I think removing/reducing the calamity effects as described is very good, I'd like to see it playtested. As mentioned, a military style has inherent drawbacks because you're making enemies, the cards don't really need to have many drawbacks in addition to that.

Reducing the cost of some Civics also seems very reasonable.

As for the 'must have' cards for would be conquerors, don't forget Agriculture: you need a large population to have a use for Military in the first place (because with a small population you're already moving last). That means that increasing the cost of Agriculture will hurt the military play style a bit.

I mentioned the importance of agriculture in this topic before. (We discussed this last sunday after playing a full game with 6 players.)
I think agriculture is the most populair card at both inexperienced and expierenced players.


Still I believe it should stay a 100-200 card. I might have its priced raised a bit.

the combo agriculture and architecture does as lot. both at no real drawback.

Maybe there should be 2 Agriculture cards? I don't think increasing the price is wise. You could have an Irrigation card above the Agriculture card. Not sure what it might do, but the ability to add an additional population counter is very important and should remain with the lower cost card. Hellas and Minoa depend on a cheap way to populate low point land squares. Might help for Iberia also.

Two metal working cards then? Maybe an expensive Iron working card as a requirement to advance to the Iron age - perhaps repeating the Metal working cards abilities?

HA- I have Iron working you have Metal Working, you have to lose population first!

I think this would make a great new card.

I think you're right in this. so raising agriculture is not such a good idea after all

Introducing a new card should immediately mean removing another card and one could ask himself if that's the right option.

I remember some sticky note somewhere here on the forum that introduing new cards was out of the question. So officially that will have to be a very well playtested one including the removal of another one.

I think our proposal as mentioned will have to be playtested first before changing more things. If this change works (or with slight adjustements) that could be the time for more change in cards.

too many changes at a time makes it hard to tell what exactly made the difference.

I think there are too many advancement cards NOW. Maybe a list should be made of candidates for removal and new cards to be added (like Irrigation and Iron Working) I think 2 metal working cards is a great idea - it introduces a ancient arms race to some extent.

Perhaps a completely fresh view should be taken on Advancements for the game - know any non-player Ancient History professors to talk with about it?

I do agree, that historically "bronze working" and "iron working" are two different things. where Iron working actually should mean 'advanced Iron working' but the word 'advanced' should be added to a lot of cards where the actual development was allready there, but an improtant step made the difference.

(Advanced Monotheism, Advanced Anatomy, Advanced Roadbuilding, Advanced Mining for example. All these development existed long before their actual importance came when they were becoming 'advanced...')


So the word Advanced is better left off at all cards. There has been discussion that the names of "Military" and "Advanced Military" should be changed to "Military Strategy" and "Military Tactics". the discussion resulted in Jonno saying: Well, as no two people seams to agree, I'm going to be conservative and keep the names for now...

http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=467&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=




Apart from that there might be added some more cards. like where is 'The Wheel' and maybe 'Fire' as basics.

I believe changes like these. Changes like 'adding new cards', 'removing cards' is a thing that can not be applied to 'finetuning and adjusting' like I mentioned above.

I started this discussion because the people I play with and myself felt the need for some adjustment in cards so that the cards allready existing will be more evenly populair so that several different strategies can be applied.

Like mentioned there are so many option to change this game (new cards, new boards, new time era's, new VP's, new features, new calamities) that each thing should be seen as a game variant. Every great working game variant could be applied to the original game, and it's not to me to decide


Please start a seperate (probably interesting) discussion at this forum called something like "Adding new advances and removing old ones" and see where that might lead.

Here I'm just trying to adjust the existing to make thing more optimal.

Besides starting the discussion, I would like to invite you to come with realistic plans. What would be the exact ruling of cards like 'iron working' and what cards should make place.
How do you like to make it fit in the system, but symmetrical, historical and playable,

I also played in last Sunday's game, and one other thing that was briefly discussed afterwards, was the Anatomy card. I purchased it rather early in the game, picking up Coinage and Astronavigation for free. But, as other players pointed out, it cost me a lot of money that could have been spent on cheaper cards that would have given me more credits.

Is Anatomy an attractive card to buy? The problem is that if you buy it late, you may have already bought the science cards that you could have had for free. And it's tough to buy it early, like I did in this game.

