Game: Sid Meier's Civilization: The Card Game

Thread: Re: Comments, recommendations, and Questions

Emil 109 — 2008-11-21T14:41:53+00:00

JoinedForCiv wrote:

Questions:
Do the pyramids only add resources based on the plot they are on?

I think not. They give you any two resources per turn.

Thread: Re: Some quick observations

webbbarton — 2008-09-08T01:38:11+00:00

With all due respect, a defensive strategy I think is guaranteed to lose. Eventually you will be attacked by an overwhelming force and you have to be able to attack back to recoup your losses. Even with lots of grassland nothing pays off more than a huge successful attack. Get yours!

Thread: Re: Tecnology

rumpz — 2008-08-28T17:29:04+00:00

thank you very very much, very kind

Thread: Re: Tecnology

peapicker — 2008-08-23T18:31:02+00:00

Here you go:

Thread: Re: Tecnology

rumpz — 2008-08-14T16:33:49+00:00

ok, thanks

Thread: Re: Technology

peapicker — 2008-08-13T16:04:04+00:00

If I can remember, I'll try to do this.

Thread: Tecnology

rumpz — 2008-08-13T11:32:37+00:00

hi,
i don't have the game and i'm trying to do it myself

please, someone could post a list of technologies with effect and cost?

thanks

Thread: Comments, recommendations, and Questions

JoinedForCiv — 2008-08-02T02:05:05+00:00

Comments: Pottery was not well written, first time my brother and I played, he destroyed by trading all his resources for 10+ cards (minus two, of course) every turn and then destroyed me with a large army.

Catapults only bouncing walls to a hand (sorry, MTG player) is annoying. They should destroy outright.

No max hand size adds a brilliant touch to the game. Until, of course, someone attacks you with 7 chariots and 4 swordsman after building a barracks. Then you cry. (luckily I always keep Archers. Always.)

Recommendations: When discarding, always discard face DOWN, this prevents card counters (like me) from getting an advantage, plus you can easily guess who has a small army that way.

Make sure you agree on whether cards in hand can be traded for real resources (i.e. a 3 Production card in your hand for 1 "real" Food)

Either have one person be the banker or count your resources while your opponent draws/discards. This shortens game time and helps insure an accurate count. I almost always screw up with the Pyramids.

Questions:
Do the pyramids only add resources based on the plot they are on?

And, anyone else modify the game any?

Thread: Re: Some quick observations

JoinedForCiv — 2008-08-02T01:56:09+00:00

When it comes to technology, you should always save up for Astronomy or atleast Pottery, and Writing can swing games.
Plus, a military civilization needs to be on the look out for the colossus.
In more than two-player games, don't attack unless you have the defense and wallS to back it up.
That, and when you don't have a grassland, buy one. 15 of anything is a cheap price for more people. Think More Food=more People=more resources.

I prefer the defensive approach. Swordsman and Chariots are good, but they are useless when under barrage.

Oh, and Great Wall+Mathematics=useless opponent catapults.

Thread: Some quick observations

webbbarton — 2008-07-06T09:01:08+00:00

I'm a big Sid Meier's Civ fan. Just played the card game twice today for the first time.

