Just a clarification on the rules, if you lost 10 units in a famine, as an example and cities count as 5, is this all or nothing or do you replace the city with 5 units and then remove the units? I always played that cities were worth 5 period (or 4 in an epidemic) and that you couldn't "make change". What are the correct rules? thanks.

You are right in that the rules are prety vauge, but in my interpretation (as well as everyone's I have ever played with) it's not all-or-nothing. You can reduce a city and leve 2 tokens, counting 3 unit points towards your famine.
You can't reduce a city to 5 tokens though, you have to actualy remove unit points to reduce a city (at least that is my interpretation, though that is even more vague).

We've always played it as Jonno explains too.

The "make change" is the way I've always played it as well... I know it was clearly that way in the original AdvCiv rules.

Actually we JUST encountered this question in an Eastern game I was playing in and the debate got so heated that it actually ended the game early.

A country I was at war with tried to reduce cities instead of eliminating them, thus granting him much needed extra tokens on the board.

I found rule 3.2 (I believe) which states that Cities are worth 5 and tokens 1, thus translating to any losses taken from calamities are as such. One cannot CHOOSE to reduce a city instead of eliminating it. The Epidemic case is a unique one and that example does not grant players the right to do so for other calamities.

Apparently other players (without my knowledge) had been arbitrarilly reducing when they wanted to, and therefore bending the rules. THat is fine if all players agree to play that way.

However, in this case, my opponent should have been left with 2 cities and 5 tokens left, not the 1 city and 10 tokens with him reducing cities instead of eliminating it. It became such a big deal (mainly due to his suicide death mode attitude) that we decided to end the game and never invite him back.

So I called him on the rule and we figure out that I was right:

Unless explicitly stating a city reduction in calamity rule text, ALL cities removed during calamities count for 5 points only and are not replaced by tokens.

As the rules is written today, there is 3 cases that can occure.
These cases, and what to do with them, is as follows:

1) "Remove X cities" or "Eleminate X cities".
You remove X cities, replacing them with nothing.

2) "Reduce X cities"
You remove X cities, replacing them with tokens as of population limit. Thus you can replace some cities with 6 tokens (if you have agriculture), wich is worth more than the city itself.

3) "Reduce X unit points" or "Remove X unit points"
In this case you can freely choose between removing tokens or cities, counting each token as one unit point and each city as five unit points. When removing a city you may, if you so which, replace it with one or more tokens, max 4 or population limit (which ever is lower). If you do so the city only covers "5 - tokens placed" unit points.

So if my interpretation of your post is correct then your interpritation of the rules are wrong.

Actually, now you are talking about several different situations. situation #3 is the issue at hand. Issue #1 and #2 are obvious.

First off, I've never seen instructions that say "reduce X points". That doesn't even make sense. So that only leaves the original issue which is:

Q: Are you allowed to make change instead of simply eliminating a city when instructed to "remove X points"?

I say no.

The rules don't say you are allowed to do that anywhere. The rules state that cities are worth 5. The only real instance where a city is removed and replaced by tokens (other than specifically REDUCING a city) is during Epidemic.

I propose that we AMMEND the rulebook to specifically state this (one way or the other), especially since the matter got so heated in the last game I play, that it ended early.

The AdvCiv rules are clear on this. You can make change. The rule says.

"
29.62 When resolving calamities, cities are worth up to five unit points and tokens are worth one unit point. If a city is reduced, surviving tokens are not counted towards the resolution of the calamity.
EXMAPLE: Africa must remove ten unit points because of Famine. It could remove two cities, ten tokens, or any combination thereof. If the African player decided to reduce a city, leaving two tokens in its place, it would count as three unit points.
"

I don't see any confusion in this. MiracleMat, you are playing it wrong. If the CivProject rules say otherwise, my opinion is that they need to be changed to match AdvCiv's process here.

For your information, the calamities that mention "unit points" without redefining them, and therefore has 29.62 apply are Flood, Famine, and Epidemic. There are several others in CivProject.

The interpretation of 29.62 if further strengthened by 29.63
"29.63 Players must fulfill their losses from calamities by the exact amount required, if possible. If unable to do so, a player may exceed the amount required, but only by as small an amount as is necessary."

Without 29.62, 29.63 isn't very easy to accomplish.

Ah, NOW I see the problem. I had an earlier version of the rulebook that was further modified by our gamemaster. It didn't have the sections you just quoted.

Thanks for resolving this.

Wish we had had that rulebook, but my guess is that it was from John's latest version that came out while we were playing. Such is the nature of playtesting.

I was quoting from the original AdvCiv rule book. It is available in PDF format at Redscape in the Bronze Age forum.

Okay, now I'm really confused.

Are we playing with original Adv. Civ rules, with the Expansion rulebook as an addition? Or are we playing with the Expansion rulebook as bible? Because I was following the Eastern Version of the Rulebook (that was modified by Andrew Hopkinson).

The rules we follow should be in the rulebook. Not in a PDF somewhere else. No wonder there's all this confusion.

Do I have to say this again?...

Why don't we ammend the rulebook?

We should ammend the rulebook. As I mentioned in my original description, I was quoting the rule book for AdvCiv as published by Avalon Hill. I would claim that if the CivProject rule book is vague on the point, that the AdvCiv rule book rules. It is our home base, and any changes from should be explicit and intentional. I'll raise the issue with Velusion to see if he has seen this discussion.

I am nothing official, but a good resource. Jonno is as close to an official answer as you are probably going to get until Velusion steps in. In all cases, the AdvCiv rulebook is a good fallback from CivProject, and the Civ ruleobok is a good fallback from AdvCiv.

Please, remember that this is a variant to a real published game, and there are expectations (mentioned several times on the site) that people have access to physical copies of the original game. The AdvCiv rulebook is not some random PDF off somewhere, but an official real booklet of paper that is our starting point.

Mcbeth is right. We should update the rules.

"24.4 Players must fulfill their losses from calamities by the exact amount required, if possible. If unable to do so, a player may exceed the amount required, but only by as small an amount as is necessary."

should probably become 24.5 and the following rule numbers moved back.

24.4 should now read: "When resolving calamities, cities are worth up to five unit points and tokens are worth one unit point. Cities may be reduced to "make change" into tokens when calamities request the removal of unit points. If a city is reduced, surviving tokens are not counted towards the resolution of the calamity.
EXMAPLE: Africa must remove ten unit points because of Famine. It could remove two cities, ten tokens, or any combination thereof. If the African player decided to reduce a city, leaving two tokens in its place, it would count as three unit points."

How does that sound? I'll let Jonno update the latest version of the rules (draft 2) when he has a chance.