Monday, July 11, 2005
From the Stone Age to the Middle Ages in under six hours
Prior to heading over to The Law's place on Saturday to play the Civilization board game from Eagle Games, I briefly considered bringing a notepad, my tape recorder and/or my digital camera to preserve the game we were about to play. Realizing that taking notes or shooting pictures every few minutes would incredibly slow down what was likely to be a fairly slow game anyway, I decided I would just consider the good and bad points of the game as I went along and write a summary of them on my laptop sometime after the end of the game.
We started the setup of the game about 1:00, just a few minutes after Rob arrived. We chose our pieces (Law was purple, Rob was red and I was green), and then I started explaining the basics of the game. Once we distributed the facedown markers for each territory, we chose our territories, with Law choosing first and me choosing last (and then it went back counter-clockwise for the second territory). The Law popped his first village into the heart of Africa. Rob chose to put his village in about the centre of North America. I put my first village in the far northeast corner of Asia. I put my second village only a couple of territories away from my first -- just a bit to the south. Rob put his second territory in Central America/Mexico. The Law made an odd decision and put his last settlement in one of the northern territories of South America, putting him and Rob at odds pretty much right away.
Then play began, with The Law going first. Now, the way going first works is kind of cool. For each turn (not phase of a turn), the first player changes. So Law went first in the first turn, then Rob and then me, and then it went back to Law and around again. I do wish I had kept a tally of how many turns we actually played. I'm thinking we played somewhere in the neighbourhood of nine turns. I'm pretty sure I started three times, anyway.
From the get-go, The Law started worrying more about his South American colonies than his African ones. Rob, with North and Central Americas making up his home, worried about expanding. It was clear he had intended to move south into South America pretty quickly, but when The Law placed his second village in that area, it kind of screwed up his plans. So with the knowledge that he would quickly run out of space in North America, he started to build up his war machine.
I figured I wouldn't stand much of a chance if I decided to go toe-to-toe with The Law in battle, so I focused on building up my technologies and cities. In the end, this proved to be the best strategy, seeing as how I was earning gold coins like crazy by the end of the game while the other two were going broke just keeping their armies going. Throughout the game, The Law and I respected each other's space, and I only once crossed over into Africa with a settler -- just to see what was in a specific territory (although I did get lucky early on and take possession of a minor civilization that The Law found on the north-west tip of Africa). Then I had that settler hotfoot it out of there and return to Asia and Europe to consider settling new cities.
The first turn went painfully slow. It took us at least an hour, if not an hour-and-a-half to complete that first turn. Of course, we were all still learning the rules. We made a few mistakes, most of which I think I'm to blame for -- but nothing was really messed up by misinterpretations of the rules. After the first turn, the subsequent turns went much quicker, and by the time we were in our third or fourth turn, the order of the phases was becoming second nature to us.
While I don't remember all of the details of what went on in the game, I remember that I spread out through Asia and then Europe, settling around a dozen cities. I never engaged in combat once, and instead, I focused on building out my empire and purchasing city upgrades and technologies. Rob and The Law went the other way. They built up their militaries and then started going to war over The Law's northernmost cities. By the end of the game, Rob had managed to take two of The Law's cities, but the all-too-random battle mechanics ended up -- I think -- frustrating Rob more than anything. The Law didn't mind the battle mechanics, he later told me.
From an outsider's perspective on combat, I would say the combat engine is far too simple. It's too random, and (like Risk) the person with the most powerful army stands a good chance of getting wiped out because of it. Of course, taking into account that the mechanics for war are meant to simulate what happens in the Civilization PC game, I'm not sure this is all that far off. I still seem to remember a bit more of a pattern in predicting battles in Civilization, though. I could be wrong, though, as war was never my forte in the PC game.
While the two of them threw money at the war machine, I concentrated on building my cities and building technologies (and thus gaining wonders of the world). Essentially, what I did was focus on preparing for the end game, in which victory points are calculated. Settlements, wonders of the world and certain technologies all give you victory points, and I purchased all of those in spades.
