jeff@hpcnoe.UUCP (11/11/85)
Re: Civilization Review Request
This should really be in net.games.board...
Civilization (Avalon Hill, ~$22, 3-7 players, ~8+ hrs)
The premise of the game is that you are one of the tribes (Egyptian,
Italian, ...), and you are trying to be the first one to progress through
various periods (New Stone Age, Bronze Age...). Each era has prerequisites
for entering those periods (Number of cities, number and type of
civilization cards). Each turn has a number of phases, the most notable
are:
1. Population expansion
2. Resolve conflicts
3. Make cities (dependent on number of tribes)
4. Get and trade commodities cards (dependent on number of cities)
5. Get civilization cards (dependent on value of commodities)
6. Resolve disasters
7. Advance on the Time chart (dependent on the civilization cards
and number of cities)
Although there is a "resolve conflicts" phase, this is not really a war
game. Most of the activities center around trading commodities so that
you can get civilization cards. Civilization cards (Pottery, Clothmaking,
...) give you certain skills (advantages) in the game.
The game is fairly well designed in many aspects, the biggest problem
with the game is its length. You need at least 5 players to make an
interesting game. It is difficult to get 5-7 players to spend a whole
day playing a game. The disaster cards seem more brutal than they
actually are (they tend to wipe out up to half of your people at a
shot), but it is easy to rebuild your empire. People tend to hold
a grudge if they got a disaster through trading. And since trading
is crucial to the game, it tends to ruin the game.
There is a couple of simplified rules, don't play them--they are
not interesting (you might try them out to get a feel of the game,
but don't spend too much time with them).
-- Jeff Wu