During your turn, you may spend your actions points to:

• pick cards from the card rows (if you have room in your hand)
• play cards to your tableau
• increase your population
• build/upgrade farms, mines, or urban buildings
• build/upgrade military units

Yellow counters represent your population. They can be in one of three places:

• on the cards on your tableau
• on your available worker pool
• on your "yellow bank" -- when this is empty, you can no longer increase your available population

Blue counters represent food or resources. They can be in two places:

• on your farms or mines
• on your "blue bank" -- when this is empty, you can no longer produce food or resources

Building up your civilisation:

• Food lets you move workers from your yellow bank to your available worker pool.
• Resources let you move workers from your available worker pool to a card on your tableau.
• Science (light bulbs) lets you move cards from your hand to your tableau.
• When your population grows, you will need to produce more happiness or your workers will stop working.
• Producing culture will earn you victory points.
• Producing more military strength will protect you from raids or wars.

There are 3 versions of Through the Ages:

• Simple plays through Age I
• Advanced plays through Age II, and introduces political actions (colonies and raids), unhappiness, and corruption
• Complete plays through Age III, and introduces wars