Age of Pericles

A strategy game of Athenian politics for one to five. Place Citizens in the Agora, win the city’s offices and raise a 3D Parthenon. Every column brings the end closer.

Two games delivered.Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán and Pillars of Heracles were crowdfunded, produced and shipped to their backers.

The whole game at $49. Every rule, every card and the 3D Parthenon are in the Classic Edition. Nothing is held back for a higher tier.

Play it before you back it. The browser prototype is live today. Take a full turn, then decide: https://play.apeiron.games/age-of-pericles/

Solo and two players. The Demagogue, an automated rival, takes the third seat at two players and runs the solo mode. Both ship in the box.

The year is 447 BC and the city has never been richer or louder. Its great offices are contested in the open, and every choice is made in front of rivals who remember. You lead one of five great houses through that crowd.

Every move has witnesses. Place a Citizen and take an action now. At the round’s end, that same piece counts in two elections. Other houses can share your space, so a quiet placement can change who governs Athens.

The easy silver leaves a mark. Flip your Role to its corrupt side and take the whole Corruption offer. You gain two placements, but one of your own people goes straight to the Ostracized Camp, while Sparta and Persia move.

A whole city, card by card. Every Athena card carries a scene of Periclean Athens: its thinkers, its festivals, its fleet and its phalanx. Their Athens goes on in the Age of Pericles graphic novel, an optional add-on to your pledge. Its prologue follows Philon, a potter who must scratch one name on a broken sherd. Follow the campaign and read the prologue free, a new page every week from October 2026.

Twenty columns and two roof pieces rise on your table as you play. Raise one yourself and it scores. Let Athens raise it and it scores nothing, but the end comes closer.

The clock runs without you. Athens builds a column by itself at the end of every round, after every Battle, and every time a City-state joins the League. Those columns score nothing, though a fourth column still fires its effect. Every one brings the end closer.

Turns are short: place, use the space, act. When every Citizen is down, the round ends and the city votes.

1 · Place. Put one Citizen on any Agora space that holds none of yours. Other players may share it.

2 · Use the space. Optional. On open ground, reveal a fulfilled Mission for its reward. On a City-state tile, take that city’s action.

3 · Act. Carry out the Main Action at the end of your row or the foot of your column. A large Citizen does both.

Play a turn now: https://play.apeiron.games/age-of-pericles/. The prototype is a living playtest build, so presentation and some rules will change before the final game.

All three are the complete game with the same rules, cards, boards and Parthenon. The Deluxe changes what your hands touch; the Collection adds Pillars of Heracles and The Shard in print.

Classic Edition — $49. Everything you need to play, for one to five.

Periclean Deluxe — $79. Everything in the Classic Edition, plus five upgrades.

Legends of Hellas Collection — $119. Everything in the Periclean Deluxe, plus Pillars of Heracles (Classic, while the printed stock lasts) and The Shard, the graphic-novel prologue in print.

Not ready to choose? A $1 Agora Pass holds your place: every update, the pledge manager at campaign prices, and a reminder before the campaign ends.

Follow the campaign to choose your edition when pledges open.

Counts and sizes from the current production files.

Every wooden piece to scale and in true quantity. Each house gets one large and three small Citizens, a Glory disc, eight Diplomat cubes, two Hoplites, two Ships and two Workers in its own colour: Blue, Burnt Amber, Red, Ivory or Light Green. Twenty-five black Trophy discs, each with the spearhead sticker, sit in the middle for whoever earns them.

The Deluxe box also brings recessed two-layer Oikos boards and a gold-foil box.

Six Roles shape your opening resources, positions and first Skills. Each gives your house a different place in the city; every one of them faces the same choice when the Corruption offer grows rich.

The public voice — Hetaira · Sophist. The Hetaira builds alliances in private; the Sophist makes his case in public. Both know how much a vote can change.

Rites and households — Priestess · Matriarch. The Priestess keeps the city’s rites. The Matriarch keeps a house in power. Their influence reaches beyond the Assembly.

Ships and shields — Oligarch · Veteran. The Oligarch brings silver and ships; the Veteran brings hard-won standing. Athens needs both, and your rivals know it.

Unique powers for each Role are planned as a stretch goal.

By day your Role tile is a clean trade: three of your resource for three placements and a step for a City-state. By night you are the corrupt politician, and the Corruption offer is yours to take.

The Corruption offer. A space on the Athens board where bribes pile up in plain sight. Market restocks, some Oikos spaces and five City-states feed it. The corrupt politician takes all of it.

1. The offer grows. Whenever a market column’s top or bottom space is refilled, Silver drops onto the Corruption offer on the Athens board. Some Oikos spaces and five of the City-states feed it too. Everyone can see how rich it is getting.

2. You flip. Use your Role action on the Night side. Only one house can be corrupt at a time, so your flip sends the previous corrupt player back to Day. Take the offer. Every coin is yours.

3. The city reacts. Reveal two Mission cards and move Sparta and Persia as they demand. A Battle can start before you have spent a coin.

4. The price. Send one of your own Units to the Ostracized Camp at once. In return you take two placements of your choice and a Mission card.

Back to daylight. You return to the Day side when another player goes corrupt, or when you recall a Unit with Activate a Unit and sell an unfulfilled Mission to the city for 3 Silver. Until then, the silver is yours, and so is the suspicion.

Fifteen two-sided tiles, six starting and nine advanced. Each game draws three starting and six advanced, so the cities you court change from game to game.

