Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I previously reviewed Ancient Knowledge, a solid tableau building card game designed by Rémi Mathieu and published by IELLO, back in 2023. My review group enjoyed the game, although not exactly as written—the base game badly overstayed its welcome, so we found more magic in a house rule that shortened the game from 14 cards in a player’s “Past” to just 10. That brought the game time down from about 30 minutes per player to 15-20 minutes per player, with three-player games wrapping up in about an hour.
And given the near-complete lack of player interaction, that’s where Ancient Knowledge needed to live. With any tableau-building game featuring a boatload of cards (see: Terraforming Mars, Ark Nova, Clank!, etc.), all I need out of an expansion to a game like Ancient Knowledge is quite simple: more cards. Ideally, you sprinkle a new game mechanic, a mini-game board off to the side that expands my options on a turn, or maybe a new game mode if the designers are feeling fancy.
Ancient Knowledge: Heritage arrived on my doorstep, ready to answer some of my needs. I don’t think this expansion has quite enough new/interesting cards for me—between Builder cards and Technology cards, the new additions grow the base game’s decks by 25%—but it does introduce a solo mode, a mode that should have absolutely been included in the base game.
That’s because there was ample space for it—I get it, with games like this, it’s all about the expansions—and because Ancient Knowledge, on the best of days or the worst of them, is a solo game. If you liked the base game and you love solo gaming, Ancient Knowledge: Heritage is a must.
Heritage Mode
If you need a refresher on the base game, take a look at my previous review. The rules for the base game are fully intact here, with one minor addition for the solo mode—to simulate other players occasionally taking Technology cards from the market, the player must roll a standard six-sided die at the end of each turn to remove 0-1 cards from the Technology tableau.
In multiplayer, there are no changes at all—Ancient Knowledge: Heritage just features more cards, and these new cards didn’t really turn me on. The new Technology cards just feature more ways to score points. The new Builder cards mostly feature two trigger points instead of just one—one action that may or may not happen as soon as that card is placed in the Timeline, and another effect during each player’s Timeline or Decline phase.
These new cards gave us “more is more” vibes more frequently than “cool” vibes. It’s great that some of these cards do more things…fine. But none of them screamed “heck yeah” when played to the table. And because players can never seek out specific Builder cards—like the base game, Ancient Knowledge: Heritage only allows players to draw from the top of a face-down deck—it’s hard to predict when a player will really get to play with the new toys.
The only “major” thing this expansion adds is a dedicated solo mode. Here, players have two choices. The first is Challenge Mode, using a 15-card deck that adds a number of goals to each game so that solo players have something specific to chase—monuments of a certain suit, monuments left on the Timeline, etc. The top half of these cards are objectives that take up space on the artifact track, and must be achieved by the end of a player’s 16th turn. The bottom half of challenge cards show a one-time benefit, and in each scenario, players begin the game with at least one of these benefits ready to go.
I did two Challenge Mode plays with the new stuff, and the game very much felt like Ancient Knowledge with no downtime. The game was fundamentally the same, save for the limited cards that attack other players, which obviously isn’t possible in solo mode. It was mildly interesting to play without anyone else as I spent more time plotting out my moves to maximize points and minimize “lost knowledge” tokens.
The second solo mode is Heritage Mode, which uses the same challenge cards in a campaign format that is intended to play out over 15 separate games of Ancient Knowledge. I didn’t bother with this format—I enjoy Ancient Knowledge, but I’m almost never going to play a game 15 times at this point in my hobby week! But I love that this campaign mode is included…for a solo junkie, there’s plenty to do here, and cards that are unlocked become available as bonuses for players as they move through the campaign.
No People? No Problem
Ancient Knowledge: Heritage is not recommended for players looking for more multiplayer action. In a game that already has plenty of cards to choose from, the new cards didn’t add enough for me. However, I highly recommend Ancient Knowledge: Heritage for solo players, particularly those who didn’t pick up the base game the first time around. The Heritage Mode looks like a sizable challenge, and the replayability is off the charts thanks to the variability in the Builder deck card draw.
One major plus for me: all the base game components and the expansion content fits very comfortably in the base game’s box. In fact, there’s room in there for another similarly-sized expansion. There is almost zero onboarding for new rules with this expansion, so players can safely introduce the combined package to new players with ease. I still think the house rule of 10 cards in the past/decline is the right move, and I will stick with Ancient Knowledge as a two- or three-player game with friends looking to scratch an Ark Nova-adjacent itch in significantly less time.
Ancient Knowledge: Heritage details
- Designer: Rémi Mathieu
- Artists: Adrien Rives, Emilien Rotival
- Publishers: IELLO
- Release Date: 2024
- Player count : 1 - 4
- Age range : 12+
- Time range : 30 - 120 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Command Cards, End Game Bonuses, Hand Management, Open Drafting
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.78035 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
- More articles about Ancient Knowledge: Heritage.
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