I'm tentatively considering the following civ cards. Let me know what you think:

Advanced Military – 230 (Civics)
Prerequisite: Military
Credits: None
Abilities: Allows holder to move AFTER players with military. Allows holder to capture 2 commodity cards from plunder rather than just one.
(Military, Provincial Empire, and Naval Warfare would give 30 points each to this.)
Calamity Effects: Holder can now be effected by up to 3 major and 3 minor calamities.

Provincial Empire – 180 (Civics/Crafts)
Prerequisites: Military
Credits: 30 to Advanced Military, 30 to Roadbuilding.
Abilities: Allows holder to subjugate a willing civilization(s) for a turn during the tax phase. This civilization may pay a tax quota (in the form of face value commodity cards), which is demanded by the ruling civilization at the beginning of the tax phase. If this tax is paid neither civilizations can directly attack each other AND the ruling civilization may not trade a calamity card to the subjugated civilization during the trade phase for this turn.
(All crafts, Monarchy, Democracy and Theocracy would all get 10 points to this.)
Calamity Effects: The face value of cards lost due to corruption is increased by 5.

Cultural Ascendancy – 230 (Arts/Crafts)
Prerequisites: Rhetoric, Metalworking, Deism and Astronomy
Credits: None
Abilities: When calculating up the end game points, cities owned by the holder of this card are now worth 65 points rather than just 50.
(All Arts and Crafts would give credits to this)
Calamity Effects: None

Let me know what you think....

Cultural Ascendancy seems to be the ideal candidate for nullifying Regression, don't you think?

Putting restrictions in trade may lead to confusion about who can trade with whom. Trading is one of the fun points of the game, I would not put any restrictions on it.

After a beta test and lots of talk many of these are going to change. Provincial Empire is out. To complex.

Advanced Military and Cultrual Ascendancy are still possiblities...

How about something like "Ships of the Desert". This would enable you to build a "ship" token that could either carry units through desert (population 0 or 1) regions, or could just be placed in a desert region, in which case units could skip over that square when moving.

The latter idea is sort of like a mini-Roadbuilding.

I suggest this because, for Arabia, Roadbuilding would be extremely useful, allowing the player to cross the large desert area in the middle. Historically, the Arabian tribes had camel routes across the desert, allowing people to rapidly move from one side to the other. The "Ship of the Desert" card (especially the second possibility) simulates this camel routes.

Well from my 2 playtests Arabia is a very unique civilization, just as much as Crete. First it is very remote. Besides the Nubians or Babylonians they really don't interact with almost anyone. So in one sense they are very secure, safe from invasions. This leads to less interactive game, which is good and bad. Arabia is not for those that want to be the center of attention.

However they are still difficult to play. They have two major problems:

1) Cities. They have a decent number of city sites but trying to get the required tokens there is a challenge. Both times I've seen Arabia use boats to skim the shoreline to deliver the required populations. This slows down the player, but not as badly as the original version (remember that in the new version populations cap out earlier. If you have 7-8 cities you are doing pretty good.)

2) Calamities. This directly affects #1 and then some. Barbarian Hordes is a VERY bad card for Arabia since they can come from any zero area now.

Oftentimes it appeared Arabia was playing against the game. However, they never did really badly though... so I'm not sure I want to change anything.

The addition of any extra cards is a delicate matter (credits need to rebalanced). Since Arabia survived and didn't do to badly I'm inclined to let it rest and see what other gamers say after testing it. I have removed one of the negative calamity aspects to road building so perhaps in the future it will look slightly more appetizing.

From a historical aspect, though there were many trade routes through Arabia Deserta, the desert as a whole did isolate and separate the civilizations of Arabia Felix. The tokens represent large masses of population. Moving whole cultures across one of the harshest desert wastelands on the planet never occurred in the ancient world. Any extension of civilizations in that area occurred through a slow extension around the coastlines.

As it stands now I'm pretty pleased with how Arabia simulates the feel of an exotic isolated civilization. I think that if Arabia were to avoid most of the bad calamities they would be very well off with the proper planning and advancements. I don't think it will be everyone's cup of tea... but it should be competitive.

Have you considered something along these lines?

Siege Warfare – 230 (Craft &Civics)
Prerequisite: Military & Engineering
Credits: None
Abilities: Make it a step past Engineering. So a player w/ Siege Warfare would need 5 tokens to attack a city that does not have Engineering, while the defender gets 4 tokens etc..

Attacker Tokens Defender Tokens
w/ S.W. 5 w/o Eng 4
w/ S.W. 6 w/ Eng. 5
w/ S.W. 7 w/ S.W. 6
w/ Eng 8 w/ S.W. 7
w/o Eng 9 w/ S.W. 8

Calamity Effects: Aggrevates Civil War, Civil Disorder etc..