3–5 · The full game. Every rule is the same at three, four and five.

2 · With the Demagogue. An automated Athenian takes the third seat, crowds the Assembly and holds the corrupt side all game. You play by day.

1 · Solo. The Demagogue is your only rival. The solo mode is in development and ships in the box.

The Demagogue runs on nine cards. Each turn, reveal a card, place his Citizen where it shows and resolve it top to bottom. He builds columns, burns market goods, drags Sparta and Persia forward and ostracises your people. He holds the corrupt side all game, so no one else can. He needs no app.

Try the browser prototype now: https://play.apeiron.games/age-of-pericles/. Start with the guided tutorial, then set the table and play a round against the machine. It is a playtest build, so some of what you see will change.

Read the rulebook in any browser: https://play.apeiron.games/age-of-pericles/rules/. It is the reviewer edition that ships with the prototype boxes (v1.0, 13 October 2026), with a PDF download at the top. A short overview of one turn and a full playthrough with the designers will be published here before pledges open.

New to Legends of Hellas?Age of Pericles is the second game in the series, after Pillars of Heracles, and it stands alone. You need no earlier box and no earlier rules. The games share a world and a way of working, not a rulebook. Part III, Sons of Heracles, comes later.

Apeiron’s record.Pillars of Heracles: 1,820 backers, produced and delivered. Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán: crowdfunded, produced and delivered.

Under Pericles and his contemporaries the city put its power on display: open debate, monumental building and cultural reach across the Greek world, underwritten by the wealth of the Delian League. Its democracy was competitive and personal, and it kept the threat of ostracism close at hand.

That is the Athens on the board. The Assembly, the offices, the League, the temple and the shadow of exile are all there, and every mechanism puts you under a pressure the real city lived with.

Further watching, chosen for the campaign:

Nothing fascinates me more than the moment history turns human: when decisions made in a crowded assembly shape the fate of a civilisation. The Golden Age of Athens was not inevitable. It was argued into being by citizens who kept choosing the harder thing.

When Themistocles persuaded the Assembly to spend the silver of Laurion on a fleet, Athens won at Salamis. When Pericles added the Middle Wall to Athens’ Long Walls and later urged the city to refuse Sparta the field, Athens chose endurance over submission. Those decisions were debated, voted on and carried out by citizens. With Age of Pericles I want to put you in that room, where one vote can decide what the city becomes.

Five optional additions. The Classic Edition is the complete game.

The base game is complete on day one. Stretch goals add production upgrades and optional modules, revealed one at a time as funding grows. Targets are set at launch.

Where it ships from. Regional hubs and shipping estimates are being confirmed. We will publish the table before pledges open.

Taxes and customs. Regional tax and customs treatment will be published with the shipping table.

Pledge protection. Any pledge protection available for this campaign will be explained before launch.

Game design: Tamás Oláh and Ádám Urbán (Infinite Solutions Game Design)

Cultural consultant: Attila Gonda, classical philologist

Art: Hanga Ritzl, Dávid Szabó, Viktor Takács, Márta Tóth

Editing and playtesting: Kevin Hadley, editor; László Szoboszlai and the MATAFE designer and playtester community

Apeiron Games makes historical strategy games. Ahau: Rulers of Yucatán and Pillars of Heracles are both in their backers’ hands; Age of Pericles is the third. Every game is researched with a classical philologist and playtested in the open before it goes to print.

Is it a standalone game? Yes. Everything you need is in the box. Pillars of Heracles is not required and is not referenced by the rules.

Is the 3D Parthenon in the $49 Classic Edition? Yes. Twenty columns, two roof pieces and the dual-layer Parthenon board are in every edition.

What exactly does the Deluxe add? Metal silver coins, sculpted 3D amphorae, dual-layer recessed Oikos boards, a gold-foil box and the Athena first-player sculpt. The game rules and the 3D Parthenon are the same.

How does a two-player game work? The Demagogue plays the third seat from a nine-card deck. He places Citizens, builds columns, burns market goods and ostracises your people, and he holds the corrupt side all game.

Is there a solo mode? Yes, with the Demagogue as your rival. It is in development now and ships in every box; no app is needed.

Can I try it before I back it? Yes. The browser prototype is linked above. It is a playtest build and will change before print. A public rulebook link will follow.

Can my store order? Yes. Game stores can join through a retailer pledge: 40% off MSRP for 6–11 copies, 45% for 12–23 and 50% for 24 or more, with a free demo copy from 12. Discounts are on the final MSRP, excluding VAT, and store copies ship with the backer copies. The retailer sell sheet has the product data and planned terms: https://apeiron.games/downloads/age-of-pericles-retailer-sell-sheet.pdf. Trade questions: info@apeiron.games.

What will shipping cost, and when does it ship? We will publish regional shipping estimates, the confirmed hubs and a delivery window before pledges open.

How was the art made? Our four artists painted the originals for every card, board and tile. From there we work in layers: 3D renders of the real components, digital repainting under our art direction, and a historical-accuracy check on every scene. Generative AI was used for 43 of the 45 Athena card scenes (repainted from our artists’ originals), the Chalcis city-state tile, three images on this page (the sky behind the Parthenon, the bronze helmet and the first page of the graphic-novel prologue) and three short clips (the opening Pericles loop, the Athens street scene and the bribe in the colonnade). The board and the box art are entirely by our artists.

Try the playable prototype today: https://play.apeiron.games/age-of-pericles/. Then press Follow at the top of this page to be there when the complete $49 Classic Edition opens.