Hello everyone,
Welcome to Dominion of the Ancients, a non-profit, turn-based board game venture where players lead ancient civilizations, such as Rome, Egypt, and China, competing to build wonders, expand cities, trade resources, and wage war. Through diplomacy, innovation, and conquest, players aim to earn 3,000 points, consequently transforming the old and traditional Social Studies class into something more engaging and interactive. With the help of AI and your financial backing, we plan to develop, print, and publish this amazing resource, making history fun, engaging, and accessible for students and educators.
Interested? Please join us on the website listed below to view our elevator pitch and much more detailed game pitch there:
The game’s website: https://sites.google.com/view/classroom-of-ancients/home
Thank you for your time!
I agree with your advocate that AI can be introduced to social study not just STEM. Your idea is a great example and the first sight I saw it, I like it as I am a history lover. This venture also demonstrates the beauty of gamification. While the pitch doesnt put much words on cost benefit analysis, I hope this venture can be put into practice very soon.
Feedback
Hey Vlad,
As a history enthusiast and a board gamer, I would love to invest in this venture based on the design and interactivity of the elevator pitch alone. However, seeing as this feedback is designed to help appeal to a larger group of investors, I’d offer a few insights.
One of the strengths you have in your pitch and report is that I can see your passion and have thought about this alot. The details you share are quite thorough and I appreciate specifying the pedagogies for this venture as an educator investor. I’d have to say this is very thorough on my case and I genuinely believe this should be presented in kickstarter.
100% an investment without any doubt.
FEEDBACK
Hello Vlad,
I am in awe browsing your venture. The concept of your venture is strengthened by its alignment with curriculum standards and its deliberate incorporation of multi-modal learning approaches. This makes it more accessible and inclusive for all learners.
One notable strength of the project lies in its pedagogical foundation. By basing your project on the principles introduced by James P. Gee and Elisabeth Gee, the game is not merely for entertainment or to be playful but also academically sound. What I admire most is the project’s genuine commitment to improve history education by taking time to develop the venture. The integration of AI tools and the transparent development processing show your resourcefulness and dedication to education and learning in creative ways. You have completely and clearly outlined in your site a roadmap for scalability, future plans for physical kits, downloadable resources, and digital adaptations, and Indigenous content integration. This made me more interested in what’s about to come.
I am just wondering how the game will sustain production, distribution, and long-term viability if you plan on remaining non-profit. Additionally, I believe including plans for pilot testing, feedback loops, and performance metrics would help establish the game’s credibility and effectiveness as a learning tool. Another question is what strategies do you plan to use to measure and demonstrate the educational impact of “Dominion of the Ancients” on student learning outcomes?
Overall, I am interested in investing in it! Thanks, Vlad
FEEDBACK:
Hey Vlad,
As a lover of Settlers of Catan and the whole Civilization series of games, your venture immediately caught my eye. I have always had an interest in ancient civilizations and understanding the rise and fall of various empires throughout human history and I am sure I owe some of that to playing games like these at an early age. Therefore, making something like this available in the classroom sounds like a phenomenal idea to me.
As a venture, I think something like this would be embraced by Socials/History High School departments all across the country but you might get different traction depending on the extent to which the specific Civs you feature are highlighted in the various curricula across different provinces. It might also be worth develping a a simplified version for Junior grades where some of the complex mechanics might be too much for those students – for example, Strand A in the updated Ontario Social Studies curriculum for grade 4.
As a game, I love the concept but worry that it’s a little too heavily skewed towards warfare and wonder if there’s some way to introduce mechanics around trade and culture. That might be a heavy lift but if you’re using Civilization VI as an inspiration, I know there are some pretty interesting mechanics and strategic considerations that those elements of the game introduce.
Great job – if this becomes a reality one day I would love it play it!
FEEDBACK:
This was a great pitch Vlad! I really like the game-based approach you took with this venture as I have seen the benefits of using games in social studies classes first-hand. Dominion of the Ancients is well thought out and I’m certain students would learn a lot from reflecting on the game mechanics and connecting that with the real-world. I thought the non-profit approach was also a great idea. A suggestion might be to add more around your vision for the non-profit to help potential investors understand better why they should support your venture. For example, could you connect this venture with a wider vision of promoting historical thinking and make the case for why schools need increased focus in this area now?
FEEDBACK:
Hi Vlad,
Great work on your venture and elevator pitch! I think Dominion of the Ancients is a great way to gamify learning and increase both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in students. As a teacher, it is often difficult to find learning tools that are both educational and engaging for students. However, Dominion of the Ancients solves this problem in social studies through gamifying learning. One concern I have would be over the scalability of your product. Can this only be used for Social Studies or is there a way to scale this across all subject? Would your product be available in different languages and be scalable globally? Overall, your product is a great example of how gamification can be effectively used in education and I would invest in your product if I was an investor!
Hi Vlad, great job on the pitch!
I’m glad to see how AI has supported you in bringing your ideas to life. And I think bringing Dominion of the Ancients is a very niche topics for its passionate niche target audience. So there is definitely clear USP. From an investor POV I see it being more powerful if there is product-market fit. So I think a next step you can think about is how to go-to-market (i.e. collaborate with schools, or creating a community to scale it out).
Great job 🙂 would love to try it if it comes to life.
(Btw, if you have time would you mind checking out my venture as well? Would appreciate any comments and suggestions – https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec522/2025/08/04/creaba-studio-building-the-future-of-education-content-creation/)
FEEDBACK
Hi Vlad,
As a former Social Studies teacher, I love this idea! I think you identified a specific pain point and your solution addresses it well. Positioning it as a non-profit educational venture was a smart idea since it seems the primary purpose isn’t necessarily a monetary return on investment, but rather, an investment in the future of social studies education. Though, I could see this board game taking off for parents who want an engaging and educational game that isn’t going to increase their screentime. I would invest!