Andreas Hunziker
Switzerland
Münchenbuchsee
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Over the holidays we played a game of "Advanced Civlization". We were 7 players and played it over 2 days.
I wanted to catch some stats during play, but in the end I was too absorbed by the game itself and missed to note half of the things going on in remote corners of the known (and unknown) world, and so I stopped. The only infos that I did note with some accuracy were the number and duration of the game turns.
Since we were "only" seven players (the game allows for eight players) there was ample space on the board (we did not use the Civilization Western Extension Map) and the game progressed quite peaceful - and in consequence also relatively fast.
The nations were choosen in the following order:
1. Babylon, 2. Crete, 3. Egypt, 4. Africa, 5. Italy, 6. Assyria and 7. Thrace.
Interestingly the choices for the sixth player still consisted of all 4 nations starting on the northern map-border (Assur, Asia, Thrace and Illyria) and he choose Assyria, which in turn now gave almost all of the north to Thrace, who in the end held only 4 city spaces (compared to the 12 of Babylon) but lived comfortably with additional 5 wilderness cities.
Since there was enough living space for almost everybody there was not too much reason for conflict, the game was decided in the trading phase and also due some bad luck by drawing the non-tradable calamity cards. Egypt suffered early on a heavy drawback due to a civil war (which established a Nubian dynasty - Africa was the beneficiary and came to stay) directly followed by the inevitable flood.
Starting with turn 6 we gave us 12 Minutes to trade.
Crete and Thrace profited from their low requirements on the AST and manageged to progress on to the final space without stopping.
The final score after 11 1/2 hours of playing time:
1. Thrace: 4756
2. Crete:4719
3. Assyria: 4618
4. Africa: 4398
5. Babylon: 3551
6. Egypt: 3060
7. Italia: 2998
The duration of the turns:
Turn 01: 5 Min
Turn 02: 6 Min
Turn 03: 8 Min
Turn 04: 9 Min
Turn 05: 20 Min
Turn 06: 45 Min
Turn 07: 36 Min
Turn 08: 60 Min
Turn 09: 74 Min
Turn 10: 59 Min
Turn 11: 61 Min
Turn 12: 46 Min
Turn 13: 65 Min
Turn 14: 67 Min
Turn 15: 59 Min
Turn 16: 64 Min
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Guido Gloor
Switzerland
Ostermundigen
Bern
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Wish I could've been there, particularly because this game is still on my must-play-because-it-must-be-awesome list
 Great to hear that you've managed to get the game going!
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Geoffrey Ulman
United States
Herndon
Virginia
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Thanks for the write up! Always love to hear about Advanced Civ games!
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Pieter
Netherlands
Maastricht
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hunzirabi wrote: also due some bad luck by drawing the non-tradable calamity cards. Egypt suffered early on a heavy drawback due to a civil war (which established a Nubian dynasty - Africa was the beneficiary and came to stay) directly followed by the inevitable flood.
And this is why I dislike Advanced Civ. Playing for 12 hours, but already losing due to bad luck after just a few hours. There is a really good game hiding in the box, but it has been mucked up by the designers thinking that it needs random catastrophes.
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Jennifer Schlickbernd
United States
Pasadena
California
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The catastrophe's aren't random and you're never out of a game early. Sorry if your attitude is such, but I've seen plenty of people including myself come back from only 1 city during the mid/late game. It takes experience however to really read who is winning and who needs to change their approach, and in this current world where a game is considered long if it goes over 2 hours, not many people are going to get the experience. And having the game out of print doesn't help either.
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Andreas Hunziker
Switzerland
Münchenbuchsee
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Google translates "calamity" to Unglück, Kalamität, Schicksalsschlag, and "Unglück" back to misfortune, accident,unhappiness, calamity, bad luck, evil, tragedy, adversity, mishap, hoodoo.
English obviosly is not my first language, and we use for "calamity" in Adv. Civ. the term "Katastrophe". A kind of events you usually try to avoid (but in Adv. Civ. you can even play with this aspect of the game) and plan accordingly, and if they still happen, you call it... ...a catastrohpy.
In Adv. Civ. you can know when a "non-tradable" will hit whom and plan accordingly. All the informations are in the open, although you have to work for it.
You can see and guess how many trading cards are on the different number-stacks - "Non-tradable calamities" are always at the bottom of the stack. Or instead of guessing you could count who draws what and then again count the cards that come back, but...
