I ran this at the Game Days Convention in Maryland on Saturday, May 5, 2007. I let players drop out & in one case, in, so that more people could try it. At the most, there were 11 cultures in play. Abandoned pieces were left on the board, like barbarians. We played with the Eastern side of the board, leaving out the upper left portion of the map.

The major drawback of this set was that with 4 commodities of each value, it was very hard to assemble a full set of cards & therefore to buy the advances.

The countries that did not bump stayed in the lead. When we conceded at 2 turns from when the game would have ended, the point spread in advances was already 800 points. I was sandwiched between the leaders, yet while they always advanced, I went backwards once. In the end score chart, the AST is too strong. Maybe make it 3 points per space on the AST.

The limit of calamities any player could experience on a turn was helpful. It would have been better to evenly split the country starts between East & West. Following the suggested start areas for 11 players we only had 2 on the West. The Western players always got all their cards but sometimes got 4 calamities in 8 cards.

Understanding the advances & the discounts was difficult. You can't go directly off the quick chart & the dual colors confused everyone.
I think everyone enjoyed the game, although as always there was the complaint that it took too long. Most of us would play it again.

With 11 players you are only supposed to use 3 commodities of each value, all in one stack. See §10.32 in the Core Rulebook for details.


I've played several games where the winner did not lead on the A.S.T., in one the winner was last on the A.S.T. In my opinion A.S.T. is supposed to be important, but not the only thing important, and with that goal I think 5 points is quite balanced.


You are supposed to split them evenly, the list is only for an 18 player game. See §9.6 in the Core Rulebook for details.


What do you mean that you couldn't go directly off the quick chart? What information is missing there.
Did you use credit tokens, I find that they do simplify it greatly, especially later in the game, when you've got a couple of advances already.
Dual colours basically only means use the colour giving you the most credits. There is no other difference. I don't find it confusing at all, but then I'm used to it...