Dark Ages is a historically-based civilization-building game that uses an innovative action selection mechanism. As long as your action markers remain on the board, you might be able to gain secondary bonus actions whenever you or another player repeat the action.

While Dark Ages features objectives commonly found in 4X games — encouraging you to explore nearby areas , expand your territory, exploit the resources, and exterminate your opponents — it does so featuring several Euro-centric mechanisms. Gather resources from lands under your control, using them to build up your cities and fortifications. Some building types give several ways for you to gain important in-game advantages, while others enhance your military strength or simply score you victory points. As you grow your territory, you will lay claim to noble titles, acquire new technologies, and train your military units. Every region and leader offer asymmetrical choices with their unique abilities.

Dark Ages is actually two separate games: Western Europe (subtitled Heritage of Charlemagne) and Central Europe (subtitled Holy Roman Empire). While both versions have identical gameplay, each focuses its attention on a specific region of Europe during the Dark Ages (Western and Central, respectively). As a result, the game board maps differs between the two versions, as do the territorries in which players vie for control over along with the flavor of the inhabitants and leaders of those lands. However, by combining both versions, you can expand the map into an epic battle for superiority for 5+ players!

Each game box contains finely sculpted miniatures of cities, farms, fortresses and other buildings. The different types of troops — bowmen, infantry, and cavalry — are also represented by unique miniatures.

The solo mode for Dark Ages is designed by Dávid Turczi.