Some quick strategy observations:
1. Be honest about what you have. You win with victory points from 3 sources - Population, number of tech advances, and number of Wonders. If you get lots of grassland and a granary or both then your path to victory is clear, probably to all the players, so build a big defensive army. Expect to get attacked a lot. Hang on to walls. Be ready to rebuild the walls a lot with production. The Great Wall is your ticket to an easy win. Conversely, if you do NOT have the grassland and the granary(s), then be prepared to have to attack the person who does a lot. Also conversely don't get too discouraged by the walls. Remember that the unit that is returned goes into your hand and is not lost, and that as long as you attack with 2 or more units the defender still has to have defensive unit cards. It isn't absolutely necessary to have a catapult. All the catapult does is make the wall builder rebuild the wall for a paltry 4 Production. Don't wait to get a catapult.
2. Population is the key. Only 5 total VP's are available via building wonders, and only 15 via technologies. The Barracks is an extremely valuable card. It costs a LOT of Food to BUILD population, but the Barracks is cheap and Swordsmen and Chariots are numerous. It is much, much, much cheaper to fight for population than to try to build it. Think of it this way, if you attack and defeat the current leader and you get 2 or 4 population, you just gained 4 or 8 points from ONE action. You gain 2 and he loses 2 etc.
3. WAR WINS: When you win a battle, put the population on only one plot. This has several very dramatic effects: A. Now that plot can host 2 buildings/wonders. B. Choose a plot that lets you choose between 1 resource or another so you have more control over what you produce. In fact, it seems that the right strategy is to put all of your combat-won population on a forest plot and a river plot (or hills, or some combo), that way you can take any resources you want pretty much. C. By NOT putting population on some of your plots, this allows you to buy population cheap if you have to buy.
4. When you lose a battle give the opponent your population that is easiest to replace unless it leaves you without a resource. Take the cheapest buildings as casualties. In fact, build some cheap buildings even if you don't think you need them as padding.
5. Don't waste time 'saving up' for Wonders or expensive techs. You do not need them to win. Go straight for the military units and the 'resource builds' granary, market and forge. Think 'buy cheap' and 'attack for sudden gain'. You will beat any other strategy that way. The best techs are Pottery and Astronomy. Always take those when you can. They give you extra cards. Culture Leader is worthy since it gives you more opportunity to pick up military units. Grab it if you can (consider Hanging Gardens early on if able). Happiness leader is not so critical with the 'minimal build' strategy.
6. Avoid trading in 3 for 1 resources. Very bad deal. Stockpiling and waiting for the right moment is better. If one resource isn't being spent then get another plot. Once you win a few battles and have a big army and lots of population on the 'choice' plots then it won't be a problem since you can choose what resources your population produces.
7. If you are not lucky and you see few military units, wait for the next game. Your luck might change.

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peapicker — 2008-07-01T22:11:41+00:00

Playing with my 8 year old son, about a third of the way in. He went on to win.

Thread: A 3 1/2 hour battle for world domination, with a big oopsie.

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-01-19T08:53:18+00:00

Recently picked this up insanely cheap, $20 for the entire box set of games, dvds and card game, so my wife Deb and I decided to give it a try. The first half hour was spent unwrapping the cards and going over the rules. There are no diagrams in the rules, so some time was spent figuring out which cards were the ones being talked about ("What's a plot card?"), and what might be a good layout for them on the table as play progressed.

The game starts with each player getting dealt two terrain cards (plot cards, aka resource generators), followed by what I thought was a neat mechanic, a face up draft for two more plot cards each. Interestingly, after this process, we both had an identical starting point, 3 Production, 3 Commerce, and 2 Food, even though we had different card combinations, I had a River, she had a Forest, etc.

Deb was collecting resources on her first few turns, and though I had a pretty crappy hand, I thought I'd start building whatever I could. So, I built a Library, which gave me some Happiness and Culture points, but at this point, I had no idea what that would do for me in the game. A few turns later, Deb smacks down the Great Wall Wonder. I felt left out, so retaliated with the Hanging Gardens Wonder, which gave me more Happiness and Culture, and earned me both Highest Happiness and Highest Culture cards, which reduced my building costs, and allowed me to pick up extra cards each turn.

A while later, Deb had the lead, as her Library and Granary were getting her more food, population and technology than I could get, and she also seemed to be getting the big cards she needed. She now had three Wonders down to my one, and had way more population cards.

Around this time she asked "How does the game end?" I stammered, "Uh, I dunno." We looked it up in the manual, and found that the game ends when you buy the last Technology. All righty then, time for a change in strategy. I had sort of decided that the Technology cards were overly expensive, and many of them seemed to give fairly useless benefits such as draw 2 cards once, spend 3 resources to pick up 1 card, etc, so I really wasn't going to buy them much except when they really matched up well with my current setup. Time to shift to start buying whatever cheapest technology was available, or this game would *never* end.

