Apples to Apples, Sid Meyer’s Civilization: The Board Game
A game party at game party place, in which a couple of games were played. First was a starter game of Apples to Apples, which is always worthy of no comment.
Then I somehow convinced three people that they wanted to play Sid Meyer’s Civilization: The Board Game, which went pretty well considering the complete lack of explanation I provided. After the really long set-up and basic overview of the rules, we managed to start playing like champions. It was still slow, but it came together really well, with everyone figuring out how to play at pretty much the same speed.
The game still took hours though. It just is not a fast game to turn around, and then we had only about two hours of playtime left and we were just then ramping into the midgame, I was concerned that the game wouldn’t end. But it did, with an economic victory from the player to my left. I still am not a big fan of the economic victory, because it just feels supercheap and uncounterable, and obviously what you should start building towards, because there is nothing to really slow you down if you dabble in all three of the other fields. I spent some time on the net digging around what people are suggesting, and the consensus seems to be one of two things; yes, the economic victory can come out of nowhere and we should modify the game slightly to make it less desirable; or you all are big old whiners who can’t appreciate that this game is perfect. One of the simplest suggestions I heard that I’m perfectly fine with is just change the maximum coins that can be placed on the growing techs to 3 instead of 4, which should delay the game long enough to let the other victory conditions catch up. Other suggestions were a bit crazy, like adding more technologies that somehow made things better. Not sure if I’ll ever play enough to require implementing these, I just don’t like how unstoppable the condition feels.
Showing posts with label Civilization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Civilization. Show all posts
What I Played Today: November 30
Spot It, Civilization: The Board Game
I finally got Civilization on the table at Game Night, pulling in the store’s resident older guy, and some Pathfinder player who got kicked off his table because there were too many people. The Pathfinder kid picked it up really quickly, understanding all the mechanics and even figuring out diverse strategies that I hadn’t noticed (like buying Banking after fully populating markets so that his economy suddenly jumped). The older guy, however, had a bit of trouble grasping what happened when and which resources did what, which was too bad, because I was worried he wasn’t having fun.
I played as the Russians, which gain an extra army and can send in the KGB to steal enemy’s tech. I decided to use this to my advantage and strove towards the technology victory. I also grabbed the wonder than reduced the trade cost for purchasing technologies by 5, which worked great. I kept my armies far afield, near my opponents so they freaked out and bought armies instead of anything useful, and got a major boost when the Americans attacked the Romans in a surprise hit, which shrunk his standing army to none, so I could technically do whatever I wanted. If only he didn’t have the two Great Generals hanging around his city, I could have easily marched towards a military victory.
But we had to give up early because the store closes at a certain time, so we didn’t have a chance to complete the game, or declare somebody a winner because of the four different victory conditions. I was impressed with how well the Pathfinder guy got into it. I’m a bit of a roleplaying snob, and have little but contempt for the Pathfinder franchise as it is now, and was weary when I heard the boardgamers would have to share space with the Pathfinder league to keep them from infighting with the 4E crowd. Considering that I felt compelled to leave the game room when one of their members starting loudly singing a crappy parody song from the Internet in its entirety, you will understand that I find a lot of them annoying. But I found this guy (whose name I failed to even ask, I’m a bit of a jerk) fun to play with, even if he was a bit overenthusiastic. Gaming erases borders, or whatever.
Also played a pickup game when we were waiting for a group to stop playing Dominant Species (a game I want to try, dang it), called Spot It. There are a bunch of cards with pictures on it, and the main principle of the game is to match up the pictures between two cards. Simple, and a bit kiddy, but a fine idea.
I finally got Civilization on the table at Game Night, pulling in the store’s resident older guy, and some Pathfinder player who got kicked off his table because there were too many people. The Pathfinder kid picked it up really quickly, understanding all the mechanics and even figuring out diverse strategies that I hadn’t noticed (like buying Banking after fully populating markets so that his economy suddenly jumped). The older guy, however, had a bit of trouble grasping what happened when and which resources did what, which was too bad, because I was worried he wasn’t having fun.
I played as the Russians, which gain an extra army and can send in the KGB to steal enemy’s tech. I decided to use this to my advantage and strove towards the technology victory. I also grabbed the wonder than reduced the trade cost for purchasing technologies by 5, which worked great. I kept my armies far afield, near my opponents so they freaked out and bought armies instead of anything useful, and got a major boost when the Americans attacked the Romans in a surprise hit, which shrunk his standing army to none, so I could technically do whatever I wanted. If only he didn’t have the two Great Generals hanging around his city, I could have easily marched towards a military victory.
But we had to give up early because the store closes at a certain time, so we didn’t have a chance to complete the game, or declare somebody a winner because of the four different victory conditions. I was impressed with how well the Pathfinder guy got into it. I’m a bit of a roleplaying snob, and have little but contempt for the Pathfinder franchise as it is now, and was weary when I heard the boardgamers would have to share space with the Pathfinder league to keep them from infighting with the 4E crowd. Considering that I felt compelled to leave the game room when one of their members starting loudly singing a crappy parody song from the Internet in its entirety, you will understand that I find a lot of them annoying. But I found this guy (whose name I failed to even ask, I’m a bit of a jerk) fun to play with, even if he was a bit overenthusiastic. Gaming erases borders, or whatever.
