn’t drink coffee either.