Ancient Kingdom

At the heart of Ancient Realm is a civilization-themed puzzle game where you try to maximize your points by deciding which blocks to keep and which to build, all while carefully managing your resources. Balance end-game goal requirements with immediate tactical needs to create a powerful civilization filled with wonders of the world.

Each turn, you have four cards available to place. Some of them will be districts, the basic building blocks of the civilization, while others will be wonders, powerful but expensive constructions. Wonder cards feature a block and a wonder; wonders are worth a large number of points and offer powerful effects, but require significant resources to build and cannot be covered by other cards.

From one turn to the next, you choose one of these cards and place it in your realm. Cards can be placed next to, overlapping, or completely covering one or more cards in your realm. When a block (or multiple blocks) is covered by a new card, those blocks can be activated to gain their effect. Mines fill your coffers with precious gold; with gold, you can activate production sites and citizens. Citizens come in two types and can affect other cards, such as the value of certain wonders.

On the back of each district card is an event that impacts the growth of your civilization, and the event at the top of the district deck is active for the turn.

At the end of the game, score your wonders and mines as well as remaining gold and resources to determine how your civilization ranks.