Sid Meier's civilization; the boardgame [Updated October 2003]  

2003 WBC Report   

 2004 Status: pending December Membership Century Vote

Ahmet Ilpars, Turkey

2003 Champion

2nd: Mike Mullins, MD

3rd: Joe Abrams, CT

4th: Ken Samuel, VA

5th: -

6th: -

Event History
2003    Don Tatum     8


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AREA Ratings

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 Laurels
Rank Name

From

Last
Total
 1. Ahmet Ilpars

Turkey

03
10
 2. Mike Mullins

PA

03
  6
 3. Joe Abrams

CT

03
  4
 4. Ken Samuel

VA

03
  3

The view from south of the border ...

As the name implies, this boardgame is based on Sid Meier's best selling and award winning PC game, Civilization. The game simulates the advancement of civilization through four eras from the Ancient to the Modern. The end game victory conditions can vary depending on which player(s) achieves certain civilization advances and declares the game over at the end of the current turn. In order to keep the games to about six hours, the two heats and the final ended with the start of the Gunpowder/Industrial Era (the third of four). The games played reflected the fact that the board lends itself to six logical positions/regions for setting up each of the beginning six civilizations - South America, North America, Europe, Africa, North Asia, and South Asia/Australia (Risk, anyone?).

Before the start of the game each area is given an upside down resource token of unknown value (or, in some cases, a disaster). Each civilization starts with two settlers, two villages, two swordsmen, and 20 gold pieces. From there they spread out into surrounding areas, while trying to build new villages, upgrading villages into cities, providing city improvements (happy populations produce more gold than unhappy ones), achieving advances in technology, trading with other civilizations, and building its military for either offensive or defensive purposes. With the advancement to a technology of the next era, the old era ends and the new era starts at the end of the current turn, so that all players get the same number of turns in each era. With each new era comes new technologies, new military powers, additional trading possibilities, new city improvements, and so on - most at greatly increased costs. While conquest can win territory and allow one to take over opponents cities, this strategy can use up resources and delay advancement of the warring players.

In the final, Africa got off to a fast start with the discovery of good resources and city sites. As the money poured in, this player started building a large army. Of course, this made Europe nervous and he started to question the size of the African army. Until this point everyone else had been trying to maintain a balance between building their civilizations and having a defensive military force. Then Africa recruited North America and South Asia to help him attack Europe. They even tried to get South America (myself) and North Asia to join them - "On the winning side". Both declined, but made non-aggression pacts with their neighbors. Africa then attacked Europe, while North America and South Asia/Australia were still bringing in forces. After capturing one city, the attack started to falter, and the allies found they could not bring in troops as fast as originally planned. Then the dice turned in Europe's favor. The African army was smashed, the South Asia/Australian army was mauled, and the North American army retreated. From that point onward the players concentrated on advancing their civilizations as previously described. As the game drew near the end of the Medieval era, and especially with the purchase of the first technology of the Gunpowder/Industrial era, a fairly vehement argument broke out as Africa claimed he did not know the game would end at the end of that turn. He had already played before the technology was purchased. However, the rule is clearly stated in the rulebook, and was reiterated for all in response to a question from myself earlier in the previous turn. Thus, all the other players understood how and when the game was going to end and had started to prepare for this as the chance to buy an advanced era technology became available. Africa said he was going to protest the entire game and denounce the Gamemaster. Upon adding up the score, the two non-combatants, North Asia finished first with 23 points, and South America (myself) finished second with 22 points. I like to think the covered resources given to each area slightly favored North Asia ( some non-productive areas were discovered in South America), but in reality he was the best player at the table. All the players, except Africa, agreed it was a good game and that we had all had a good time. I look forward to it again next year.

 GM      Jim Vroom  [1st Year]   NA
    jimvroom@aol.com   NA

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