The game finally ended around 6:30-ish. We decided when we started to play the short game, which takes you from the beginning of the Ancient Era to the Medieval Era. By the time we were nearing the point of the Medieval Era, it was getting late and I think we were all a little tired from the number of hours we had been playing. We agreed that after the first Medieval technology was purchased, we would end the game. According to the rules, you roll a d6 every time somebody buys a Medieval technology, and you end the game if the die roll result is equal to or lower than the total number of Medieval technologies already purchased. We didn't really want to go through several more turns, though, so we ended as soon as I purchased the technology for the trebuchet. As an aside, the only Ancient Era technology that didn't get purchased was currency. Heheh.
Impressions of the game seemed to be good. We all enjoyed ourselves, and everyone indicated that they would like to play again. Even Rob's better half, who showed up within seconds of us calculating victory points, said she might be interested in trying the game the next time we play.
The weakest part of the game seemed to be the combat engine. When asked about it, The Law didn't seem to have any problems with the combat mechanism, but I know The Law enjoys Risk. I, on the other hand, don't enjoy Risk, and I like the combat mechanics to be a little more reliable. If one person outnumbers the other three to one, there should be almost no way for the outnumbered person to win. Civilization allows such bizarre results to happen, though -- and on a regular basis, it seemed. I got the sense that Rob was somewhat disappointed in the combat mechanics, and when I talked to him about it, he did tell me that he didn't care much for them.. All of his plans were laid to waste simply because of some bad die rolls, after all.
Personally, I think the combat engine should be stripped out and a better combat engine should be inserted. That said, though, it does show that avoiding military initiatives is probably the best way to go about winning the game. At the end of the game, I had twenty-four victory points, Rob had sixteen victory points and The Law had a whopping nine victory points (if he hadn't lost those two villages, he would have had two more points and Rob would've been down two). Avoiding war seems to be the way to go.
With the knowledge I now have of the game, I'm looking forward to trying it out again. It's probably best to wait until September before trying to organize another game of Civilization, though. At that time, I'd like to get a slightly bigger group to play, as I think the game might change a bit with more players.
We started the setup of the game about 1:00, just a few minutes after Rob arrived. We chose our pieces (Law was purple, Rob was red and I was green), and then I started explaining the basics of the game. Once we distributed the facedown markers for each territory, we chose our territories, with Law choosing first and me choosing last (and then it went back counter-clockwise for the second territory). The Law popped his first village into the heart of Africa. Rob chose to put his village in about the centre of North America. I put my first village in the far northeast corner of Asia. I put my second village only a couple of territories away from my first -- just a bit to the south. Rob put his second territory in Central America/Mexico. The Law made an odd decision and put his last settlement in one of the northern territories of South America, putting him and Rob at odds pretty much right away.
Then play began, with The Law going first. Now, the way going first works is kind of cool. For each turn (not phase of a turn), the first player changes. So Law went first in the first turn, then Rob and then me, and then it went back to Law and around again. I do wish I had kept a tally of how many turns we actually played. I'm thinking we played somewhere in the neighbourhood of nine turns. I'm pretty sure I started three times, anyway.
From the get-go, The Law started worrying more about his South American colonies than his African ones. Rob, with North and Central Americas making up his home, worried about expanding. It was clear he had intended to move south into South America pretty quickly, but when The Law placed his second village in that area, it kind of screwed up his plans. So with the knowledge that he would quickly run out of space in North America, he started to build up his war machine.
I figured I wouldn't stand much of a chance if I decided to go toe-to-toe with The Law in battle, so I focused on building up my technologies and cities. In the end, this proved to be the best strategy, seeing as how I was earning gold coins like crazy by the end of the game while the other two were going broke just keeping their armies going. Throughout the game, The Law and I respected each other's space, and I only once crossed over into Africa with a settler -- just to see what was in a specific territory (although I did get lucky early on and take possession of a minor civilization that The Law found on the north-west tip of Africa). Then I had that settler hotfoot it out of there and return to Asia and Europe to consider settling new cities.
