Civilization and Advanced Civilization

[Tyler]

Everyone!

First, how can I open a new forum of discussion- that is, get a unique headline in the main menu like Axis and Allies has?

I am pleased to join the august membership of Avalon Hill's faithful, but no one seems to be talking about my favorite of the whole bunch; Civilization. I am sure there is plenty of interest, and I am here to drum up as much more as I can, herewith:

I am offcially declaring war upon Sid Meier's Civilization III, the boardgame! After my wife paid an outrageous $60 at Christmastime for a copy, I was both amazed and disgusted. Amazed I was at the detail of the playing pieces. Awed by the artwork they'd done on the board... Utterly disgusted with the game play itself, and with the apparent intention of making the rules impossible to decipher.

I was so enthused about the original Civ game from Avalon Hill that my friends and I became official playtesters for the variants that eventually coalasced into the Advanced Civilization expansion. In fact, I still have a crude but full-sized western mapboard extension that plays much better than the official version, if anyone is interested.

My plan of attack is as follows: I will be updating and revising all the work I did as a playtester and will put together a spiritual successor to the original Civilization by Avalon Hill game, but one with a different game engine, cards, style of play and even objectives. About the only thing that will remain intact will be the intention of creating a reasonable simulation of the rise of ancient civilizations in the Fertile Crescent.

I hereby issue a call to arms to anyone and everyone who would like to assist me in this quest by providing suggestions and the willingness to playtest various versions and styles of the game. The rewards will be in the satisfaction of finally getting it right!- and of course, the pleasure of playing games in the company of friends instead of in the solitary world behind the flickering screen of your monitor.

Civgamers of the world, unite! Let's give the world that which it so desperately needs and deserves- a truly first class Civilization-style boardgame!

Strategically yours, Tyler

ttystikk@aol.com

[Tyler]

Please email me at ttystikk@aol.com and we'll get started. Areas of needed assistance are as follows:

1. civ or 'knowlege' advances- I envision having lots of cards available, most of which will have prerequisites.

2. I'd like to do a mapboard that encomasses all the territory of the original game, plus that in my own full-sized western mapboard extension, and even the 'unofficial' eastern mapboard extension from the ALEA 21 expansion. I've got osme interesting ideas I'd like to toss out, so drop me a line for more details.

3. Combat system; I plan to require players to buy Knowlege cards to make any military units available, including ships. There will be some special advantages given to each nascent civilization at the beginning of the game, both to make them more individual and to solve some basic playabilty problems. For example, expect Crete to already have the shipbuilding knowlege card and perhaps even a free ship at the start of the game!

4. Economically, I love the simplicity of the Civ token method, so we'll be using that as a starting point. Also, I plan to have several sizes of cities, and some rules governing their relative abilities (and vulnerabilities) as they grow.

5. We must address the length of the game! This is the main gripe everyone had about the originals and they have a valid point. Some ideas I have include dumping the AST altogether and using the Knowlege card system for victory conditions, plus revamping the disasters and calamities so they're not so tedious and accounting intensive.

6. Any ideas on trading cards will be entertained with interest, as this is perhaps the most fun and interactive part of the game. Knowlege cards that impact players' ability to trade seems obvious, plus using various units on the board, such as ships (merchant fleets, anyone?)

In short, I plan to bring a simplified, yet unified system together that recreates the interaction between scientific and social advancement, warfare and economics that is the crux of any successful 'Civilization' style game, be it online, on the computer or in a boardgame. Doing this without building an overcomplex monstrosity that takes weeks to play out will be no small feat, but great games arise from great challenges, no?

As always, anyone and everyone is encouraged to email me with your ideas at ttystikk@aol.com. happy Gaming!

Tyler

[Tyler]

The game engineering for a new Civ game is going well, and I thought interested parties might like an update:

Subj: Civ rules, 1.0
Date: 1/29/03 11:05:55 AM Mountain Standard Time

Trading like Pit would be interesting to be certain. I liked the original trading phase, but found it lacking in some areas. What I would like to see was to have players trade for things that they actually have to use to get armies, ships, etc. (Like lumber being able to produce a ship, iron for weapons, and so forth).

The idea behind trading is simple: trade for like # of cards, each trade has to be 2 or more cards, all the same commodity (with wild cards). Calamities will be wild, can't trade them alone. To trade, player must have merchant fleet; civ card plus proper ships. Warships and merchant ships won't interchange. I love the idea of trading for strategic resources! Let's use it- and when building units with them, they go back in the pile that turn: they DO count as part of a set player turns in IF player turns in the set with appropriate resources that turn. Otherwise, it would be nigh-on impossible to corner market. This we can playtest.

