Through the Ages’ long-awaited first expansion brings New Leaders & Wonders this autumn

After four years of waiting, the first big expansion for Vlaada Chvátil’s beloved civilisation card game Through the Ages is almost upon us.

New Leaders & Wonders does exactly what it says on the tin, bringing new leaders, wonders and military options to the 2015 card-drafting civ-building game (a remake of Chvátil’s 2006 original), as well as tweaking a number of cards from the original set to improve overall balance.

The expansion will be released for Through the Ages’ digital app on mobile and PC first, hitting Steam, the iOS App Store and Google Play for Android on September 12th. It’ll cost $5 (£4) on all platforms.

A month and a half later on October 24th – during the Essen Spiel game fair in Germany – the expansion will come to the physical board game. You’ll have to cough up $25 (£21) for the print set.

A trailer for the set reveals some of the new additions, including Cleopatra, Sun Tzu, Steve Jobs, Nostradamus and James Watt as new leaders; Stonehenge, the Forbidden City and the Statue of Liberty as among the new wonders; and kidnapping, hybrid wars and Hussars as some of the military cards for warmongering players. (As per Chvátil’s wry rulebook for the game and the tutorial in the Through the Ages app, there are a number of clever visual gags in the teaser trailer.)

Publisher Czech Games Edition said that the expansion had been through months of testing and “intensive development”. 

“New Leaders & Wonders has been a very personal project for our team and we've poured our hearts into it,” it said in the announcement.