Overview

Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age is a civilization-building dice game designed by Matt Leacock (designer of Pandemic), published by Eagle-Gryphon Games. Players roll dice to collect food, workers, goods, and coins, using them to feed cities, build monuments, and purchase developments. The game distills the civilization-building genre into a quick, dice-rolling format played simultaneously on personal pegboards.

Components

• 7 custom dice (6 unique faces each)
• 4 wooden pegboards (one per player)
• Wooden pegs for tracking cities, goods, food, and disasters
• Score sheets / reference cards (one per player)
• Pencils

Setup

1. Each player takes a pegboard and sets all pegs to their starting positions.
2. Each player takes a score sheet and pencil.
3. All players start with 3 cities (and therefore roll 3 dice).
4. Place remaining dice and pegs within reach.

Turn Structure

Each player’s turn consists of five steps:

1. Roll Dice: Roll one die per city you have built (starting with 3). You may re-roll any or all dice up to 2 additional times (3 total rolls), but dice showing skulls cannot be re-rolled.

2. Collect Goods and Food: Mark food and goods on your pegboard according to dice results.

3. Feed Cities and Resolve Disasters: You must feed each city 1 food. Unfed cities cause disasters (lose points). If you rolled 3+ skulls, a disaster also strikes (affects you and potentially other players depending on skull count).

4. Build Cities and/or Monuments: Spend workers (from dice) to build cities (gaining more dice in future turns) or monuments (earning victory points). Mark progress on the score sheet.

5. Buy One Development: Spend coins (from dice, lost at end of turn) and/or stored goods to purchase one development from the score sheet. Developments cost 10-60 resources and provide ongoing abilities or end-game points.

6. Discard Excess Goods: If you have more than 6 goods stored, discard down to 6.

Actions

Dice Faces:

• 3 Food: Feed your cities.
• 3 Workers: Build cities or monuments.
• 2 Food or 2 Workers (choose one): Flexible resource.
• 7 Coins: Use immediately for development purchases; lost at end of turn.
• 1 Good: Stored on pegboard for future use.
• 2 Goods + 1 Skull: Gain goods but add a skull. Skulls cannot be re-rolled.

Building Cities: Mark off worker boxes on a city row. When complete, gain 1 additional die from the next turn onward (max 7 cities/dice).

Building Monuments: Mark off worker boxes on a monument. Each monument has two point values: the first player to complete it earns the higher value; subsequent builders earn the lower value.

Purchasing Developments: Pay the listed cost (coins + goods). Each development can only be purchased once per player. Developments provide abilities like re-rolling dice, immunity to certain disasters, extra points, or resource bonuses.

Disasters (Skulls):

• 1-2 skulls: No effect.
• 3 skulls: Lose all your goods.
• 4 skulls: All other players lose 3 points.
• 5+ skulls: All other players lose 5 points AND you lose all goods.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

The game ends at the end of the round in which any player completes all available monuments OR purchases their 5th development. All players complete that round.

Final Scoring:

• Monument points (first/second builder bonuses)
• Development points
• Bonus points from specific developments
• Subtract disaster penalties

The player with the highest total score wins.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• Skulls are locked after rolling and cannot be re-rolled.
• Coins must be spent immediately; they do not carry over between turns.
• Goods are stored on the pegboard and persist between turns (max 6).
• Some developments provide ongoing benefits that modify future turns (e.g., Irrigation lets you re-roll drought dice).
• The game can be played solo, competing against your own best score.
• Disasters triggered by skulls can harm other players, adding indirect interaction.
• Food deficit: each unfed city causes -1 point on your score.

Player Reference

Dice Face	Provides
3 Food	3 food
3 Workers	3 workers
Food/Workers	2 food OR 2 workers
7 Coins	7 coins (use now or lose)
1 Good	1 storable good
2 Goods + Skull	2 goods, 1 skull (locked)

Turn: Roll (up to 3 times) > Collect > Feed/Disasters > Build > Buy Development > Discard excess goods.

Game end trigger: All monuments built OR 5 developments purchased by any player.