It was suggested after the game that Anatomy could become a more attractive card by allowing its purchaser to take any two below 100 cards, not just those from the science track. Alternatively, I think the credit could be changed to two below 100 science cards or one 100-200 science card. Both possibilities make Anatomy an attractive purchase later in the game, and I suggest we select one of them for inclusion in the next playtest.

That's a good thing Paul, that I actually forgot mentioning. We all agreed on that card being dubious. Like you said, getting all the discount together to purchase it, you might allready have those 0-100 sciences allready. (I remember I once was at the verge of buying it, and realizing I could only get 1 of those cards, cause I had the remainder allready)


The changes to the civic branch is a playtest option that is mainly apart from your suggestion. No red is involved in the card, so for the next playtest (maybe october the 19th) we could also apply this.

(like I said, I believe there shouldn't be too many playtesting options at a time, for it's getting harder to tell what made a difference)

I agree with you plans, and I suggest keeping it at the science part.
So: 'Upon Purchase, you may immediately acquire up to two (dual-)science cards with a face value of less than 100 points each or one (dual-)science card with a face value of less than 200 points).

We are talking about:

Astronavigation (80) (10 green)
Coinage (90) (10 green)
Empiricism (60) (10 green) (10 to Medicine)
Written Record (60) (5 green)

Calendar (180) (10 green)
Medicine (140) (10 green) (20 to Anatomy)
Engineering (160) (5 green)
Cartography (160) (10 green)

I can imagine you might at least have Empiricism and Medicine allready before you purchase Anatomy, costing 220 at that time, still leaving you with 6 options at most.
So the card isn't becoming very overpowerd.


One thing indirectly leading to CIVICS is that you might choose for 'Calandar' (180) (giving 20 credits to Public Works)



For now (unless some good arguements come in) our next playtest might be:




Urbanism
Remove earthquake drawback

Naval Warfare
Remove civil disorder drawback
Change civil war drawback to an additional 1 from both sides

Military
Change civil war drawback to an additional 2 from both sides

Advanced Military
Lower price from 260 to 220
Change civil war drawback to an additional 2 from both sides

Public Works
Lower from from 230 to 210

Anatomy
Change the first attribute to: 'Upon Purchase, you may immediately acquire up to two (dual-)science cards with a face value of less than 100 points each or one (dual-)science card with a face value of less than 200 points).'

So sunday october 18th we are going to playtest this with 5 players

Results of the playtest can be found here: http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3638#3638

Playtest proposal for next game:


Urbanism
Remove earthquake drawback
add the line 'No more than one city per turn may be build using Urbanism' (or a similar line)

Naval Warfare
Remove civil disorder drawback
Change civil war drawback to an additional 1 from both sides

Military
Change civil war drawback to an additional 2 from both sides

Advanced Military
Lower price from 260 to 220
Change civil war drawback to an additional 2 from both sides

Public Works
Lower from from 230 to 210

Anatomy
Change the first attribute to: 'Upon Purchase, you may immediately acquire up to two (dual-)science cards with a face value of less than 100 points each or one (dual-)science card with a face value of less than 200 points).'

Trade Routes
change 'During the return excess trade cards phase' to 'During the special abilities phase' (maybe it needs a limit of two cards per turn)



And additional the previous playtests we keep continuing untill proven wrong or added to the official rules:


Wonder of the World
# You may acquire one additional trade card for free, from a trade card stack of your choice that is higher than your amount of cities in play.
# CORRUPTION: Five additional commodity card points must be discarded.
# Nullifies Trade Empire.
# Decreases your epoch entry requirements on the AST by one city.

Written Record
Change the extra five credits to ten credits

Monument
Change the extra ten credits to twenty credits

and

Diaspora
add the line: A city build this way may only be build in an area containing a city site

Politics
add the line: In case a city is annexed, exactly five treasury tokens must be trandsferred from treasury to stock

For anyone reading this topic, the following topic might be relevant:

http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtop ... =3662#3662

Some reflections on the new playtest suggestions:


At least this would make Urbanism an interesting card for each player, where in its current state it is often avoided. It may even be quite powerful for the cost of 50, but I would like to playtest it this way.


