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.
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