Well, how about this as a solution for the 6th stack problem.

Drop Tin and Copper... leave Bronze and Silver. Then add Livestock and Metals.

There are already several trade cards that represent multiple products (Stone, Wood, Textiles, Spices, Gems) why not have one for Metals to cover the many that were traded and are not already represented (Tin, Copper, Lead, Zinc... etc).

Livestock falls into the same category covering things like sheep, goats and pigs.

I like the idea of metals, I'm not so sure about livestock however, it was hardly traded over larger distances, with the exception of horses maybe.

Hm, what about "Weapons" instead of "Metals"?
Now that I think of it: Although there's an advance called Pottery, can't we think of introducing Vases somehow as a commodity (give me a better name!)? After all, pottery was Athens' most important export good. Just a thought.

Well, livestock was a routine commodity on the silk road.... which is why I thought of it. It seemed to me that food was one of the most important commodities to trade in ancient times. We already had grain from the original game, so I added fish, fruit and meat (livestock) which were also common items to be traded.

Pottery isn't a bad idea either.

Just realized I didn't include the new credit chart:

Check it out here:
http://67.66.187.69/acep/files/CreditQuickCharttest.pdf

Note that there are some HUGE changes in the way credits are allocated... I need input on this!

Thanks!

Just on top of the mind; trading regions and commodity regions doesn´t have to be the same, do they?

I´ve always liked what the trade city variant stands for, but loathed how the idea was implemented. On one hand, I really like that commodities gets that regional touch (you know, African and Indian ivory, Egyptian papyrus and so on). On the other, I really dont like giving players freebies just because they happen to own a special area (in general, I think the civ system is very restrictive when it comes to freebies).

There are three trading regions: West, Old world and East.
But with four commodities per city level, there would actually be six combinations of commodities, which would make for six commodity areas:

Latin west: Iberia/Celtae, Rome, Carthage
Hellas west: Thrace, Illyria, Crete
Crescent old world: Hatti, Assyria, Babylon
Desert old world: Egypt, Arabia, nubia
Persian east: Persia, Kush, Chorasmia
Indian east: Indus, Tamil, Maurya

A commodity like Ivory, for instance, could be placed in the Latin west and the Indian east (and one more area).

With smaller stacks, the calamities would be "walking" calamities; when a calamity is resolved the Hellas west, it would be reshuffled into the Crescent old world (or some more refined system of "calamity walking"). This would make for more calamities, instead of doubles of all existing.

The one thing that could be a little fussy would be that commodity would be counted as "exotic" (worth more) for which civilization.

There is really no reason why this could also be done for games with mid range numbers of players. Three commodities per city level still makes three commodity areas.

You know I really like what you guys are doing here, and I commend you for your efforts, but I think your going alittle to far with these ideas.

The best part about playing a game of civ is the Trading. The loud mouthed, yell across the table, punch your friend in the shoulder becuase he undercut your deal trading period. That was the spice of the game. I dont like the cutting the board in two and not allowing free trade, I know it isnt "historicly" accurate, but darn it, thats what makes the game fun. Now adding new commodities is cool, and making there be a bigger deck for trading makes sense, but restricting Trade would be atravesty to everything that civ stands for. Think about it again, wouldnt you like to see Iberia yelling across the table to The Indus player about how he wants his slaves, all the while The Babylonian is trying to make a quiet deal with the Africans? You can feel the pressure as the clock is ticking and you just have to get rid of your piracy. Thats the game folks, please dont pacify it by watering down the trading process.

I know your all doing it with good intentions, but from a civ player to another, dont hurt a good expansion project by creating to many rules and regulations, please.

Civilization is for the DEVIL!!!!

I'm open for suggestions. But you have to consider... with 36 differnt commodity card sets its becoming harder and harder to make sets. with an 18 player free for all trying to nail down a set of commodities will be almost impossible in any sort of regular time.

The only way you could make an 18 player free for all to work would be to have 4 sets of 2 commodities per stack. Of course then you would have one big deck (really big) and you'd have to hand out things sequentially and would take forever to put things back.

With my proposed solution there will be two groups of trading each with nine people (more than %99 of all other civ games). Trading works just as normal as always except that the oldworld people can trade anywhere and the East and West just get more for accepting exotic goods.

Again.. its not perfect... are there any other concrete suggestions?

When you say four stacks, how do you mean?

Since I still arguing for regional commodity sets, I like to take the time to present my "four commodity region" solution.

West (Europe):
Celtae
Iberia
Rome
Macedonia
Crete

North:
Hatti
Assyria
Babylon
Persia

South (desert):
Carthage
Egypt
Nubia
Arabia

East:
Chorasmia
Kushan
Indus
Mauryan
Dravidian

West and East each shares one commodity with North and one with South. West and East have no commodities in common, the same goes for North and South. What do you think?

When you say four stacks, how do you mean?

Since I still arguing for regional commodity sets, I like to take the time to present my "four commodity region" solution.

West (Europe):
Celtae
Iberia
Rome
Macedonia
Crete

North:
Hatti
Assyria
Babylon
Persia

South (desert):
Carthage
Egypt
Nubia
Arabia

East:
Chorasmia
Kushan
Indus
Mauryan
Dravidian

West and East each shares one commodity with North and one with South. West and East have no commodities in common, the same goes for North and South. What do you think?

Oops...sorry...

The group I play with (with plain AdvCiv) typically has 7 minute rounds with 8 players - and I think we could shave it back a bit.

I played in a 9 player game with the CraigB's expansion in November with 7 minute trade rounds and it went well.

Of course, we did get on our feet and moved around during trading (had the room) and it quickly resembled a chaotic trading floor. That might be the key to shorter trade rounds (but requires the room.)

Maybe 45 sec per player with 2 commodities, 60 with 3, and maybe 75 sec or 90 sec with 4 commodities?

Great stuff here and I look forward to the online version of this game being run on Redscape shortly.

I think the proposed idea of having limited trade is perfect. Not only does this more accurately reflect the real situation, it makes for added strategy not currently available. If you are in the West, getting some Eastern commodities would be huge and of course the same thing for the east gaining Western items but the Old World guys can have a fun time as well, while they lose out on the extra points, they have a much increased area of trade and become the leading trade nations, this gives the game a good system of balance. I only wonder if one extra level would work well or not? Since all these items must pass through a middle man (the Old World Powers) the "availability" of these items can be somewhat slowed in their passage from east to West (or vice-versa) in that it requires more trading and hence, more time. I guess only time will tell and if traders are active enough, they certainly can arrange for same turn passage.

You'll notice in the new rules that the tradeing has basically cut out the middle "old world" and only contain 2 trading blocks (East, West). This was done because in FtF there simply wasn't enough to time to trade with your group AND with the old world. Everyone just traded with thier group. So.. by letting the East and West talk to each other directly I hope people will be more inclinded to mingle.

[:p] Hi first time on this forum so I'll keep it short,
I agree with the changes listed, particularly having a 'swindled' card. The idea of eastern and western commods is also interesting. We could go more realistic by saying certain cards can only be obtained if you have control of a province where that commodity was known to be (eg Lebanon=wood).
In my trials of my own version I also use some key strategic sea areas for collection of commodities. For example if the straits in certain areas are controlled maybe add '2' (or some figure) to your treasury. So sea of Mamara, Gibraltor, Hormuz, Sinai, etc could all but such areas. An option on this is a civ card called "Sea Lanes". The player buys this and if they have a ship in a sea lane(eg Strait of Malacca on my own s e asia map) they collect '2' for each space in their 'sea lane'.