AREA Ratings

GM: Kevin Youells

Past Winners
1991: Alan Behrens - NJ 1995: Michael Neal - RI Dan Vice - VA 1992 - 1993 Ken Rothstein - NY 1994 Joe Gundersen - IN 1996 Todd Vander Pluym - CA 1997 Eric Gundersen - NJ 1998, 2000 Doug Galullo - FL 1999, 2001

less is more ... This year's Advanced Civilization event used a new format designed to shorten the event time for the first round. The second qualifying heat was eliminated and the preliminary round used a shortened variant where the game would be timed to seven hours or end when the first player reached the 1300 point space on the AST. As a result, we increased to 20 players, and all games were finished by 5pm. There were three games played in the first round, two with seven players and one with six. Joe Gundersen won the six-player game while playing Assyria, defeating Jamie Tang's Babylon by a mere 20 points. The highlight was a trade embargo established against Joe which lasted a full trade round without anyone breaking it. Fortunately for him, it was not enough to prevent him from winning. James Gundy took third with Crete to advance also. Defending champion Doug Galullo won his first round game as Thrace, defeating Ted Mulally's Africa by 35 points. This game also sent third place Ann Cornett (Iberia) and Shantanu Saha (Assyria) to the final. Ted was unable to play in the final, so top alternate Craig Moffitt took his position. Our final seven-player game saw the largest winning margin of the tournament as Eric Gundersen's Iberia cruised to a 282 point win over Kevin Youells' Assyria. The system for choosing finalists favored the closer games, and as a result Eric was the only player from this game to compete in the final round. The final was an epic struggle to the finish. With all eight positions in play, city sites were hard to come by and nobody was able to build their full nine cities until one turn from the finish. Crete and Thrace got into a long war over city building which hurt them both and most other countries averaged only seven cities per turn. Illyria and Thrace were also ravaged by calamities. After dropping to one city near the end, James was heard to sum up his day with the quote of the tournament: "If I only have one city left at the end of the game, I only need two people to support it." Babylon jumped out to an early lead, and despite spending all day trying to convince everyone else that he wasn't winning, Doug Galullo won by 181 points to become the first repeat ACV champion in nearly ten years. Babylon was followed by Africa, Egypt, Iberia, Crete, Illyria, Assyria and Thrace. Congratulations to everyone who played, and until next year remember one thing: Doug is winning!!