We ran a 4-player game yesterday (26 November 2011). We started at noon and were finished at 5:00pm. We all were doing fairly well until Italy got hit with Civil War. That basically ended his game on turn 7. Babylon had a big Flood, but was otherwise not really affected by calamities. He ended up winning.

Comments:

It really seems to pay to hold off building cities until you can build about 3-4.

Calamities are pretty random, even though only one happens to a given player on a given turn.

You don't get quite all the benefits from Civ cards; Pottery, for example, is now just a credit for other crafts. Mining only aggravates calamities. They do add toward your final score, at least.

I spent too much time getting cheap milestone points instead of building many cities and buying expensive Civ cards, which are more easy to acquire earlier in the game than with normal rules, I feel.

Automatic points for number of cities makes it a "richer" game. Overall, enjoyable as a "quick" taste of Adv. Civ, but missing a lot of the excitement and strategy of the Trading sessions. For what it is, though, job very well done!

Jonathon,

Thank you for the feedback. The comments are really helpful.

You're right about Civil War - it is devastating (in this variant as well as in the full game). My current thinking is that for this variant, Civil War can enter the mix only on turns 8 and 9 (instead of turns 7 thru 9). By that point, players have had a chance to buy Music, Drama and Poetry, and perhaps Democracy, to mitigate the effects.

My intention for Pottery was that players with that card reduce Famine losses by four units, in addition to providing credits. But that certainly is not mentioned in my rules summary. Sorry for that omission. And you are right, Mining loses its potential positive impact in this variant. Any suggestions?

Your comments about milestone points are really interesting to me. The idea, of course, was to use milestone points as a substitute for the Age requirements on the AST. But if going for milestone points kept you from maximizing your Civ Cards, maybe this should be eliminated or altered in some way. Again, I would appreciate any ideas that you have.

Thanks again for trying out the variant and providing the feedback. I'm thrilled that you were able to get some enjoyment out of it (and finish in 5 hours).