> I'd start with a smaller board like the
> original and add on later
> as per the old version. The issue is time and cost:
> A larger board takes
> longer to get correct, and the cost increases
> exponentially with size.
> Also, weight is a concern from the consumer
> standpoint. If the box has to
> be as large as the new version we are doing the
> customer a disservice. Its
> easier to develop using a smaller map with fewer
> player spots. Once the
> mechanics are verified, additional maps will be a
> snap. It also gives a
> player the chance to own what they want (like a
> modular game system).

Agreed, on all counts. I want to develop the entire game board first, however, so that it all plays well, then offer expansions right away instead of making players wait for years and ending up with half-assed efforts like the old AH 'official' western mapboard extension. The idea that an ancient civ with the ability to cross the open Mediterranean can't sail thru the Straits of Gibraltar and up the Portugese coast to British Isles irked me to no end...

In future, I would like to offer other games with the same system on the Empire Builder (a railroadbuilding game) principle: offer new maps, like Southeast Asia and the Americas, as complete games, each with their own local flavor, all using the same game system.

> Combat was fine in the original game,
> although armies were
> abstracted. Expanding them is okay, so long as there
> are limits to it. Land
> armies might require several resource cards such as
> 1 Iron, 1 grain, and 1
> wine, plus one people marker to create. Players can
> create as many as they
> want, but armies don't contribute to the upkeep of
> cities, and require
> regular expenditures of taxes to support. People
> markers have a combat
> value of 1, armies have a 2 or 3 (or something like
> that).

Partly to make the game different from the original, and partly to offer better reasons for acquiring Civ cards, I want to offer at least three different military units: phalanx (good on defense, less so on offense), catapults (good on offense, lousy on defense), military ships (good for attacking other navies and merchant fleets, transporting military and piracy- roughly even on attack and defense). I like the use of trade goods as strategic resources in production of such units.

> Calamities are important. They should be
> there, and with the
> changes to the game they are likely to be different
> in effect. We should
> probably tone some down in any case. With the
> changes to the armies, civil
> war could be much nastier. perhaps they should not
> be part of the trade
> card mix, but rather a separate event phase.

We should play around with several different scenarios and game tecnniques here. I agree that they need to be part of the game, but as they were in the original civ, it was a real housekeeping chore to deal with- far, far too time consuming! I'm for simplification here, to speed play and reduce rrustration.

> Civ cards should be limited in number as
> they were in the original
> game. part of the strategy involved deciding which
> advancements to get and
> when. Once everyone could get them at any time they
> became less useful.
> More varieties would be nice.
> We will need a new AST for the game as
> well.

Here I disagree- I have yet to see any rationale that supports limiting the number of civ cards available that makes sense, and was a main source of frustration for many of us playing the original. Worse, it made it very difficult for players who fell behind to catch up, something that leads to frustration later in the game, where they're stuck playing, but have no chance to win. Instead, introduce prerequisites a la the PC Civ games, have each card provide specific advantages making it worth the purchase (strategy here is deciding which cards to get and when), and even go so far as to offer a 5 pt discount to new buyers for each player who started acquisition phase with a given civ card. This will make it much easier for players who've suffered bad luck early on to get back in the game, and make it more fun for everyone! I plan to dump the AST altogether, and use the civ cards (call them Advances) themselves to determine entering new eras, and perhaps an Empire Card at the end, to determine winner (first to purchase wins, winner of ties determined by adding up all their other cards and treasury).

Thoughts?
Tyler ttystikk@aol.com

"Those who would lead must first determine which direction the people are going, then get out in front of them." Ghandi

[Tyler]

To all those who expressed interest in my creating a successor game to the AH Advanced Civilization, I'm posting an update on our progress. Feel Free, as always, to add your input or suggestions, or feel free to email me directly, at ttystikk@aol.com.

In the interest of game fluidity and playing time, we've decided to limit the possible number of military units drastically- we'll only have archers, phalanx, legions, horsemen, cavalry, artillery (think catapults, not cannons), triremes and eventually caravels. The idea is to offer roughly four types of units, each upgradeable once throughout the course of the game. Of course, the ability to build each unit will depend on the tchnology the player has puchased, and is affected by other technologies, such as Military and Government types.

