Date: January 2009
Players: 8
Mapboard: West
Civilization: (Celt, Iberia, Carthage, Rome, Hellas, Hatti, Assyria, Egypt)
Version: 2.11 Beta
Non Playing GM: Yes (me)
Playing time: 9 hours
Finished?: no (three spaces)
Winner: Celt
We played a game with 8 players on the full West Mapbord including the associated areas for Minoa but without Minoa in play.
2 players played the Expansion before. 2 players played Advanced Civilization before, 4 players never played civilization before.
I didn't play myself, but acted as Gamemaster. A great thing was the fact that most players were unfamiliar with the expansion. Most of the time we play we have medium experienced players, but any newcomer regards parts of the game different than experienced players.
Very soon, players got to buying agriculture, Metalworking, Naval Warfare and Military. I think this is because inexperienced players regard games like this as wargames. It made the game a very interesting, medium aggressive game.
Later on some civs got more power and got to 7-8-9 cities.
We played the full map for 9 civs, but still using 8 civs to see what happens. Is the map 'too easy' playing by this or not? During our previous game two weeks ago we experienced the map too tight, providing only enough room for reaching up to 7 or 8 cities once or twice a turn and 9 cities only 2 times in the game at all.
Actually this game of 'more room' was a lot more balanced. I did not experience the map too easy. Actually it was just right. The late game saw 9 cities sometimes. Still we did not even reach the calamity 'Regression', and 'Tyranny'. We did reach 'Piracy' and 'banditry'.
I think a game should at least reach every single calamtiy once, but optional twice for the higher ones. Maybe only ONE times regression is enough, but it should be the minimum. during our last game of 9 civs on the the west map for 9 civs, we did not get any 9-stack-calamity. That's not the meaning of the game in my opinion.
Ofcourse we did not end the game, and it would certainly have occured if we did finish the game.
During the game later on a player bought Trade routes and Wonder of the world. This was the only 200+ card bought, and showed a fine combo. It was the first time I've seen Trade routes being bought and it turned out really great. There was some conceirn about the card holding back the game by counting and doubting. But actually it was used 3 turns in a row. The player sold excess cards (last turn the card that was purchased for free by wotw.) During the calamity resolution phase there was enough time to think and count. THis player never played Civilization before. so this showed me the card works.
Agriculture seemed to be still nessecary. Especially for Carthage and Iberia. It seemed wrong to reduce a city on flood plain and receive 6 tokens (egypt). We played the card at the normal way (available for all areas). This showed me that indeed lowering the card to 0,1,2 areas is a good option. Especially Carthage and Iberia really needed the card for the 2-areas too. It only seemed overpowered for the 4 and 5 areas. 3-areas were fine. 6 players bought the card.
Naval Warfare worked fine as defense, rather than offense which one might first consider the card to be. It helped to defend against city attacks.
Apart from Trade Routes, no special ability cards were bought.
The new players found it very confusing to wait for all players to decide for ship maintenance and construction before movement. This is something which always seemed strange to me too. It really holds up the game. Once you are used to it, if might seem normal, but actually this is a little problem in each turn.
Any new player I introduce to the game (just like previous game and this game as well) think the epoch requirements are VERY hard. Especially now we played with mostly new players, this seemd to show again.
Final Result:
New Roadbuilding:
Two players were interested in buying Roadbuilding and regarded it as a good card. They did not get to buy it. The player who first bought Trade Routes though of it but choose for Wotw.
Agriculture:
The current Agriculture is too strong for reducing cities on the flood plains, but it is needed for the 0,1,2 areas at least. I'm considering even adding it for the 3-areas as well.
Military - Naval Warfare - Advanced Military and the civic branch:
Our new option like we played last time as well seems successfull to me. Players are actually buying Military and Naval Warfare. It was just that people did not get to 200+ cards again (due to time limit) but I think one or more players would certainly buy it. Players were building up red credits also by Urbanism and Monarchy which were bought several times.
Urbanism showed some slight confusion which I will describe elsewhere.
Diaspora:
Has not been bought
The Mapboard:
The current West Mapboard is too tight. playing 8 civs on space for 9 civs was just perfect. I think we should count out this number of possible tokens and apply this to the space for 9 civs. Especially Carthage has problems. Don't know for Minoa, beceause this wasn't used.
AST-order:
Worked great. we were using: Minoa - Assyria - Celt - Carthage - Hatti - Rome - Iberia - Hellas - Egypt. After two games of playing this order, I'm already getting used to it.
Player tokens:
Worked great. The new color really mix very well without getting confused. The flipside is being used great. Both for selecting as for movement of ships. Also I think flipping tokens for movement, expansion, and selection should be put in the rulebook as rule rather than option rule, because, once you are used to it in a few turn, it wroks so easy for everyone.
Associated Areas:
Just as we were discussing this subject someone mentioned it's really strange these areas are not marked ON the map. I think he's right. It should be a major marking, but there are several options to do so. It makes setting up the game very easy, and the scenarios for the shorter games are getting a lot clearer. Indeed it takes away some fun because player might takes these for borders, but as the map is well balanced, it might result in a well balanced game at least.
Game Time:
I think we have to think about a way to limit the game time to avarage 10-12 hours. This is just perfect for any group. Starting at 8 o'clock and having one hour lunch or diner, playing a game of 13 hours would make it 14 hours and would reach to 22.00, if not longer. This really is the maximum for any normal group. There are several ways to limit game time, for example by looking how to speed up a turn, setting time limits for trading, maybe movement, and maybe by decreasing the AST by one or maybe even two columns. THis is just a thought.
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