Just a thought btw.

I second Genghis' idea. I've also thought about such an advancement, although I meant it as a complementary to Engineering. While Engineering would give a defensive bonus, Siege Warfare would give an attack bonus,i.e. both cards being able to neutralize each other.

Looks interesting. If I did add some new advances it would probably be coupled with new calamities. Once I have that nailed down we will work in earnest on any new cards.

From looking at the map, I would quite like to play Arabia.

Depending how far Egypt is pushed by Nubia, there the possibility of settling in the Horn of Africa. I would probably get Roadbuilding, and pressure the south of Babylon. There's potential for conflict with Persia around the Persian Gulf.

However, I think that Arabia will come much more into the fore once the Indian Subcontinent comes into play. This gives the possibility of shipping across the Arabian Ocean into India. Once this happens, I can see Arabia being played very much like Africa - you're confined to a narrow coast, have difficulty dealing with excess population, and use it in a war of attrition against your neighbours.

Without the Indian Subcontinent, it's more like playing Iberia - you try to keep your head down, and win on the trading. Arabia has the disadvantage due to having to either build early boats or an early city, and the disadvantage of having to manage the population. However, it has the advantage of the greater availability of city sites.

Advanced Military is too extreme, methinks. Losing one commodity card can be devastating to the top sets (like Pearls og Gems), and losing two from the same set (not that uncommon seeing as you only have a maximum of 8 cards) could ruin a whole round of trading. Then, imagine losing two cities in a was... Ouch!

Also, being hit by three calamities is pretty bad. Speaking statistically, it's a 50% increase, and the right (i.e. wrong) combinations could bury your civilization for good! Also, where's the logic? Does Advanced Military bring down the wrath of the Gods?

All in all, it provides for a more extreme game. I'd like more options, more ways to do things, but I'm not sure that the "let's make everything bigger!"-way is the way to go.

I like the idea of Cultural Ascendancy.

1. It's something new. The change in points to 65 is unique mechanic.
2. Diplomacy is the only other high cost Arts advance. Crafts have 2, Sciences 3, Civics 4, Religion 2.

Though you might want to consider another name, to me the title cultural ascendancy implies some sort of advancement - curlturally. But isn't this just the same as what the AST track represents?

Ascendancy meaning:
Superiority or decisive advantage; domination. (source The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)
Governing or controlling influence; domination; power. (source Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary)

Ascendancy would be appropriate, as Velusion proposed it, since the name specified is "cultural ascendancy" - the AST represents 'ascendancy' in general, not culturally in particular, hence the name requires no alteration for logical consistency (aside from the fact that any dictionary is not the final authority on a dynamic language; rather, its speakers are so). However, I would propose, depending on your distinct purpose for this advance, that you name it "Cultural Imperialism"? This would accurately resemble the effect of empire upon a world subject to its global domination, such as in the case of ancient Rome; a further example might be the modern United States, whose cultural influence marks the globe, thus "imperializing" it. Any attempt to identify a singular civilization as culturally superior per se (simply on its own merits) I believe would be problematic, in that cultural supremacy is relative, determined by the variable moralistic standards of each individual culture, and not as an empirical or inherent quality of humanity or reality a priori. Furthermore, culture is a cumulative product of a vast multiplicity of elements, many of which it seems are already well represented in the game, and such an addition would be mere redundancy at best. Thus, it seems more compelling to consider the "ascendancy" or advancement of a unique culture only in relative, global terms, whence only it receives its status - hence, "Cultural Imperialism".

K J K Dalamant

One more thing - "Advanced Military" might be better termed "Military Science" - representing the distinct study of military matters as in academies, or as discovered/perfected and instituted by the likes of Sun Tzu or any of the great Greek or Roman Caesars and generals of old.

K J K Dalamant

New Civ Card Proposal:
Games - 80 (Arts/Civics)
Prerequisite: Military
Credits: 5 to all Arts, 30 to Advanced Military (aka Military Science)
Abilities: Allows "fortification" (Movement of up to 2 tokens AFTER all other players with military, not to exceed movement limit), but NOT after players who hold Advanced Miltary.
Calamity Effects: Reduces the number of cities reduced by Civil Disorder by 1; decreases the number of tokens selected by the primary victim of Civil War by 5.

These attributes are tentative, and are merely suggestions, as well I think the Arts/Civics dual category is too powerful, but Olympic Games and the like have always been a state-supported activity. An interesting proposal, nonetheless, I think.

K J K Dalamant