hi, i have been playing adv. civ about 15 years and for my first time will be playing this expansion project at shuancon this november 18th.
over all i think the work you guys have put into it looks great,with a few nit-picks of course.
one change i cant seem to understand is the ammendment to famine...

28.314 Primary victims who hold Agriculture must also, immediately after the calamity has been resolved, remove the amount of tokens on the board that exceeds the printed population limit on the map (with no regard for Agriculture). This is a one-time penalty. Hence it is better to remove already temporarily overpopulated areas first when resolving the unit point loss.

i cant realy see the reason for this change. for starters it seems quite deadly for an early 3stack, doubly so for minoans,carthaginians and iberians whom really need agriculture.
another problem, pottery and calander wont really help the primary victim if you hold agriculture, you will end up losing those tokens anyway.

i notice the line "This is a one-time penalty." is this to imply that 28.314 will only effect a player the first time they are the primary victim of famine? or the first time they are the primary victim of famine and hold agriculture? if either... i'm still questioning the reason behind this change.

it just seems to me like this one is better left out.

one might argue that this is balancing out the fact that egypt and babylon are susceptible to flood, however engineering provides a solid defense while no civ cards aggrivate flood. thus flood is manageable, while the cards meant to make famine manageable do not work.

anyway, i have yet to even play this version so, its really all theory. you have done a great job with this project over all though, keep up the good work. i will probably have more input after the game next week.

thanks, joshua b

Jonno is completely right. All the math and inconvenience of this effect is irrelevant.

I respect the two opinions about making the game more realistic. While I enjoy realism in a game, my personal preference is that game play supercedes the importantance of realism.

As realistic as 28.314 may be, I think the effect of the calamity is too harsh only to specific civilizations.

I think the primary thing is that it hasn't been that harsh in the games I've participated. Usually, when you have agriculture and famine, you aren't going to have that many more tokens over the limit than the damage level of the calamity. So, it basically is just providing a priority for damage allocation rather than setting a much higher upper limit of damage

sorry, i rarely post in forums and don't know how to make the little quote box.

well... if you want to invoke "realism" then no one would be building cities without aggriculture... but then the game would be pointless.

another issue i have is that it makes pottery and calander much less attractive because of the "double-whammy" (lose 10 units, then loose surplus) effect.
say i was playing the minoans, and i had occupied a total of 15 spaces. and of those 15, 10 of them where utilizing aggriculture to support an extra unit(numbers i dont really think would be unrealistic). now, i hold pottery and calender as well and i just drew famine for my no.3 trade card... see the problem? pottery and calender, the 2 cards meant to offset the pain of famine are useless to me. they soak the 10 i would lose for being the primary victim but when 28.314 rolls around i would lose the 10 units anyway. and if i did not hold pottery or calander i would simply choose to lose the 10 units that exceed the population limit. the result is the same either way but in the second scenario i would not have dead weight civ cards...i dont think the cost per credit value would be worth it for cards that really only help if you are a secondary victim, or unless you dont plan on aggriculture. which well... as we all know, it is absolutely essential for some civ's.

on the flipside i still think flood is much more manageble for one who holds engineering. in this case you can never loose more than 7 units as a result, not to mention engineering also softens earthquake/volcano(no biggie), and the bonus of 1 unit less/more in city sacking/defending(who doesnt need this?), and being 2 colors(poentially cheaper).

i would think that if aggriculture seems too powerful then you could bring it in line the way most other aggravating civ cards work... apply an extra 5 unit loss to the primary victim of famine if they hold aggriculture... simple. also it make one less "exception to the rule" sort of rule... while still knocking some strength out of aggriculture, without nuetering pottery/calander.

Just a data point for you. We played last Saturday, and while the players depended on Agriculture, nobody had to reduce additional population form the Famine side effect. I've never (four games) seen it cause more than two or three points of additional damage.