Now about half way through the game, we had each been carefully reciting "Pick up 4 cards, discard 2" each turn as we learned the game. My Highest Culture card was allowing me to "Pick up 5 cards, discard 3". So Deb looks at me and says "Gee, you have a lot of cards in your hand, I can never seem to get that many." And then she says "Are you sure you're throwing away *three* cards each time?"

OOPS! "Pick up 5 cards, discard 3" had sort of melded some time back with her mantra and had turned into "Pick up 5 cards, discard 2", so for about half an hour I was keeping one more card than I should have been. So we sort of came up with a new rule, that Deb would start drawing 4 discarding 1 until we felt she had caught up. Pretty soon after she built Literature, which gave her the Culture lead, so she was now drawing 5, discarding 2.

Now, to this point, combat had been pretty non-existent. I had tried a couple of times to attack just to see how the process worked, but it seemed sort of useless, especially with her Great Wall. At first we weren't sure if any card could defend, could a chariot defend against a chariot, etc. Eventually we decided that only cards that specifically mentioned it could defend.

Deb *hates* combat, and I knew that when she plays the computer Civ, she never attacks the computer players, and just wishes they would leave her alone. So, I felt fairly comfortable with not having many defence cards in hand. As it happened, I ended up with large number of attacking cards in my hand at one time, and I could see that her hand was only 4 cards or so, so she wouldn't be able to defend much at all.

My attack was devastating, as both a Chariot and a Swordsman got through, and she not only lost her Granary and Monastery, but *also* two population cards which I got to put on my cards. A double whammy, as her production decreased while mean increased.

This was the turning point in the game, as soon I had two forges on my 2 production Mountain, turning it into a +6 generator for me, as well as a Market and a Granary on two other plots, turning them into +4 each. Also, the Currency and Iron Working technologies were adding +1 to each of them as well. Deb tried a desperate massive counter-attack, but I also had Mathematics which turn Catapults into defenders, and five Archers and Catapults were enough to completely turn away the attack.

The last third of the game went by quite quickly, as our "production machines" allowed us to run through the Technologies almost every turn. I was able to buy two on one turn to trigger the end of the game.

Because I had concentrated on cheaper technologies, I ended up with 8 to Deb's 7. She had all three of them that cost 20+ to build, whereas my most expensive one was 16. But she could afford to do that, because she was getting -5 off the purchase price. She completely dwarfed me in Wonders, with 4 to my 1. My late surge in production however proved to be the difference, as I had 15 Population to her 9, thus I won the game 24 to 20. Well, the mid-game oopsie will reduce the bragging rights somewhat.

It will be interesting to see how long the next game is, now that we're familiar with the rules and process. I'm sure it will be faster, but counting out your production each turn and deciding which bonuses to take does take quite some time each turn.

Thread: Re: On Amazon UK sale

andrews777 — 2007-11-19T18:04:30+00:00

Can anyone buy one of these and ship it to the US? The cost here is still fairly high.

Brad

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:26:13+00:00

Wonders of the card game

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:25:20+00:00

Army units

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:24:29+00:00

Technology selection

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:23:30+00:00

Resources

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:22:50+00:00

Population, highest happiness and highest culture

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:21:49+00:00

Plots

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:21:09+00:00

buildings

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:20:30+00:00

Buildings

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Aetesaki — 2007-09-16T14:19:33+00:00

Bonus resources

Thread: Re: Availability

nitrotrain — 2007-08-24T23:41:32+00:00

I just recently bought the CIV4 Expansion Pack (Beyond the Sword) a few days ago and am impressed with all the new features added to the game.
I know I wont be paying anymore of my hard earned dollars just to get the CIV card game unless I see it marked down to $40.00 or less, maybe an after christmas clearance sale.
Why would anyone want all of those old CIV games? I barely have time to play them anyway.
I am hoping that the card game will be sold seprately.

