Ashes & Amber 2026

The inevitable will come. Cities will fall.

Yet from their ashes, you may rise again. Plan carefully. Endure wisely. Preserve what truly matters.

Will your civilization be remembered as the one that left its mark?

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Ashes & Amber is a competitive civilization tableau-building card game where cities are living stacks of cards: expand them, protect them, and rebuild them after devastating catastrophes.

- Build cities as stacks of cards and activate the top cards - Protect your valuable cards or see them burn when the catastrophes strike - Raise Wonders to show the world your accomplishments - Achieve greatness by saving your Amber to the end but beware when the major event is triggered

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The game unfolds across five eras, Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Age of Discovery, and Modern Era, one era per round. You build your civilization by creating cities. A city is a stack of cards, and only the top card can be activated. The more cities you have, the more cards you can activate and combine. But the more cities you have, the greater the danger, because at the end of each era, a Catastrophe strikes.

If you do not protect your valuable cards properly, they will turn to ashes. You will need to acquire cards to protect them. One card in particular is precious, your Amber card. You have it from the beginning, and it symbolizes the resilience of your people through time.

If you protect it and shape your civilization wisely, your Amber card can become a major source of victory points in the final era, when humanity reaches its defining moment. You see this goal from the start and plan your strategy around it.

Players will use five different decks, one per era, for a total of over 700 cards. Each player also selects a unique personal deck, a Tribe, with asymmetric mechanics, which they will develop throughout the game.

Player interaction is indirect, with players racing to claim cards from the shared display, from vital protection to powerful Ambition cards that shape the final score.

The game features 19 unique Tribes, each with its own distinctive play style. Some encourage greater player interaction, others sacrifice a strong start for a spectacular finish, and others bend the rules in unconventional ways.

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Build. Burn. Rise Again.

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—description from the designer