The first turn went painfully slow. It took us at least an hour, if not an hour-and-a-half to complete that first turn. Of course, we were all still learning the rules. We made a few mistakes, most of which I think I'm to blame for -- but nothing was really messed up by misinterpretations of the rules. After the first turn, the subsequent turns went much quicker, and by the time we were in our third or fourth turn, the order of the phases was becoming second nature to us.
While I don't remember all of the details of what went on in the game, I remember that I spread out through Asia and then Europe, settling around a dozen cities. I never engaged in combat once, and instead, I focused on building out my empire and purchasing city upgrades and technologies. Rob and The Law went the other way. They built up their militaries and then started going to war over The Law's northernmost cities. By the end of the game, Rob had managed to take two of The Law's cities, but the all-too-random battle mechanics ended up -- I think -- frustrating Rob more than anything. The Law didn't mind the battle mechanics, he later told me.
From an outsider's perspective on combat, I would say the combat engine is far too simple. It's too random, and (like Risk) the person with the most powerful army stands a good chance of getting wiped out because of it. Of course, taking into account that the mechanics for war are meant to simulate what happens in the Civilization PC game, I'm not sure this is all that far off. I still seem to remember a bit more of a pattern in predicting battles in Civilization, though. I could be wrong, though, as war was never my forte in the PC game.
While the two of them threw money at the war machine, I concentrated on building my cities and building technologies (and thus gaining wonders of the world). Essentially, what I did was focus on preparing for the end game, in which victory points are calculated. Settlements, wonders of the world and certain technologies all give you victory points, and I purchased all of those in spades.
The game finally ended around 6:30-ish. We decided when we started to play the short game, which takes you from the beginning of the Ancient Era to the Medieval Era. By the time we were nearing the point of the Medieval Era, it was getting late and I think we were all a little tired from the number of hours we had been playing. We agreed that after the first Medieval technology was purchased, we would end the game. According to the rules, you roll a d6 every time somebody buys a Medieval technology, and you end the game if the die roll result is equal to or lower than the total number of Medieval technologies already purchased. We didn't really want to go through several more turns, though, so we ended as soon as I purchased the technology for the trebuchet. As an aside, the only Ancient Era technology that didn't get purchased was currency. Heheh.
Impressions of the game seemed to be good. We all enjoyed ourselves, and everyone indicated that they would like to play again. Even Rob's better half, who showed up within seconds of us calculating victory points, said she might be interested in trying the game the next time we play.
The weakest part of the game seemed to be the combat engine. When asked about it, The Law didn't seem to have any problems with the combat mechanism, but I know The Law enjoys Risk. I, on the other hand, don't enjoy Risk, and I like the combat mechanics to be a little more reliable. If one person outnumbers the other three to one, there should be almost no way for the outnumbered person to win. Civilization allows such bizarre results to happen, though -- and on a regular basis, it seemed. I got the sense that Rob was somewhat disappointed in the combat mechanics, and when I talked to him about it, he did tell me that he didn't care much for them.. All of his plans were laid to waste simply because of some bad die rolls, after all.
Personally, I think the combat engine should be stripped out and a better combat engine should be inserted. That said, though, it does show that avoiding military initiatives is probably the best way to go about winning the game. At the end of the game, I had twenty-four victory points, Rob had sixteen victory points and The Law had a whopping nine victory points (if he hadn't lost those two villages, he would have had two more points and Rob would've been down two). Avoiding war seems to be the way to go.
With the knowledge I now have of the game, I'm looking forward to trying it out again. It's probably best to wait until September before trying to organize another game of Civilization, though. At that time, I'd like to get a slightly bigger group to play, as I think the game might change a bit with more players.
// posted by Chris @ 9:58 AM 
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