Thread: Re: On Amazon UK sale

shawn_low — 2007-07-17T07:11:27+00:00

RustanR wrote:
I got this with Civilization Chronicles at Swedish EBGames for 99 SEK (~15$) in July 2007.

Wow, that's cheap. Any more on sale? Not that I'm in Sweden!

Thread: Re: On Amazon UK sale

RustanR — 2007-07-17T05:33:13+00:00

I got this with Civilization Chronicles at Swedish EBGames for 99 SEK (~15$) in July 2007.

Thread: Re: Brief Review: Civ Card Game

Mythdracon — 2007-06-25T14:26:40+00:00

I agree with you on all three points. I played Civilization with two other friends, and then those two + a non-strategy gamer, and all three enjoyed this a great deal more than some other famous games like Citadels.

I think another problem is the rulebook. The paragraphs are squished together, making discerning important rules difficult. Use of bold would have been nice to make up for the lack of space given the lines/paragraphs themselves. One really important rule I skipped over was that buildings return to your hand after being destroyed. This gives greater value to hoarding cards in your hand and not using many (thus keeping other players wondering what the heck you're up to until you unleash your hand on them later in the game when they're weaker).

Gameplay wise, it's relatively balanced, though one problem I see is the very limited no.s of wonders and buildings. There are only 5 wonders in the game, and as such it's relatively easy (esp. in a 3 player game) for one player to get 3 of those. You could argue good shuffling could make up for this, but in any case history had SEVEN wonders, so why not have the Mausoleum, Statue of Zeus and such? As for buildings, hoarding them for as long as possible so long as there are only 2-3 copies of a building. Hoarding libraries is especially devastating since technologies, unlike population, are PERMANENT victory points, and having a -4 or even more of a bonus towards tech research makes that aspect of the game a rather obvious winning strategy.

I think people research techs as quickly as possible to eliminate the Monopoly syndrome--you know who's going to win, you want to finish as quickly as possible. Even with this tech race ongoing and with a nice hoard of strategy gamers competing against each other, the last play of this game took over 2 hours.

Ultimately the gameplay is simple and absorbing enough to make for an engaging game.

The main problem is the length. For a *card* game, this is FAR TOO LONG. If it were about 30 minutes shorter, the rules clearer, some gameplay balance issues fixed up, and the card stock more stable, it'd be that much more valuable.

However, I can pleased to be able to say that people who don't know Civ at all can enjoy this game highly. It's not, as the other review states, likely to only be a big hit with Civ fans. Soren Johnson, kudos to you and your design team for this card game.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

bulat_faikov — 2007-05-27T21:26:58+00:00

No it can't.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Mythdracon — 2007-05-26T18:04:28+00:00

I see. And can population be removed from one plot to another plot of your own at any time during your turn?

Thread: On Amazon UK sale

Johan — 2007-05-26T12:44:34+00:00

Amazon UK has this on sale for £12.96. I'm trying to decide myself if this card game is worth it, seeing as I already own all four Civ games (as well Through the Ages), but thought I'd post in case someone else is interested.

Link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/o/ASIN/B000J5SDQE/ref=s9_asin_title_...

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

bulat_faikov — 2007-05-22T15:21:03+00:00

Immunity for 2 turns only. Or else someone would fake 2 attacks to scrap your immunity !

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Mythdracon — 2007-05-19T00:53:49+00:00

Another question:

Does the Colossus make you immune to attack for 2 turns, or does it give you a permanent bonus wherein 2 successful attackers never take their effect on your plot?

Thread: Re: Availability

bulat_faikov — 2007-05-03T19:35:58+00:00

No it won't but try ebay, I'm sure some people will sell the card game and keep the rest of the box.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

bulat_faikov — 2007-04-11T17:08:45+00:00

Thanks it does help me to get someone input but as you said it, the rules don't spell it out so basically it's up to people's interpretation to decide what they do. Anyway we'll play as we enjoy it, this way we'll be happy.