Yes, we'll be throwing in modifiers for several governments, such as Warlord (despotism), Monarchy, Theocracy and Republic. The details of each has yet to be worked out, so stay tuned!

We're trying to keep a general theme of 'fours' with the game, to reduce confusion about the various types and sizes of things, like cities. There will be four city sizes, again limited by technology the players can buy. For those who want to build Rome, there will be one (and only one!) Capital city marker for each player, allowing that city to have special privileges, and acts as the seat of government- don't lose this one in battle, or you're in a world of hurt! Again with the purchase of appropriate tech cards, the player will be able to build fortifications to help protect their cities... and artillery will help in breaking those down.

I have a grand plan fr the gameboard, but have reached a point where my limited skills aren't up to the task of realizing my vision: I want the board to be roughly the same as the old AH Civ board, INCLUDING the western mapboard and the eastern ALEA21 'unofficial' expansion. The number of players in the game will determine how many panels can be used. The tough part comes in producing the map projection for this board: I want to make it seems as if the player looking at the board is suspended several hundred miles above the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, with the vistas stretching east and west appearing to 'roll away' as if they're looking at a globe! This wil also allow us to include more of England, West Africa and northwest India, all places where evidence of ancient civilizations abounds. Anyone who could provide some assistance here would be most appreciated!

Another source of interest has been the trading cards, resources, and method of trading. We're going to use a style I first encountered in the game Pit, a fast-paced, raucous free-for-all that was a blast to play! Players will have a limited time to trade cards, without telling others what their cards are- they just have to have at least two cards, all of the same resource (wild cards wil be included to get things rolling). In addition, trade cards will be much more closely linked to the technology tree so as to encourgae trading in many commodities for various ends, much like holding grain with Pottery to avoid the Famine calamity in the original game. There will also be some commodities that cannot be fuly cornered under normal circumstances, such as stone and grain. After all, rocks are everywhere! To add more strategic interest to he board, most spaces will also have a commodity associated with them, conferring certain advantages to the holder of the territory.

The technology tree will be much more intricate (and it will start a little earlier than some may be familiar with), but since people can navigate it by merely consulting a chart I'll include, it won't be an obstacle to play... rather, it will enhance tactical options (do I buy techs towards engineering to build forts for my cities, or buy artillery instead?). A truly excellent book I'm using to help shape the tech tree is "Guns, Germs and Steel", by Jared Diamond- it's a first class account of the actual events and influences shaping the development of civilizations from the dawn of history to the Industrial Age.

Also, to help the inevitable player who has fallen behind the leaders, there will be an automatic discount cumulatively applied to each technology already owned by others. This provides a break and helps keep trailing players in the game. Here's a shocker- the AST will be gone! The decisions about who moves when will be resolved by population and tech card modifiers, not an artificial chart. This removes the timeline from the game, but that will be driven by the technologies purchased by the players, a much less artificial method.

Another big change is that there will be little limit to the size of one's empire- since much of the ancient world was ruled by warfare and expansionism, there seems little historical precedent to limit player civilizations by using a limited stack of tokens. Instead, the above mentioned governments will play a key role in how well a player can manage his empire and the distance from the Capitol will determine the level of unrest in the Provinces.

That's all from the PlayLab at this juncture, as always feel free to email me with any info, ideas or criticisms you may have about our current project!

I can be reached at ttystikk@aol.com.

[pellulo]

What kind of plastic playing pieces or units you plan to have? Are you working towards a CD-Rom version of the game?(also varients of Conquest of the Empire does not email as before from the old Forum page, best see it while it is still available), thanks, Pellulo

[ February 25, 2004, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: pellulo ]

[Tyler]

During the design and playtesting phase, I'm cannibalizing my copy of Sid Meier's Civ, the boardgame. After all, I have to get some use out of it! For any commercial version, I'm sure there would be a need for counters for population, military units, cities of various sizes, roads, forts and wonders. Whether or not they should be plastic is another matter.

I'm sure that my game could be adapted to a PC game environment, but my main interest is to provide a game that maximizes player interaction and involvement with each other, something that's hard to do with a computer whether it's networked or not!

I'm not a large company with huge development or publishing capabilities. I'm also not a programmer. I'm doing this for the love of gaming first and foremost. If it seems that people enjoy what my associates and I create, why then of course I'll explore the options surrounding commercial or computerized versions.