Bill wrote:
Hey All,
Hi Bill
Bill wrote:
I played my first game of Adv Civ last night, we played almost to the bitter end and everyone enjoyed it. It was long, however, and the game did drag a bit. Afterwards, I was wondering if there might be ways to streamline play. Here are my ideas:
(1) Remove Tax Revolts: no one suffered from this, and it just seemed to add fiddly checks to the game.
(1) Remove Tax Revolts: no one suffered from this, and it just seemed to add fiddly checks to the game.
This takes no extra job. You are counting how much you will tax anyway, and then you try to remove it from stock to treasury. If you can't: You have a tax revolt.
Bill wrote:
(2) Census always involved some painful subtractions. I wish there was someway this could be streamlined. Mandating that all Stock and Treasury stacks be 5-high helped.
Yes, this can take some time, but it is a really important component of the game (balancing issue), and can't be removed. It's not the most time consuming phase either...
Bill wrote:
(3) The Resolve Conflicts / Build Cities / Surplus Population steps could pretty much go on concurrently, as long as the proper sequence was kept wherever it mattered. Maybe the thing to do is to flip over any Tokens that are to be removed / possibly-made-into-cities during the Move phase, to speed those steps. Also, resolving conflicts when no one else can enter those areas would speed things along.
The rules explicitly say that you should do exactly this: Do as much simultaneously when it doesn't really matter.
Bill wrote:
(4) Calamaties: some of these are more fiddly / less uniform than they perhaps need to be. I also like the ideas of Spoilage and Cyclone that are in the Expansion Project. Sometimes we couldn't remember who had traded which Calamaty to whom without some head scratching. I'm not sure what this level of immunity adds to the game, except perhaps to avoid retribution--but that wasn't a hallmark of our game, so I might relax the "immunity" ability.
Trader is not always just immunity, and in power play (with two or three experienced players going for the win), it really does matters, and people try to hold a calamity to trade it to a specific foo in "the last trade". However, if you want to, feel free to relax it, or mandatory that if no one instantly remembers that they traded it to the victim, no one is immune.
Bill wrote:
(5) Buying Civ Cards: this is where our game really bogged down.
Perceived problems:
(a) The math was horrendous:
--Figuring out how much your trade cards were worth.
--Figuring out all of the bonuses.
--Figuring out how you could maximize your buy.
Perceived problems:
(a) The math was horrendous:
--Figuring out how much your trade cards were worth.
--Figuring out all of the bonuses.
--Figuring out how you could maximize your buy.
Yes, this is why we have simplified the process greatly in the civproject. However, be warned that it is easy to screw up credits, so don't try to fix this yourself, as it could easily become unbalanced. It is however possible to use the advances and calamities from the civproject using the original map, tokens etc.
Bill wrote:
(b) The amount of money available for buying seemed to geometrically multiply during the last few turns, compounding the problem. (We stopped about 2 turns early, but I was on track to acquire all of the Civ cards before the end of the game--I just had 3 left to buy.)
This is completely normal, the winner almost always acquire all civcards.
Bill wrote:
(c) After a while, we had so many Civ Cards, we couldn't keep up with all of our special abitilities.
As you play more often, this will become easier. Also ordering th cards you hold after abilities might help (I usually keep one stack with cards doing nothing special, one stack with cards affecting calamities, and stack with "others" etc.)
Bill wrote:
(d) Everyone seemed to pause at the entrance to epoch 4. The requirement for 9 civ cards seemed excessive. Likewise, the entrance to epoch 5 caused one of our guys to stall for several turns.
This is normal and is a way to weed out the winners from the losers. Not that you can't win if you stall, but if you stall at every epoch, you are clearly not a winner...
And btw, in Adv.Civ. the hard part is usually not 9 cards, it is one of each color. I usually pass, but last time I stalled in Early Iron Age playing Adv.Civ. I did hold 11 cards, just no one of them a Civic...
BTW, in the civproject we have reworked the AST requirements, but that is mostly not to have to count civcards every turn in Late Iron Age. For early iron age the requirement is 3 cards each worth at least 100 points, and for late it is 3 cards each worth at least 200 points.
Bill wrote:
(e) Moving backwards for a lack of cities didn't seem to be a necessary rule. Not being able to go forward seemed severe enough.
Well, perhaps, but going backwards doesn't occur unless you screw up really badly, which imho should be reflected in the game score.
Bill wrote:
Some might say that more playings would make people more familiar with the Civ Cards and Calamities and would speed play. The problem is, our group meets irregularly, and its composition always varies, so it's unlikely we'll ever meet that requirement!
Yes, you will. In my experience it's enough if a few players are experienced, and can help the others out, for the game to speed up. Being experienced yourself is only required to actually win the game when competing with other experienced players.
