Jonathan Harrison
United States
Fisher
Illinois
South Quarter Independent Games
Firp! ding! blast!
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The best introduction to wargaming I know—better than Twilight Struggle, better than Conquest of Paradise. You hear a lot about the time it takes, and about the "advanced"-ness of it, but what you hear is way overblown. As Avalon Hill took pains to explain in the rulebook, it's not that the game is 'advanced', but that Advanced Civilization is an advancement of regular Civilization.
Before playing Advanced Civilization, I read the entirety of the rules myself, beforehand, in about an hour. They then took 20 minutes to explain to Jesse. Now, we could get a new player running in about 10 or 15 minutes.
And it's a very, very simple game. It's simpler in execution than Agricola, than Cuba, and vastly simpler than Through the Ages or 18xx, or any other wargame, for that matter. The complexity comes through interactions with the game state and with other players, not through complex rules.
When you play Advanced Civilization for the first time, you'll learn rules only as they become necessary—and that only happens as your civilization improves. Jesse learned the rules this way, as they became applicable—and didn't learn them all until hours of play into the game—and didn't suffer for it. As you advance your civilization, new options open up gradually that can be explained in a couple minutes here and a moment there. The rules unfold over the early hours of the game in reasonable and bite-sized pieces.
Although Advanced Civilization isn't a wargame, the fuller the map gets with civilizations, the more conflict there will be. Conflict is simple in implementation, while remaining deep—certainly far from simplistic. It isn't to the death, but rather down to an area's population ceiling. And instead of managing retreats, you'll manage invasion in the face of the population expansion you can see your opponent will have at the beginning of the next turn. That said, Jesse's and my current game has seen the near-extermination of Crete, and Thrace is teetering on the brink.
That's why I recommend that if anyone's ever interested, we play 4 players, two civilizations apiece. Only a couple minor changes are required to the blind trading rules, and the game doesn't suffer for it at all. And 4 people are much easier to get together for some consecutive sessions.
Jesse will correct me if I don't also describe Advanced Civilization as a game of advanced calamity management. The more cities you build, the more stacks you'll draw resource cards from. And the fewer cards in a stack, the better your chance of drawing the calamity in that stack—it goes back into that stack after every resolution, even when people are holding most of the cards in the stack in their hands, yet unredeemed. And the higher the stacks you draw from, the worse the calamities get. Better yet, you can trade calamities away. Even better still, when you suffer a calamity, you pick nearby players to share its secondary effects with.
Advanced Civilization is a game of growing under turmoil, growing while suffering the effects of growth. If you grow, you will suffer. And that suffering is what defines the game. But you'll all suffer together, growing and enduring calamities and trying to squeeze each other out of the way while increasing your own population enough to weather calamities and buy—
—ah, yes. I hadn't mentioned. Buy civilization advances. There are a wide variety, which grant you the ability to sail open seas (astronomy), to move twice as far (roadbuilding), to outclass your enemies in combat (metallurgy), to weather cultural calamities (music, poetry). The more you advances buy, the cheaper other advances in their category are, and the more protected you are against calamities. And the more advances you buy and cities you build, the more you're able to progress through the various technical ages to trigger the game's end.
Plays 2 to 8 players.
See user comments.
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J.L. Robert
United States
Sherman Oaks
California
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This is not a separate item. This is to purchase the combined lots 1
through, 3, and 4, above.
Will fit in a USPS Priority Mail Large Flat Rate box.
Minimum Bid: $400 $380
Buy It Now: $400 $380, includes the first $16 shipping (enough to ship the lot to any address in the US).
Offer valid until any one component is obtained via Buy It Now.
EDIT: With the Expansion Cards sold, I will restructure this lot accordingly.
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J.L. Robert
United States
Sherman Oaks
California
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Opened, verified complete.
Will fit in a USPS Priority Mail Medium Flat Rate box.
Minimum Bid: $150
Buy It Now: $275
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Martí Cabré
Terrassa
Catalonia
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Chris Donovan
United States
Redmond
Washington
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Not really a wargame, and I don't quite hate it. I just couldn't resist putting it on this list.
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Tom
United States
Seattle
Washington
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Given the prices in the Marketplace, I am glad I have a copy (or two)...
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Patrick Carroll
United States
Carver
Minnesota
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." (GK Chesterton)
"That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)
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Bottom row, with a value of 6.
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Michael Fox
United Kingdom
Milton Keynes
Bucks
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I am ashamed to admit that I have never played Advanced Civilisation, but it's one of those games that has been on my list for ages. I've just never found anyone who will show me the ropes. However, I know that out of all the Long Games out there, this is one of the most respected.
