History of the World (board game)

This article is about the board game. For a description of the world's history, see History of the world. For the Mel Brooks movie of similar name see History of the World, Part I.'

History of the World (often abbreviated "HotW") is a board game designed by Ragnar Bothers and originally published in 1991. It is played by up to six different players in seven different epochs; each player playing a different empire in each epoch.

Brief history

The first edition of History of the World by Ragnar Brothers was released in 1991 (with a tea-towel board).^[2] Following English, Dutch and German versions by various publishers, it was published by Avalon Hill in 1993. In 1994, History of the World won the Origins Award for Best Pre-20th Century Boardgame of 1993. After Avalon Hill was purchased by Hasbro in the early 2000s, History of the World was re released as a big box game.^[1] Ragnar Brothers released a revised version of the game, "A Brief History of the World", in 2009.^[3]

Game play

The game is played in seven rounds known as epochs, which correspond to different historical periods. At the beginning of each epoch, each player receives an empire card and assumes the role of that empire for the round. Each empire has advantages and disadvantages based on the order in which it appears in an epoch, starting location on the world map, its number of armies, navigation abilities (access to certain lands by sea), and whether or not it possesses a capital. At the end of each player's turn, they are given a score based on how much control they have of different regions of the board (known as "Areas") and how many capital, cities, and monuments they possess. The remains of players' empires remain on the board for the rest of the game until they are conquered or destroyed by other players. Players are also given "Greater Events" and "Lesser Events" cards at the beginning of the game, which can be used throughout the game to gain certain advantages.^[4]

The following is list of all the empires in the game grouped by epoch and organized by their order of play in each epoch. Each empire is listed with its name, the number of armies it gets, and its starting location in parentheses.

References

External links

• Play Online (renamed Empires)