Age of Empires II Expandable Card Game

Age of Empires II ECG adapts the Ensemble Studios real-time strategy game into an expandable card game, carrying over the civilizations, tech trees and unit counters from the PC title onto cardboard.

The game

Published in 2003 by Eagle Games, Age of Empires II ECG is a two-player strategy duel where each player picks a civilization (Britons, Franks, Byzantines, Chinese, Mongols, plus expansions) and advances through the Dark, Feudal, Castle and Imperial Ages by resource-generating and unit-production. The ECG format (Expandable Card Game) means it shipped with fixed starter decks rather than random boosters.

The context

Eagle Games was primarily a board-game publisher and they used Age of Empires as their first attempt to break into the card-game market. Microsoft's Ensemble Studios licensed the property at a relatively low cost because the game had been out since 1999 and had wide PC-gaming recognition but had largely stopped generating tie-in revenue. The ECG model avoided the speculative booster dynamics that had soured many retail stores on CCGs by 2003.

The collector angle

The base set and the Age of Kings expansion are the main releases. A planned Age of Conquerors expansion was in development when Eagle Games hit financial trouble in 2005 and never shipped. Sealed Eagle Games product is harder to find than its modest print run would suggest because many copies ended up in close-out liquidation and were opened. The Mongol Civilization starter is the rarest of the civilizations because it was released latest in the line's life.