Also played a pickup game when we were waiting for a group to stop playing Dominant Species (a game I want to try, dang it), called Spot It. There are a bunch of cards with pictures on it, and the main principle of the game is to match up the pictures between two cards. Simple, and a bit kiddy, but a fine idea.
What I Played Today: November 20
Civilization: The Board Game, Dominion, Guild Wars
I have been bit by the Guild Wars bug again, it’s once again time to run around Tyria. This time I was once again lurking around the Guild Wars 2 site and looking at the calculator of the cool stuff you’ll get if you have done a certain number of achievements in Guild Wars, and I realized that I probably get a few more if I tried. So I logged in and started putting stuff in my Hall of Monuments. I apparently had a lot of miniatures that I hadn’t added to my collection, as well as five unopened birthday presents for all my characters. Every single one is at least 3 years old; I find that weird. So I managed to net four more points on their little meter of stuff I had already achieved, just not logged, and then I looked around and realized there was almost a full expansion pack of content I hadn’t done yet. Oh boy.
Also played the Civilization board game again, this time with wonders. I played the intractable Germans, who are vicious when it comes to armies, getting two units for free at the beginning and an additional unit every time they upgrade their troops. My opponent was concerned over the strength of my army, which I was tearing around the board visiting all the villages, so he hunkered down, building walls and extra units in anticipation of my attack. Seeing that an attack would be hard-met, I decided to move towards economic victory instead, and I was a little concerned how easy it is to ramp up to 15 coins. Four technologies in level 1 and 2 have abilities that add coins to them for a relatively small price, and while you can’t use them more than 4 times, that’s still gets you 25% of the way there for each tech. With the other methods of getting coins, it’s a bit easy to get there, and pretty difficult for your opponent to slow you down. Maybe it’s a lot harder if you don’t have a ton of resources from the villages, and I happened to get some good great people, but I’m still a bit concerned.
Also a game of Dominion, this time combining Prosperity with Alchemy, which creates some weird interactions. The most expensive card from Alchemy, Possession, doesn’t seem so difficult in an environment with a lot of treasure running around, and with fewer actions on the field, the heavy hitters from Alchemy aren’t as good. This game saw the City card drained pretty quickly, by its status as the only card that could be gained from University, and the midgame was full of both players draining their deck with their cities. The possessions were weird as well, when I managed to screw myself by using a golem during my opponent’s turn, which dropped a possession on myself as well as Goons, which is worthless to me because any chips gained aren’t grabbed when a person is possessed. So I managed to lose pretty soundly.
I have been bit by the Guild Wars bug again, it’s once again time to run around Tyria. This time I was once again lurking around the Guild Wars 2 site and looking at the calculator of the cool stuff you’ll get if you have done a certain number of achievements in Guild Wars, and I realized that I probably get a few more if I tried. So I logged in and started putting stuff in my Hall of Monuments. I apparently had a lot of miniatures that I hadn’t added to my collection, as well as five unopened birthday presents for all my characters. Every single one is at least 3 years old; I find that weird. So I managed to net four more points on their little meter of stuff I had already achieved, just not logged, and then I looked around and realized there was almost a full expansion pack of content I hadn’t done yet. Oh boy.
Also played the Civilization board game again, this time with wonders. I played the intractable Germans, who are vicious when it comes to armies, getting two units for free at the beginning and an additional unit every time they upgrade their troops. My opponent was concerned over the strength of my army, which I was tearing around the board visiting all the villages, so he hunkered down, building walls and extra units in anticipation of my attack. Seeing that an attack would be hard-met, I decided to move towards economic victory instead, and I was a little concerned how easy it is to ramp up to 15 coins. Four technologies in level 1 and 2 have abilities that add coins to them for a relatively small price, and while you can’t use them more than 4 times, that’s still gets you 25% of the way there for each tech. With the other methods of getting coins, it’s a bit easy to get there, and pretty difficult for your opponent to slow you down. Maybe it’s a lot harder if you don’t have a ton of resources from the villages, and I happened to get some good great people, but I’m still a bit concerned.
Also a game of Dominion, this time combining Prosperity with Alchemy, which creates some weird interactions. The most expensive card from Alchemy, Possession, doesn’t seem so difficult in an environment with a lot of treasure running around, and with fewer actions on the field, the heavy hitters from Alchemy aren’t as good. This game saw the City card drained pretty quickly, by its status as the only card that could be gained from University, and the midgame was full of both players draining their deck with their cities. The possessions were weird as well, when I managed to screw myself by using a golem during my opponent’s turn, which dropped a possession on myself as well as Goons, which is worthless to me because any chips gained aren’t grabbed when a person is possessed. So I managed to lose pretty soundly.