To answer previous questions as how to get the game without buying Sid Meiers Chronicles: Try Ebay... There game isn't available all the time but in 2 weeks I managed to get one for less than 15$ bucks including shipping which is worth it to my eyes.

Thanks

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

cseraph — 2007-03-29T13:06:12+00:00

If you read the rules carefully, the logical interpretation is that you get both effects if both are specified, and that you can indeed draw four and discard two cards not from those four. The instructions just don't spell it out with examples as a larger budget game would.

Very enjoyable game, though.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

bulat_faikov — 2007-03-22T02:44:27+00:00

Another question: When you attack someone and you're left with 1 attacker at the end. This attacker happens to steal population and destroy a building. My question is: Do I execute both or choose between stealing a population or destroying a building ?

That's all, just need clarifications. Hoping someone will answer me fast !

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

bulat_faikov — 2007-03-22T02:38:11+00:00

First off: I love this game, played twice and I think it's well think and the minor issues people have with it aren't enough to waste my fun. Anyway it's more fun than the real board game which is long and complicated (altough a must for every fan that have time to put in).

My question to anyone who can help me: I played with my brother and we think differently about 1 rule specificaly... Here's it is: The player draws 4 cards from the Play Deck and then places 2 cards from his or her hand into the Discard Pile.

My brother thinks: You pick-up four cards and discard any two cards from the new four cards and the cards you already have in your hands. So basically you can keep all 4 cards you just pick up as long as you discard another 2 from your hands.

I think: You pick 4 cards and from these cards only you must discard 2. Too bad is none of them or all of them is appealling to you...

Conclusion: The rule doesn't specify what they mean from "his or her hand" so I need your advices on it. Thanks

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

metalfoot — 2007-01-13T06:13:03+00:00

I got my set reasonably cheap at Future Shop after Christmas. $49 for the set--was actually cheaper than just buying Civ4 alone... Haven't had a chance to play it yet though.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

RobertJanousek — 2006-12-30T19:18:27+00:00

I agree. When you've had every CIV game and expansion since CIV 1, not to mention Alpha Centauri and that silly game from Activision that never seemed to worked well, you don't want to pay $70 for a card game.

Thread: Brief Review: Civ Card Game

thrasymedes — 2006-12-19T14:56:48+00:00

I won't go into depth with the mechanics, since Dan's review covers those quite well, so I guess this will just be my impressions on how the game plays.

It's actually quite a lot like playing the first civilisation game. As in computer civ, the early stages of exploration and figuring out what's going on are a lot of fun. It has a real "civ-like" feel and atmosphere to it. I don't like the cardstock much, but it was free (or at least cheap), so no real complaints there.

I see three main problems with it, though. Firstly, with good play for both players (or all players, if there are more than two) the winner will basically be determined by luck. If you draw lots of combat cards, and your opponent doesn't draw the appropriate defensive cards... well, that's it for them. I don't mind games with a bit of luck in them, but this is a more serious problem when combined with the second issue, which is fiddliness. Managing your production at the beginning of each turn is quick and simple near the start of the game, but it starts to get very slow and time consuming in the later game, when you have six plots and two or three population units on each of them... keeping track of exactly how much of what you can produce or want to produce, and making sure you don't accidentally produce a little more or less than you're allowed to, becomes a major, game-slowing task. I don't mind a bit of fiddliness - many of the best strategic games have quite a bit of it - but this combined with the heavy presence of luck makes for a bad combination.

The third and most serious problem, though, is "monopoly syndrome" - when the game is effectively over, because you know who the winner is going to be, but actually playing through to the end is going to take as much time as it did to get to that point. It's possible for the loser(s) to just resign at that point, of course, but it's not really satisfactory, and some solution to this problem could have been built into the game.