Although the current drawbacks are quite harsh, making it almost insane buying more than one of these advances, this proposal is way too soft in my opinion. Something I don't like about these advances, is that they aggravate the same calamities in the same way. For the Civil Disorder drawback, some cures are available, but to the Civil War drawback nothing.

An alternative that crossed my mind, is to keep the old drawback for Civil War, but making them non-cumulative. So, if a player holds either one or more of these cards, a total of five unit points from both factions will be destroyed due to Civil War. This would make it more interesting purchasing a second or third of these 'offensive' cards after a first one has been bought.

Reduction of the price of Advanced Military may be a good option too, but I think a reduction of 40 is too much. I would rather suggest to try, for example, 240 in a playtest. A potential drawback of having 'cheap' 200+ cards, is that these cards may be the first ones bought because players need such a card in order to continue on the AST. I don't think that should be the reason to buy Advanced Military.


For the same reason described as above, I prefer not to reduce the price of this card to this limit. In order to make the card more attractive, the text might be changed to "Each area containing one of your cities may also contain one of your tokens", in order to prevent other players from keeping tokens in your homeground.


This sounds much too powerful to me. I did not have any problems with Anatomy in the first place, and think it is an interesting card in its current state. I never bought it during a game, but I have thought of it.


Sounds like an interesting idea to me; but on the other hand I doubt whether this card really needed an update.

Trade Routes:

We experienced that it might be fun to get 2 treasury tokens instead of throwing your clay away cause you have a surplus card and you are not buying, but never for 180 points.
That's why no-one ever bought it.


When you can hold 9 cards, you shouldn't even have to throw it away. rather keep it to trade next turn.

If you can use this as special ability it becomes a way to use your new treasury to buy an advance.

When you use the max of 2 special abilities per turn it becomes strategy

When you link it to Trade Empire to which it gives credits, you can go for this strategy: You pick that one bronze and sell it for 12 and then buy your next advance.

Combined with Mining it might get you 36 points when turning in a gold card.

I do think though, that it should be limited to one card per turn.



Urbanism

The attributes should say:

"You may use up to four tokens from adjacent areas to build one city per turn in an area without a city site."

If you think ther SHOULD be a card that aggravates Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake you could add this to Libary. (won't keep players from buying it)
historical link: The Lib of Alexandria was destroyed by an earthquake.



Engineering
If you use this new Urbanism there's a line on Engineering to be removed
"Voids the effect of Urbanism on Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake"



Public Works
We never really thought of what you said about cheap 200+'s might becoming mainly bought cards because people need 3 200+'s

Therefore, now, I think you're right about the price being too cheap. I don agree thought that it should be made more attractive by changeing the attributes to: "Each area containing one of your cities may also contain one of your tokens"

Military, Advanced Military, Naval Warfare
We've talked this through and had some doubts about the civil war drawback being cumulative or not. Though we worked on the attributes texts very hard, we did not put this clearly on the card and I thought it was NOT cumulative. Now I know it IS cumulative.

This would mean you'd lose 15 untis on one side and 15 units for your beneficiary. I really find this too much for a non-tradable that also cuts you in two.

In the first place i'd like to either use our option or remove the cumulative effect. Like Gerart said, it could be changed to "CIVIL WAR:A total of five untis points from both factions are destoyed." on all three of these three cards.

Maybe an instant 5 from both sides on the first but keeping it at a total of five regardless of how many military cards you have, is better after all.

Naval Warfare is a great card anyway.

There's been some discussion to change the civil disorder drawback on Naval Warfare to a Slave Revolt drawback for it was mainly slaves rowing on the warships. When a slave revolt occurs on such a ship, just imagine:

(apart from the fact that when a civil disorder occurs, slaves might take the chance to revolt as well)

What about: SLAVE REVOLT: All of your ships are destoyed and five additional unit points connot be used for city support.

This is only if removing a drawack from Naval Warfare would make the card too powerfull.

I prefer to remove the Tyranny drawback from Monarchy rather than removing the Volcano/Earthquake drawback from Urbanism. That is because on the one hand the drawback from Urbanism already is removed by Engineering, and on the other hand because Monarchy is pointless when it does nothing more than reducing the effects of one calamity and aggravating the effects of another calamity.