Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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What do you call Civilization when you only play to the second marker and with only four players? Probably "a learning game", because this certainly was that - my first game of Civilization in about two decades, and my second overall.
Why am I playing it now? Well, because I've finally acquired a copy of this classic AH game. Delightfully, it wasn't for that much, although it was missing two tokens (a couple of city tokens). As they are eminently replaceable, I'm extremely happy with my really old AH set.
The four players who took part in this game were Sarah (Asia), Hendo (Assyria), Mark (Egypt) and me (Babylon). We probably made a couple of rules blunders; the most critical was including the Mysticism cards in the shorter game. Oops.
However, even with that error, there were still some interesting plays in the game. Sarah found herself cut off from most of the arable land by Hendo early on, and - unwilling to start an early war - decided to build a ship and sail over to become Greek. Or something like that, it certainly slowed her development greatly and really affected her ability to build cities. I was the first to build two cities, followed by Hendo and Mark.
Mark was hampered by some poor trading (or unwillingness to trade). I made some very beneficial trades early on, which gave me some good technologies quickly. Alas, Famine struck me hard, after Mark decided I was the one to suffer it in full - he was able to display one Grain + Pottery to reduce to loss.
The most amusing play of the game came when I drew both the Civil War and Flood in the same turn. No! The Civil War saw Sarah take possession of several of my cities, seeing her leap in the next turn (along with building) from three to seven cities, whilst my own count dropped from seven to three. Why three? Sounds harsh for a Civil War... well, yes: an extra city was then washed away by the flood! Sigh.
However, by this stage I was into the last track (thanks to the erroneously played Mysticism), and one ahead of the other players, so the last turn was somewhat unnecessary. The main point of the game was achieved, however: we'd had a look at the rules and the flow of the game. Now to find the time to play the full game...
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Scott G
United Kingdom
Hatfield Heath
Essex
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Hi Merric,
Great to hear that you have gotten hold of a copy of Civ. It's a good game, BUT do everything you can to get Advanced Civ. That makes a good a game a GREAT game.
Only problem is unless you are a student, the frequency of play of the full game is likely to be perhaps twice a decade. My last blast was 8 years ago, but I still remember it well.
It's worth it though!
Regards,
Fentum
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Russell InNC
United States
Charlotte
North Carolina
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In the standard four player game, Asia is the weakest civilization.
Look in the files section for the Western Expansion. It adds Spain and allows four players on the western side of the map.
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Cole Wehrle
United States
Austin
Texas
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I think playing to the second victory flag is the best way to learn. In fact, I think playing to the third and fourth flags make for pretty interesting games as well--even if it isn't as sublime as the full game (but sometimes you don't have 4 1/2 hours for the full thing)
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Ramping up my reviewing.
