We've played another game of Civ yesterday with 6 players and we noticed a few thing that came across earlier.

I don't want major changes in the first place, but we've had some dicussions like before and I'd like to add these here so maybe other people have ideas.

We are aiming to do some finetuning (at least to our houserules) so that the game works even better.



Let's realize that in a regural game no more than 3-4 over 200 cards are bought. When it comes to scoring VP's people rather buy one 100-200 card and two or more 0-100 cards for the same cost giving you more Vp's and also giving more credits. Simple as that.

So when you need at least 3 200up cards for your ASTrequirements people go for strategy on 1 or 2 200uppers AND AFTER THAT only look for the cheapest 200upper to complete the requierments. This way most of the cards in the 200range are seldom bought.


1. Again the limitation in Special Abilities works fine. Politics and Monotheism aren't required to keep up anymore. It give you the opportunity to buy different 200uppers. We are continuing using this rule.

2. Wonder of the World-change which gives an additional trade cards and lowering of ast requirements works fine. the card is being bought sometimes. We are continuing using this rule.

3. We can make a list of cards regularly bought and cards seldom to never bought. (wotw used to be a card never bought, and now it's sometimes bought and that's great)

Noticable popular cards are:
Agriculture, Architechture, Metalworking, Astronavigation, Written Record (giving 10 credtis), Epiricism, Literacy, Politics, Monotheism, Medicine, Engineering.

1 religion
2 civic (of which 2 dual)
3 art (of which 1 dual)
2 craft (of which 1 dual)
5 science (of which 1 dual)


some because they're cheap, but most because they're handy and working in any strategy.


Some cards are (almost) never bought:
Diaspora, Provincial Empire, Roadbuilding, Law, Military, Advanced Military, Trade Routes, Naval Warfare, Public Works, Trade Empire.

1 religion
6 civic
0 art
3 craft
0 science

We noticed that the Civic-route is very impopular and after the game we started a discussion about the reason for that.


let's take a closer look at the impopular cards and say what WE agreed on:

Provincial Empire: Good card but way too expensive. For that cost i'd rather buy another card.

Military: Fine, but expensive. Bad drawback that keeps from buying. the cummulation of the fx on civil was and civil disorder makes you think twice.

Advanced Military: Good card and really interesting, but again the drawbacks are a real pain in the ass. the five destroyed units form both sides might not be cummulative, but it's not clear to most. It's really scary and for this cost I'd rather buy something else. Still the reduction to Civil Disorder is cumulative, and a civic-strategy becomes uninteresting when you add these up (naval warfare included). nullifying Cult Asc? Hey, why not buy Cult Asc instead. Coast as much and I have blue credits anyway.

Naval Warfare: Great card, especially you can carry an extra token.See Military and adv Military. The drawback and the price are obstacles

Law: Medium card, does fine, but way too expensive. When you're abled to buy it, maybe for the credits on cult.asc you'd rather save for cult asc. in the first place. When you want to build up the credits for Civics, you should buy mil. and adv. mil. and that's something that you don;t need.

Public Works. Medium Card. When the card would have been 130 instead of 230 it might be an option to buy but never for 230. Your cites may carry a token but it can be another player's token. combined with Roadbuilding it might work great but that card also has major drawbacks and is expensive too. Rather go for a blue or yellow strategy. And Again: Buying this card for Provincial Empire defense? rather buy Prov.Emp instead.



Then an important issue:
two cheap civic that could give credit to those cards: Urbanism and Monarchy have drawbacks too. that's why these cards are seldom bought in the first place. When you're not building up red credits, it becomes clear why the higher red ones are never bought.

Democray is medium populair but expensive. it has no drawbacks, but as no credits are built up, its popularity becomes less.

Theocracy is not very populair because of the drawback only.

All cards giving 5 red credits are bought for all other reasons. thsoe 5-don't really count up and aren't bought for a civic-strategy.

Possible ways to solve these problems are either:

1. Lower the costs
2. Removing or lessen drawbacks
3. changing the credits-scheme
4. a combination.

For myself I believe in this order of importance. (italic or bold as above)

50 Urbanism
60 Monarchy
80 Theocracy
160 Naval Warfare
170 Military
220 Democracy
230 Public Works
260 Advanced Military
260 Provincial Empire

Let's say lower by 20 points: Provincial Empire, Public Works, Naval Warfare, Military and Advanced Military.

140 Naval Warfare
150 Military
210 Public Works
240 Advanced Military
240 Provincial Empire

For Public Works remove the drawback of the additional token to construct.

For Military, Advanced Miltary and Naval Warfare either remove the civil disorder drawback or lseen the civil war drawback (e.g. 1 or 2 from both factions but addional or something) or removing the civil war drawback from Miltary but keeping it a advanced military only.