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Jason Sherlock
United States
Anaheim Hills
California
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Civilization was an innovative game that tried to tackle thousands of years of time. It did a decent job. Trading was fun, but players could clog up the system by hording critical cards. Also, the first come first serve nature of improvements made no sense, neither did punishing civilizations for acquiring certain low cost technologies, such as music or mathematics.
Ad-Civ allowed all players to have access to all technologies, and kept the number of trade goods high enough that players could not force events by not trading. It also added other bells and whistles that made the game much more satisfying.
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Ron Glass
United States
Tampa
Florida
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Recently played our annual game (though sometimes we play more than 1 time per year). One player had an app that told him how many points he needed to buy civ cards based on what he already had, so I guess it applied the discounts for him. Seems he discovered it had some "issues" as it gave him wrong totals several times, but I think he discoverd it was showing he had "bought" cards he had only checked to see what he needed, so it was applying too much discount.
Sounds like a user error to me as the smart app was only doing what the dumb human user had put in, obviously incorrectly.
Ron
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♬♪♪ ♫ ♩ ♫♫♪ ♩♬♪ ♫
Australia
Victoria
What happens when typographers play Busen Memo? . . . . . . . . . ὠ ὡ ὢ ὣ ὤ ὥ ὦ ὧ
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$150+ all on its own. Together with Civ and the western extension map you are probably looking at $400.
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Ron Lacer
United States
Phillipston
Massachusetts
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360
An old classic that I have not yet tried.
We don't have this one either
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I'm President Urza, and this is my favorite character in Silicoidia
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
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Another Civ/Advanced Civ combined entry.
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Ken Waters
United States
Aloha
Oregon
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Advanced Civilization improves on the original Civ in several ways: more cards, new types of cards, integration with the Western expansion map and alternate scoring for a shorter playing time.
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Doug Bloomer
United States
Eugene
Oregon
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No shrink. All Advanced Civ components and box in cherry, near mint condition.
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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Will Johnson
United Kingdom
Telford
Shropshire
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Mark Kennet brought this venerable and detailed game along to play and he Steve, John and ???? (sorry forgot your name!
 ) played this advanced version of teh Avaslon Hill game. Starting about 10:15 they finally finished playing around 9 p.m. - although they did break for lunch.
John had to leave early possibly from brain exhaustion. 
Unsure who won - but they all enjoyed the game and would play it again - despite how long it takes - which says something for the game!
Will
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Michael Knapp
United States
Martinsburg
West Virginia
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missing a few trade counters otherwise complete.
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Adam Kunsemiller
United States
South Bend
Indiana
Mischievous Hobbes is Mischievous
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At this point, I've finally come to accept that most celebrated, heavier weight games probably have quite a bit to offer that I would appreciate and enjoy. So at this point, it's changed from games I'm avoiding to games that I'm waiting to play in the right circumstance. That circumstance being with at least one good teacher, and a group of gamers I trust to be fun people. Exactly such a scenario recently presented itself and I was off to the races. I think my initial hesitation with this game is that it just looks dense, there are tons of counters, everyone seems to be managing a bunch of crap, and without the context of what's happening it just kind of looks like a mess.
I was again pleasantly surprised by how easy this game is to play. Although the rule book is dense and it is something like a 14 phase turn, it all fits together and just kind of makes sense. What I originally thought was some sort of crazy wargame was actually more of an interesting trading/set collection/mitigate bad things happening to you game. What surprised me the most was that we took somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-8 hours to play, but it didn't feel like that at all! Because things are moving pretty fast and there always seems to be stuff to do, time really flew. I never found myself bored waiting for something to pan out, but then again, I was in contention for the victory as well, so that may have had something to do with it.
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Derek Rowe
Canada
High River Canada
Alberta
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Having only played this a few times last year I have currently finished two games already in January. These games only had a player count of four but I am glad just to get it on the Table.
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John Elbl
United States
Roselle
Illinois
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So, if you know of a game group in Boston that enjoys longer, strategic games; give a shout.
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Gavin Wynford-Jones
France
Ferney-Voltaire
Just across the border from Geneva, Switzerland
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Thanks to a leaky suitcase, an airline insurance claim and an over enthusiastic AH employee, this contains a couple of additional goodies. The cards have never been out of their shrink-wrap until today - I had to open them to make sure everything was there!
There are two sets of commodity cards and three extra packs of civ cards (which probably make up a complete set, but I haven't checked) included. You therefore will have some spare components for trade or sale.
Everything is in pristine condition.
There is a significant reserve on this item.
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