Age of Empires II Expandable Card Game

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings Expandable Card Game brings Ensemble Studios' real-time strategy game to the table, turning its civilizations, unique units, Wonders and technologies into a two-player card duel. Journeyman Press published just two sets before closing in 2001.

The game

Each player builds an economy, advances through the ages and fields a civilization's signature units and Wonders to defeat their opponent. It shipped as per-civilization starter boxes (a 96-card deck plus Age and Civilization cards, a booster and the rulebook) backed by 12-card booster packs. There is no "x of y" collector number: a card's rarity is shown by a colored stamp instead. Those stamps also help tell the sets apart: base-set cards use bronze, silver and gold, while Nautical uses black, silver and gold.

The sets

• Limited Edition (2000): the base set, around 273 cards, across five civilizations: Britons, Celts, Goths, Mongols and Persians.
• Nautical Expansion (2001): a 160-card expansion built around naval warfare and water maps, adding four seafaring civilizations: Franks, Japanese, Saracens and Vikings.

Many cards exist in several civilization-specific art variants, so full checklists run longer than the headline set sizes. Announced follow-ups (Regicide Pack, Smoke and Saints, Conquerors, Heroes and Events) were never released once Journeyman Press folded, and each released set also had a small run of promo cards that were not seeded in boosters and are very hard to find.

The foils (the part most people miss)

Both sets include exactly ten foil cards each, inserted in booster packs: premium foil versions of each civilization's Wonder and unique unit, and they are easy to overlook. From the Limited Edition these are the Huskarl, Longbowman, Mangudai, War Elephant and Woad Raider, alongside Wonders such as Charlemagne's Palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Rock of Cashel, the Tomb of Theodoric, the Golden Tent of the Great Khan and the Palace of Ctesiphon. The Nautical Expansion adds foils of the Berserk, Longboat, Mameluke, Samurai and Throwing Axeman, with Wonders like Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Great Temple at Nara, the Great Mosque at Samarra and the Stave Church at Urnes. They are the true chase cards of the game.

The collector angle

Age of Empires II ECG had a modest print run and is thinly documented today, so complete runs, and the foils especially, are harder to track down than the print figures suggest.