You can influence the order of movement by actively controlling your population size (one of the most important aspects in the game), and the order in which trading cards are drawn by managing the number of your cities in relation the other nations by e.g. NOT building this nineth city. The number of cities (and AST order) decides the order in which trading cards are drawn.
You can buy Civiliztion Advantages which lessen the effects of those calamities that did not show up this turn, they will make their appearance shurly next turn.
If you do all this and still find yourself with a unwanted "Non-Tradable" in your trading hand, you can go and "hunt" for more calamities, if you have more than 2 there is the possibility that the most unwanted one is discarded since only two actually will be resolved.
You can try to win over neighbours by offer them good trade-deals, so they trade calamities to other less loved nations or leave your territory again as fast as possible after "inheriting" some of your cities, and so on and on.
Egypt drew both the non-tradable "Civil War" (4) and "Flood" (5), and with a little help of its neighbour Africa - who was the beneficiary of "Civil War" - found itself mostly in that fields which were then flooded by the following "calamity". Africa could have choosen differntly...
There are random elements in Advanced Civilization, and you CAN plan for them. But of course as soon the other players find you out how much you influence their "bad luck" a certain nation will find itself at the center of the mutual interest when the second victims of the calamities are looked for... (what happend to Africa (edit: not Egypt..) in this actual game and cost him 2 steps on the AST...).
So you can plan ahead. But do not neglect your diplomacy.
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Andreas Hunziker
Switzerland
Münchenbuchsee
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ulmangt wrote:
Thanks for the write up! Always love to hear about Advanced Civ games!
You are welcome! I saw that the last session report dates from August, so I *had* to write one, just to demonstrate that Advanced Civilization still lives!
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Olav Riediger
Germany
Bedburg(Erft)
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hunzirabi wrote: ulmangt wrote:
Thanks for the write up! Always love to hear about Advanced Civ games!
You are welcome! I saw that the last session report dates from August, so I *had* to write one, just to demonstrate that Advanced Civilization still lives!
Be assured: It lives. In 2011 we did two sessions of Advanced Civilization with the Western and Eastern Expansion (9-players) and one on this famous "The Glory that was Greece" board (4-player version). It is an awesome game.
What I regard as particularly important is that the board must not provide sufficient room for all civilizations. When that is the case, the civil war, which may be by far the worst calamity, doesn't strike as bad as it can for civilizations having 70 or 80 points on the board.
"The Glory that was Greece" is such a setup where all four players constantly struggle for room and feel lucky if they conquer a 1-population island somewhere...
Anyway, it is a good feeling to know that others love this game as well. Good Gaming in 2012!
Cheers, Olav
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Andreas Hunziker
Switzerland
Münchenbuchsee
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olav wrote: What I regard as particularly important is that the board must not provide sufficient room for all civilizations. When that is the case, the civil war, which may be by far the worst calamity, doesn't strike as bad as it can for civilizations having 70 or 80 points on the board.
We also prefer the full game. Be assured that we tried to convince an 8th player to join us, but in some cases family overruled, others were lured in to the mountains to ski, and even others preferred a lan-party over the opportunity to make a mark in the history of another glorious 8-player Advanced Civilization...
And we did not want to cover parts of the board... Maybe next time again with the full eight players (if for once we start to plan early enough).
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Archibald Zimonyi
Sweden
Gothenburg
Unspecified
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Aaarghh I need to play this game more. I only get about 6 games each year and that is way too little.
And to doubters, unless you get two/three turns of the suckiest bad luck, even when you cannot win you can still play to win and have loads of fun simply because the game is that good.
But as we say in Swedish: "Smaken är som baken, delad" which roughly translates into "Personal taste is like the behind, divided".
Archie
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Roland Hackler
Downers Grove
Illinois
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Six games per year? Wow. I'd kill to be able to play that frequently. I'm in Downers Grove, Ill., and struggling to find enough people to play a seven- or eight-player game of Advanced Civilization.
The Eurogamer mindset certainly doesn't help. 
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Guido Gloor
Switzerland
Ostermundigen
Bern
The statement below is false.
The statement above is correct.
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hunzirabi wrote: preferred a lan-party over the opportunity to make a mark in the history of another glorious 8-player Advanced Civilization
Hey, I played board games there, too 
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Robert Sheets
United States
Oregon
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Quote: Aaarghh I need to play this game more. I only get about 6 games each year and that is way too little.
The last time I played Advanced Civilization was about 13 months ago. It is just too difficult for us to find the time to play long games anymore. 
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