What I Played Today: November 18
Sid Meyer’s Civilization: The Boardgame
The latest from Fantasy Flight came out today, and I needed to acquire it, because a survey of rules revealed some pretty tight design. This one was weird because there already exists a Sid Meyer’s Civlization: The Board Game, released eight years ago, but this one seems to be handle the concept a lot better.
It works a lot like a civ game, in which you have a city that starts small and you start expanding. What this game adds is a lot of flavor from the computer game, as well as really condensed ideas to represent a lot of work. There are four different victory conditions, all of which take a while to work towards, but it’s obvious what actions will help you achieve what goals. It also simulates combat a lot better than most war games. For fights, instead of having to physically move each unit to where you want to fight, you instead have a standing army, and whenever you attack with your armies (which are represented by little flags), you draw a set number of cards from your standing army, which represents what forces showed up for the fight. The more little flags you bring, the more cards you draw. It makes the logistics feel weird, but works a lot smoother than most games like this. If only the unit cards themselves weren’t so confusing…there are four sides to each, based on how researched your armies are, and can a bit confusing to determine just how strong a given card is.
But everything else plays great. The four different victory conditions give you plenty of options for advancements and safety nets if you get suddenly cut off, as well as pittraps if you fail to hide your intentions well, or concentrate too heavily on one. The city management works great, as you transform the raw materials around your city in powerful buildings. There are resources that power special abilities on your researched tech, culture cards that provide a hidden surprise that can swamp your opponent, it just feels really complex, without being overly bogged down with rules. There are some unclear aspects, specifically around cards and abilities that cancel things, and various timing issues, but otherwise I really like it, and I want to try it with the intended four players soon.
This first game was really tense because we were just feeling out the game and didn’t know what the options were, so we worked slowly. I was the Chinese, whose special abilities emphasis spreading out and waging battle, and so I decided early on to go for a culture victory, because I got the right great people out and a lot of windfall culture. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to outrun my opponent, who spread himself out quickly, increasing his unit movement speed to dash across the map and got a third city within spitting distance of my capitol. He also smokescreened me by looking to be heading up to a tech victory, which put a noticeable timer of my victory, so I spend a lot of turns building nothing as I tried to get more culture. However, he blitzed my second city out of existence, destroying it fairly soundly because my standing army wasn’t a match for his, and on the last turn, I was one spot away from the cultural victory but was exactly one culture point short of being able to purchase it…if I had done anything differently, defended better, spent an extra turn gathering culture, even getting Monarchy out a turn earlier, I would have won, but instead, I had to watch futilily as he steamrolled his huge army against my walled capitol. With no army to defend with, he won by destroying my capitol for a military victory.
The latest from Fantasy Flight came out today, and I needed to acquire it, because a survey of rules revealed some pretty tight design. This one was weird because there already exists a Sid Meyer’s Civlization: The Board Game, released eight years ago, but this one seems to be handle the concept a lot better.
It works a lot like a civ game, in which you have a city that starts small and you start expanding. What this game adds is a lot of flavor from the computer game, as well as really condensed ideas to represent a lot of work. There are four different victory conditions, all of which take a while to work towards, but it’s obvious what actions will help you achieve what goals. It also simulates combat a lot better than most war games. For fights, instead of having to physically move each unit to where you want to fight, you instead have a standing army, and whenever you attack with your armies (which are represented by little flags), you draw a set number of cards from your standing army, which represents what forces showed up for the fight. The more little flags you bring, the more cards you draw. It makes the logistics feel weird, but works a lot smoother than most games like this. If only the unit cards themselves weren’t so confusing…there are four sides to each, based on how researched your armies are, and can a bit confusing to determine just how strong a given card is.
But everything else plays great. The four different victory conditions give you plenty of options for advancements and safety nets if you get suddenly cut off, as well as pittraps if you fail to hide your intentions well, or concentrate too heavily on one. The city management works great, as you transform the raw materials around your city in powerful buildings. There are resources that power special abilities on your researched tech, culture cards that provide a hidden surprise that can swamp your opponent, it just feels really complex, without being overly bogged down with rules. There are some unclear aspects, specifically around cards and abilities that cancel things, and various timing issues, but otherwise I really like it, and I want to try it with the intended four players soon.
This first game was really tense because we were just feeling out the game and didn’t know what the options were, so we worked slowly. I was the Chinese, whose special abilities emphasis spreading out and waging battle, and so I decided early on to go for a culture victory, because I got the right great people out and a lot of windfall culture. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to outrun my opponent, who spread himself out quickly, increasing his unit movement speed to dash across the map and got a third city within spitting distance of my capitol. He also smokescreened me by looking to be heading up to a tech victory, which put a noticeable timer of my victory, so I spend a lot of turns building nothing as I tried to get more culture. However, he blitzed my second city out of existence, destroying it fairly soundly because my standing army wasn’t a match for his, and on the last turn, I was one spot away from the cultural victory but was exactly one culture point short of being able to purchase it…if I had done anything differently, defended better, spent an extra turn gathering culture, even getting Monarchy out a turn earlier, I would have won, but instead, I had to watch futilily as he steamrolled his huge army against my walled capitol. With no army to defend with, he won by destroying my capitol for a military victory.
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