At GothCon XXXII we played a 11 hours CivProject game with a nice mix of new and old players. Those 11 hours included almost an hour of game set-up as well as rule explanation for the new players, as well as a 45 minutes food break.

For the first time ever I hosted a game with more players who had played CivProject than had played AdvCiv but not CivProject. We was a total of 12 players, playing 10 nations (as three of the players couldn't play during the entire scheduled game).

I'm afraid I lost the game statistics paper. I have the email addresses of a few other players, so lets see if we can reconstruct it. If so, I'll update this post.

Anyway, the Celts won with an overwhelming 83 VP, after which it was very close, with three players each having 74 VP. I was one of them, and with 6 tie-breaker points, which gave me a third place playing Hellas.

No 200+ cards was bought in this game, but a few was discussed.

The only playtest conclusion I'm drawing from this game, together with the game at last years GothCon, is that the Celts definitely is not underpowered, as some people seams to think they are due to their lack of city sites.

I might also report that we used the new Commodities, Calamities and Advances, and they all worked out great. I especially noticed less confusion and less questions regarding the effects of advances from the new players. Probably due to the fact that the full explanation is now on the front, rather then being divided between front and back.

So I guess that you have played eleven rounds, where the Celts were the only civilization who hasn't taken a hit on the A.S.T.-track?

No, there were quite a few players who hadn't taken a hit on the AST, myself included. I believe we played twelve rounds, because I think I bought my third 100+ card just in time for advancing that last round.

Great!

At least that part of the mission succeded!

I (minoa) didn't bounce either. Second place even though I played some interesting moves in the beginning. Among others going shipping some folks over to Phoinicia and building a city in Sidon. Keeping it the entire game.

This led to Hellas taking over the entire peleponessus and assyria taking cyprus.

With you "Interesting moves" usually means "suicidal moves", even though you managed to recover quite nicely this time.

Well, I have seen worse moves, such as the Thracian first turn move in the AdvCiv finals this GothCon. He built a ship, going down to zero tokens...
That gave him the opportunity to go play Settlers of Catan for two hours before returning in the first Civil War. That is what I call a interesting way of solving a schedule conflict at a convention.