For people thirsting for yet another angle on the "civ" concept, then, it's not a bad little diversion for a few games. But anyone hoping for the kind of depth and tightness of design of a San Juan or Lost Cities is likely to be disappointed.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Phelonius — 2006-12-05T19:41:53+00:00

So where do I get my free copy? I have already paid for all four Civ games, so paying another $69 doesn't sound free to me

Yeah, it seems to me that the market for this game is all of us folks who have already purchased everything in the series. I'm not shelling out $80 (Canadian) for product I've purchased already just for a card game (though i am admittedly a bit interested in the card game).

Do they just want to milk more money out of their die-hard fans?? Man, I started with Civ I on my 386. I've bought every incarnation of Civ except the Test Of Time nonsense (how Sid-loyal can you get). Heck, I even bought SimGolf because his name was on it.

So please, for all of you fans out there (who you know damn well already own Civ 4 plus expansion), please release this silly little game to the public.

Thread: Availability

Lajos — 2006-11-24T12:10:14+00:00

Does anyone know whether this will ever be available without the computer games (I already own all of those and have no interest in buying them again)?

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Budley — 2006-11-21T08:43:44+00:00

Soren,

We haven't met, but I just wanted to tell you that your innovations in Civ IV were genius! Perhaps the best PC game of all time.

The way that religion, great people, and civics add depth and flavor to the Civ experience while fitting right into the gameplay is so elegant.

Amazing job. Really amazing.

Glenn Drover

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Johan — 2006-11-21T06:37:08+00:00

Dogbreath wrote:
It's pretty and free

So where do I get my free copy? I have already paid for all four Civ games, so paying another $69 doesn't sound free to me.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

grandslam — 2006-11-21T02:11:48+00:00

Soren,

Do you know if it will be sold without the software at some point?

Thanks.

- Jonathan

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

SorenJohnson — 2006-11-06T18:38:34+00:00

1) When you have dealt gone through all the cards in the Play Deck, you do reshuffle the discard pile and go through them again.

2) There is no change that you get back from Bonus Resource cards. In practice, you will almost always have resources stockpiled so that it is not an issue. It never came up during testing, for example.

Hope you enjoy... sorry for ambiguity within the ruleset!

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Zotmeister — 2006-11-03T19:54:41+00:00

Dogbreath wrote:
...since a new tech is revealed whenever one is bought, you may spend all your commerce on a weak tech only to reveal the uber tech for your opponent.

I think the strategy there is clear - don't spend all your Commerce if there's a chance of that happening. Since purchased techs are immediately replaced, and there's no limit to how many may be bought on a turn, keeping enough Commerce until you can buy two techs will allow you to grab the uber-tech right after revealing it if it comes up. Once I figure out which techs are the good ones, that's what I'd be doing.

At any rate, it's a playstyle choice, not a game design issue. - ZM

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Zotmeister — 2006-11-03T19:41:58+00:00

My questions (which strike me as rather basic, sadly):

1) What happens if the Play deck is exhausted before all techs are purchased? There's no contingency in the rules for this. I haven't yet played the game (I'll remedy that tonight assuming I get these questions answered), but given the massive card flow involved [which I like, by the way] I suspect it's likely to happen. My instinct would be to shuffle the Discard Pile and turn it over to create a new Play deck, but when to do it (as soon as the deck empties or not until someone needs to draw a card) remains a variable. Another option is to simply call the end of the game and count up Victory Points then and there, and this may actually be what's intended for all I know, but that also needs a timing call (the same as the former, AND whether the player that causes the game to end this way gets to finish the turn or not). Even if the odds of the deck emptying are low, there should be a rule for it. [Incidentally, I'm assuming the resource cards are intended merely as counters and that there's no limit to the actual resources a player can stockpile, even if the game doesn't have the cards to support everyone's totals.]

