| Format: Boardgame
Price: $59.99
Complexity: moderate to high
Game Length: 2 hours to All Weekend
Can you backstab your buddies?: Yes
Can you win peacefully through societal advancement?: YesHardly Civil at All Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you!
Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays...]
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king!
Dennis interrupting: Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
Arthur: Be Quiet! -- From Monty Python's Holy Grail Eagle Games' Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame is finally out. At around $8 a pound is it worth it? The game comes with many hundreds of great game pieces (it took me two evenings cutting them out with a special cutter though I think enslaving friends to do the work would have been more cost effective.) There are 22 models for the various pieces you can use to represent settlements, armies, settlers and so forth. Nice bits, however, don't make for a great game. Good rules do. As it turns out the game comes with two sets of rules.
The basic game is just that – very basic. I played my first game using basic and found it to be rather silly. I think young kids would enjoy it a great deal but anyone in High School or above is going to be bored by it. I would heartily suggest that you read the basic rules then concentrate on the advanced rules. Some things are in the basic rules that you will need to know in the advanced rules but 8 out of 10 rules are simply superseded.
You may find that you are overwhelmed by the game at first. There is a lot to work with. However there are so many good ideas in this box that I think you will find it to be extremely intuitive once you've laid out pieces and have started to play. My third play through of the game was with 4 veterans of board gaming. Each one had no less than 20 years of hardcore gaming under his belt (yep, all guys, though the other games were with women.) We eyed each other warily like Medieval Princes. It was on turn 4 that war broke out. Virgin's no more we built up our armies to crush each other like the bugs we were. Green stomped on Red which stomped on Blue which then tried to stomp on Yellow. Yellow however was clever. He managed to find bottlenecks in the map, stuffed them with troops and built up a mighty empire behind this wall. He owned a great deal of the technology out there and managed to exact royalties from us as we tried to assail each other in petty wars. When the battered empires of Blue, Green and Red turned on Yellow it was to late. He ate us for lunch.
The game takes place on a fictional Earth like planet. The players represent cultures that try to spread out and generate as many wonders as they can. Along the way they will have to manage "the guns and butter" split between raising settlements and armies. One lesson easily learned is that if you go overboard with building armies or advancing your civilization you will surely be crushed. In many ways the game is quite unforgiving. There is a brief respite between periods that allows players who've lost the lead to catch up (assuming you are willing to play long enough!)
My group loved the game. It was a sure hit right from the beginning. Many had played the computer game and felt it compared favorable to it. The concepts of exploration and technology development are well worked out. Players who develop technology end up getting money from others when they use that technology. When a player owns military technology they can become rich when other players vie against each other with armies, paying fees back to the technology owner for each purchase they make.
The game is broken up into 4 eras (Ancient, Medieval, Industrial/Gunpowder, Modern). The Ancient Era has the most exploration. By the Modern Era the game focuses on building up the complex tech tree and fighting world wars over scarce resources.
The combat is generalized but there are many interesting features to it. One that I like a lot shows how the well know paper-scissors-rock association between Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery. Trust me, in our tough game when mounted combat was invented, vast cavalry armies were built. However those armies became weak when artillery was later invented! There are advantages to defending your settlements as well. The combat is complex enough to give a smart player options and easy enough to not dominate the game.
Overall a fantastic game! I don't like to give out 5's, but this game gets all 5's from me. Truly a fun and exciting experience. If you want to be Alexander the Great + Ghengis Khan + Napoleon + H. Norman Schwarzkopf all in one day you must get this game. If you like visiting far away places, meeting interesting people and killing them off in the name of Globalization, this game should be in your library. If you prefer creating utopia via technological and social advancement without the need for large armies – this is also your game! Military victory is not the only way to win this game! In fact, it is probably the least favorable way of winning. Give it a try, you will like it.
Here is a good trivia question: the game comes with money, can you name the people whose faces are on the money? Hint: the $100 Gold Coin has the face of Sid Meiers. Playability: 
Mechanics:
Components and Presentation: Peter Mancini, 12/12/02 | |