You'll see that your next game, even with only about half having played before, will go much faster.
Bill wrote:
So, how am I thinking about addressing items (4) and (5) above during our next play?
I. I'll probably tweak the Calamities to make them more uniform, and maybe a slight less horrific.
I. I'll probably tweak the Calamities to make them more uniform, and maybe a slight less horrific.
Calamities should be "horrific", it's a part of the game, and is equally dangerous for everyone. If not it would be way to easy to maintain 9 cities, which would make the game more boring, as well as give more commodities to buy civcards for. As for more uniform calamities, that has been one of the goals of the expansion project, so you might want to look on how we have done it.
Imho the only calamity in the original game that is to horrific is Civil War, which in my games usually is remedied by a house rule specifying that the first time it appears it is 5 tokens less sevear, and for the second time it's your own fault if one haven't acquired Drama & Poetry or Music by that time. Also, the only calamity that is too complex imho is Barbarian Hordes, which I think we have solved nicely in the civpoject rules.
Bill wrote:
II.a. The civ card purchasing credits were impossible to keep up with. I like the way they've been streamlined and kept track of with chits in the Expanison Project. I'll probably tweak them in a similar way.
Be warned that tweaking can result in a severely unbalanced game! Believe me, I speak of personal experience!!! The early versions of the civproject credits rewrite was horrible to play with...
Bill wrote:
II.b. I think the sets go up in value too exponentially, and there's probably little reason to not have sets be worth a multiple of 5. I might decrease stacks 4-6 by a sixth; and decrease stacks 7-9 by a third. (I might even up stacks 1-3 by a "tinch".)
The multiple of five thing is twofold. Firstly a set's value is mathematically calculated (amount of cards squared times the value of a single card), and two make treasury useful as change.
Keep also in mind that the cost for new civcards also increase as game progresses! In the end game stacks 1 through 3 is mainly used as "change" and for cards to pass as third (and possibly forth) card in a trade. This is perfectly normal, and I see no reason to change it.
Bill wrote:
II.c. I'll probably combine the abilities of related Civ Cards and make them more expensive. (e.g.: Cloth Making and Astronomy seem like an obvious combination. And Monothesim and Enlightenment, etc.) I know this might take some of the depth out of the game for experienced players, but I think it'd help our group.
This is probably a bad idea. Cloth making and Astronomy is really two very different cards, that gives completely different abilities, and which one of them is more useful depends on your intent. Cloth Making is mainly a hose-keeping card used to ship tokens to your city construction sites etc, while Astronomy is either an opportunistic or offensive card, allowing you to attack wherever a weakness appears, even though it is on the other side of the Mediterranean sea.
Enlightenment and Monotheism is an even worse example. Enlightenment is a 100% defensive card, protecting against both Monotheism and some calamities. Monotheism on the other hand is a 100% offensive card, that comes with a cost of aggravated calamities. Usually only verry offensive players buy Monotheism, and when one does, everyone else (at least his neighbors) race to get Enlightenment to protect themselves. Combining them will essentially destroy the card, as well as the distinction between offensive and defensive play.
In addition it will be much harder to get one more expensive card than two cheaper one, as you can't purchase them on different turns...
Bill wrote:
II.d. I think I'll reduce the Civ Card entrance requirements for Epochs IV and V, but perhaps increase the required number of Cities.
Cities is a much to temporary possession to increase the requirement for AST progression. You could however look at adapting the civproject rules to your game. I'd think it would be balanced if you just reduce the required costs to 90 for early and 180 for late iron age, (due to the lesser amount and lower cost of civcards in Adv.Civ. in comparison to the civproject).
Bill wrote:
Other comments: again, we really enjoyed it, the game's just too long and involved at some points for the frequency with which we'll probably play it.
This is a common problem. I'm basically reduced to play Adv.Civ. twice a year (at large conventions), due to the lack of players and time.
Recently I have begun playing some PBEM games, which have noticeable reduced my civ withdrawals
Bill wrote:
Okay, so what obvious simplifying ideas have I missed? And which of the above is going to remove the heart of the game, in your opinion?
Obvious idea #1: Learn the game
Obvious idea #2: More simultaneous resolutions. There is no problems with different players being on different phases, or early game (prior to trade) even different turns, as long as neighboring civs isn't to far away from each other.
Heart Removal #1: Combining advances
Heart Removal #2: Combining advances
Heart Removal #3: Se other comments above.
And a final word: Yes, Adv Civ. (as well as the civproject) does take some time to play, but that's good. As I and my in game neighbor Henrik joked during a game that dragged out a bit to long, if we wanted to play a shorter game, we could just toss a die to determine the winner, but that wouldn't be as fun!