2) If a player spends a combination of Bonus Resource cards that provide more total resources than needed for what is purchased with them, does that player get change? Or are the extra resources wasted? For example, say I have no food stockpiled, but I hold a 3-Food and two 2-Food cards and I buy a Population card for a Plot that doesn't yet have one (which costs six Food). The cards total 7 - there's no way to get exactly 6 from them. It's enough, but what happens to the extra one? Is it lost, or do I get to keep it in my resource pool?

Let me go on record as saying that I would not have purchased the Chronicles collection if it didn't come with this card game. 2K Games were geniuses in coming up with that marketing idea. The cards are pretty but a bit flimsy; I hope the game doesn't wear out too quickly. The booklet detailing the design process was wonderful - thanks for sharing that. It looks like I'll enjoy playing it very much, and I'll be very happy to give it a try just as soon as the rules are disambiguated. - ZM

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

SorenJohnson — 2006-10-23T19:44:49+00:00

Sorry that the rule for buying Population was vague. The manual says "Buying the first Population Card for a Plot costs 6 Food, the second 8 Food, the third 10, and so on." What we probably should have written was "any one Plot". In other words, the first Population for every Plot you own is 6 Food. Thus, it'll cost you 6+8+10 Food to be able to construct 2 Buildings on any one Plot but adding the first Population to a Plot always costs 6 Food. And, yes, captured Population is counted. So if a Plot has 1 Population and you steal an extra 2 Population for it (so that it now has 3), the next Population for that specific Plot will cost 12 Food.

Apologies for the confusion.

Thread: Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Sarge77 — 2006-10-22T01:11:57+00:00

"Re: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?"

Gameplay

Thread: It's pretty and free, what else do you want?

Dogbreath — 2006-10-21T18:13:23+00:00

So far, the only way to get this is to buy Sid Meier's Civilization Chrolicles computer game. In this set you get Civ 1, 2, 3 and 4 and all the expansions for 1, 2,and 3. It is pricy ($69), but only $20 more than buying Civ 4 on its own. Anyway, as part of the collection you also get this game. I am a die-hard civ fan and needed Civ 4, so this game was just gravy.

The game consists of large and small cards representing resources, plots of land, technology, population, buildings, Great Wonders and armies. You start with four "plots" of land that produce either 2 units of commerce, production or food, or one unit of two types (i.e. 1 food and 1 commerce). You also start with one population to place on one of these plots. Each unit of population lets you collect one additional resource from the plot each turn. Lastly, you start with four or more play cards. These include the buildings, armies, wonders and additional cards for resources. On your turn you collect resources, spend production on buildings or wonders from your hand, buy more population with food or technology with commerce. You can then attack your adjacent opponents by laying down any number of army cards from their hand (chariots, swordsmen, spearmen or catapults). If a catapult is used, it forceds the defender to return a walls building to their hand. If the defender still has another walls building, they can force the attacker to return one army card to their hand. Next the defender can play any army cards to counter the attacker cards. This follows a Rock/Paper/Sissors system. Any attacker cards that are still around either steal a population from the defender or force a building card back into the defender's hand. Lastly, you draw new cards. The game ends when all the tech cards have been bought (15 or so). Population, tech and wonders all are worth one victory point, and there are 3 or 4 methods to settle ties. An interesting twist is that each plot will only hold one building, unless you have 3 population on the plot or own the engineering tech.

First off, the cards are really pretty and have a good feel to them. The game is only loosly based on the computer game, but Civ fans will appreciate the effort. The game runs long (1 1/2 hrs or so) and is fairly random. The technologies are not well balanced and since a new tech is revealed whenever one is bought, you may spend all your commerce on a weak tech only to reveal the uber tech for your opponent. Also, it is difficult to determine if the effects of the cards are one time only or usable every turn. Additionally, the costs for new population and plots goes up for each new one that you buy, but there is not an easy way to keep track of what it will cost for the next unit. This is really bad for population, where you may have bought three, but stolen two from your opponent, so is the next one bought at the fourth or the sixth level price?

Bottom line, it can be an OK game with some rules clarifications and tweaks, but will not become a big hit with anyone other than a die-hard Sid Meier fan.