If any of you like strategy games (I mean video games) you have to be familiar with the Civilization game series. The first edition of the series dates back to 1991 and even though the publisher himself did not believe in the game, the strategy quickly captured the hearts of players. To this day, the series games have sold over 33 million copies! It's also one of my favorite turn-based games (just one more turn and I'm going to sleep… 🥱). How the board game looks next to it? Is it an interesting way to play away from the monitor or an unsuccessful copy? I invite you to read.
„Each of us is carving a stone, erecting a column, or cutting a piece of stained glass in the construction of something much bigger than ourselves.”
- Adrienne Clarkson
📜 Game flow / rules
At the very beginning, we place the map tiles on which we will play. Each tile is double-sided and consists of 10 hexagons on which we have various types of terrain, resources or wonders of nature ⛰️. To place the tiles, you can use the ready setup (for easier understanding of the rules of the game) or use the advanced map creation. The latter method allows players to be a bit more inventive and guarantees that the same board map will not be repeated soon. When placing map tiles, I recommend that you prepare all the elements on the map right away, i.e. place barbarians, city-states, resources and natural wonders. At the very end, you have to set the direction and the event indicators. The direction indicator will show you in which direction the barbarians will move every few rounds, while the event indicator will tell you when it is the barbarian movement turn, trade turn, starting turn, and empty turn. Then, each player chooses a leader and takes miniatures in his colour (cities, caravans, control tokens, technology dial, diplomacy cards, action cards, action track). Each leader provides a unique additional ability and the initial placement of Action cards on our track. The next step is to divide the wonder cards and build the wonder deck. So you just have to shuffle the cards and place them face down, at the bottom there are modern miracles and at the top the ancient ones (we start from ancient). Place the tokens next to the cards so that they are exactly the same as the cards. In a two-player game, return one ancient and one medieval wonder randomly to the box. In a three-player game, only discard one Ancient Wonder card. The only thing left is to place three random victory cards face up next to the board map, place the capital on stars and we can start our game.
The game itself consists of turns which players will play clockwise. In our turn we can use one of an action cards from action track that defines what we can perform. The higher in the row a given card is, in short, the stronger it is for us. When we use one of the actions, the action card goes to the very beginning of the track and the rest of the cards that were behind it move forward, gaining power. As for the action cards themselves, we have a choice of 5 different cards, i.e. science, culture, army, economy and industry. Science cards 🔬 give us progress on the technology dial depending on the position in the row of the card, when the card is on the 5th place, we increase the progress on the dial by 5. When we go through the Roman numeral marker, we can replace the action cards with those of a higher level that provide us with more extensive actions. Culture cards 🎭 allow us to place control tokens so that they occupy territory and gain resources. The position in the row determines the type of terrain on which we can place the control token. When we surround our city with control tokens on each side (except water hexagons), our city is considered developed and during the trade turn the player receives a trade token for it, which he places on one of the action cards (he gets an additional bonus, which he may or may not use). Military cards ⚔️ allow you to strengthen the defense of tokens (flip them to the fortified side, which provides additional protection) or carry out attacks. The position in the series of actions indicates how many control tokens can be strengthened or determines the strength of our attack. Economy cards 💸 allow us to interact with city-states and enemy cities by moving the caravan. The position in the row determines the terrain on which the caravan can move. When a caravan reaches a city-state, Player receives a trade token that he places only on the card that corresponds to the city-state attribute, and may take one diplomacy card. When a player reaches an enemy city, he may place a trade token on any action card and also choose one of his opponent's diplomacy cards. The Industry card 🏭 allows the player to build new cities or wonders. If a player builds a city, the card's position in line determines what type of terrain the player can consider, if he is building a world wonder, the position in the line of actions affects the cost of that wonder. The first player to achieve one goal on each victory card next to the map wins the game.
🤔 Gameplay impressions
When it comes to quality of the game contents, it's really good. The cards are of really good quality, I haven't noticed any changes in their appearance even though the game has been in the collection for a year. All tiles and terrain tiles are made of good material, which, however, may have a tendency to delaminate. When it comes to plastic figures, I also have no objections, everything is made of good quality material and with a certain dose of details. The box has a beautiful graphic design, but when opened, the spell breaks because we see a void. With such a number of elements, the lack of insert makes it difficult to unfold the game and kills any fun before it starts. I recommend that you buy or make an insert yourself to get rid of this troublesome problem. As for the gameplay, it is very enjoyable, the board is different each time, we have 8 leaders who also have different abilities that affect the game more or less, which allows for quite a lot of replayability. The game, despite quite extensive instruction, is quite simple, so we play cards one after another, which we choose from our row. Although the rule is simple, it allows a lot of thinking about our future moves to reach our goal as quickly as possible, or slow down the opponent. There is certainly a lot of randomness in the fight, in the early stages of the game it is often irritating, but it is possible to tilt the scales in our favor by, for example, building the appropriate wonders of the world.
☺️ Summary
So is the game just a copy or an interesting version of a digital game? For me, it is far from being a digital game. Apart from the cubic fields and the appearance of the leaders, they have nothing in common. Is it a bad game then? Definitely not, it's far from there. It is a simple strategy game offering many paths to victory that we can plan at the very beginning, as well as change during the game. A large number of good quality components makes it pleasant to look at and the sight of the growing civilization increases the joy of the game even more. The system used in the board game simply works. I always have fun with it and like to play just one more round 🙃. Informations:
- Number of players: 2-4
- Gameplay time: 60-120 min
- Age: 14+
- Game author: James Kniffen
- Illustrated: Anders Finér, Michael Silsby
- Polish Publisher: Galakta
- Release date: 2017
If you have any suggestions / tips / advice, I will be happy to read them, please leave them in the comment or send them to the e-mail address wozmil95@gmail.com. For more photos visit instagram "dice_dizziness" 🎲.
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