8 Player Variant of The Expansion Project Mapboard
http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/fdehaan/Civilization/8playerboard.pdf
At this link you can find a revised version of the Original Mapboard including the Western Extension Mapboard. We are eager to share this with you. It is free to use for all players over the world. Whenever the link is broken, please contact me.
My group contains 11 players, which most of the time aren't all available. That is why we would NOT use the 18-player Mapboard. To increase space left on the table we use this board. We made this before even knowing about this website. Still we tried it out with The Expansion Project using 7 players. That worked great. (review here
http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2391#2391)
Offcourse it can also be used to play the normal "Advanced Civilization" with max. 8 players. (We wouldn't suggest 9 players.)
At first glance it might not look as beautifull as the mapboards on this site. But we chose for a whole different way of devellopping. Let's explain.
- The Main target was that the map is best for play, not for looking at it as a piece of art. For a more Photo-realistic version you could always take a look at GoogleEarth or so.
- The only colors needed for play are the floodplains. We removed all other colours, since they might only confuse.
- We tried to use the most basic colors that don't interfere with the 9 colors of the basic playingpieces.
- Only straight lines are used for landborders. Only supple lines are used for any opensea-areas.
- We didn't change anything about the usual map, that is no changes in the area-structure. We did change the size of some areas and later added the zoom-lens version for Greece. (we first distrorted it, this option was better)
I do have some notes to using the board.
NOTE 1:
We noticed 2 errors on the board. (there has been created an update for the baord. Please send a message to Gerart de Haan)
At the close up of Greece, there's two rules to apply:
1. It should be possible to move Delphi to Epirus by sea
2. Thessalonica does NOT border Eretria
BEFORE AND AFTER
NOTE 2:
While playing the Expansion several times on this board we realized that the new Barbarian Hordes rules don't work for this board contains no 0-pop limits.
When we use this board we use the exact Barbarian Hordes rules as described in Advanced Civilization. (including Crete being immune)
NOTE 3
As goes for Advanced Civilization you don't play with the new nations for the Expansion but you use the AST and nations for Advanced Civilization.
Most of the times Asia stays the nation unplayed. (I own a set of Barbarian/Pirate tokens so that color isn't even used.)
9 players on this board is too much. 8 is the limit. Especially because it's unfair for Asia to play as Assyria and Thrace have more space in the start.
(and lack of space in unevenly divided between the 9 players)
(We thought of raising the poplimit for Cappadocia by 1 (from 1 to 2) to make a smoother pass possible, but we decided to keep the exact Advanced Board and not no make a compromise between the expansion board and the original.)
We plotted this mapboard and than glued it on cardboard using spray-glue. This works great. First spray both the map-back and the cardboard. Use enough glue, especially on the edges. (better do this outside, cause the glue-spray might get all over your floor or table) Wait for 25 minutes or so. Never comes loose. Use a piece of cardboard greater than the map, and then cut off the leftovers.