For Urbanism remove the Volcano-drawback or for Monacrhy remove the Tyranny drawback.

Then for the credits-branch


We noticed that blue being the most populair credit-range.
one reason is one populair blue card giving credits for the next and the next.


Drama & poetry (10blue +10 to Rehtoric) - Rhetoric (10blue + 20 to Politics) - Politics (10blue)

choosing this way you get 2 good cards with no drawback and 1 great card with a drawback for 40 points cheaper and in the end 30 blue credits.

The same goes for
Empiricism - Medicine - Anatomy.
Deism - Fundamentalism - Monotheism

or populair 2-combo's:
Masonry - Engineering
Pottery - Agriculture
Sculpture - Architechture
Written Record - Cartography

When you want either Naval Warfare or Military you don't get to buy red cards and thus not getting these extra 10 on red. Not even 5.

(i'd say give at least 5 red credits)

Monarchy gives 10 credits to red, but isn't a card you always want when you want only "Law".

The same goes for Urbanism to Diplomacy.


Offcourse not all cards should be good. But on the whole, the Civic-brach is underrated in reasonably possibilities


Maybe Empiricism can be changes to a Science/civic giving 10 credits to red.

Maybe Thecoracy should give 10 credits to red.

Maybe Metalworking should give 5 credits to red instead of green







ideas... anyone??????

Then on the other impopular cards:


Trade Routes and Trade Empire and Roadbuilding.



Trade Routes is a great card at first glance. But the ability to sell your trade cards for treasury isn't very hand AFTER buying your advances.

We came to idea of changing the card to a Special Ability-card making it a special ability, thus BEFORE buying your cards. This way it CAN help combining it with trade empire. (you pick that gold you bought, traded and sell it back for 18. THE optimal trading ascendancy.)

It stays expensive.
I'd say lower the cost too.


Trade Empire is nice, but expensive. Maybe in combination with a populair Trade Routes it might be worth it's 260.



Roadbuilding. I never see it being bought. I think it is because of the double drawback. It might be worth 220 but without either the epidemic or civil disorder drawback. This way it's just never bought and just a card that takes up space on the table. Combining it with Public Works might be fun, but I mentioned that card above. Things should change before this combo will ever be played


Diaspora might be a great card, but no-one ever gets to buying it. Maybe that card should be 250 instead.




ideas' anyone?

I think you've made some great points and very intelligent ideas. One general rule in game design that I usually follow:

If you have a choice of a number of options, the options are unbalanced if:

players NEVER or RARELY make that choice.
or
players ALWAYS make that choice

In other words, if there's not a reason to purchase an advancement, it needs to be changed, and if there's no reason NOT to purchase an advancement, it needs to be changed.

You've come up with some good house rules for the overpopular advancements (special abilities), and I think these are very good rules for the less popular ones.

Your suggestions for the Civics branch are wonderful, I think the way you considered the set as a whole is laudable.

I liked how you proposed Trade Routes as a special ability. Right now, the only 100-200 level cards with Special Abilities are religion cards (Fundamentalism and Universal Doctrine). I think adding another with Trade Routes is great. Perhaps a mid-level Civic SA card could give civics a little more credit boost. I'm not sure what the SA would be, but that's available for discussion.

If Diaspora is cheaper (250 or even 230), would people consider it over Monotheism as a SA choice? I mean, one of the main problems with the board late in the game (when someone would consider buying a 200pt card) is that it is crowded (rarely do I see empty spaces with pop limit > 1). After a disaster it is useful to replenish, but then you take into account that you have one less trade card, and it's a less than desirable advancement. I'd almost lower the price to a mid-level advancement (maybe 160-180), where it applies more directly for it's portion of the game. Later in the game, it gives people a disaster recovery option for their SA instead of preying on the weak with Monotheism.

i would need more time for a complete answer/opinion however i can note this:

What was the playing stile of the players last sunday?, Most of the games i have played did not contain that much violence. Whereas the military cards and roadbuilding are ideal for the more agressive players.

If this is the case no changes are needed.

Aside from that i never saw the need for roadbuilding (however i always play quite defensive).

Alternatively you could change those cards, and give them a non agressive advantage.

hi chris

first i have to say it's not my very own view or opinion. I'm just a spokesman for our group that's the people we played with yesterday and some other folks played previous games with person form the group yesterday.


One thing to keep in mind is I think besides balancing we have to stick to some sort of symmetrical system and we have to stick to the game being realistic.

1. symmetrical system: we use the system of 17 cards in the 0-100 range each giving credits to a single card in the row of 100-200 range and those cards each giving credits to a single card in the 200up range.

changing a card from 200 down to 100 imho should mean a 100card should go up to 200. I'll come back on that.

2. cards being realistic is widely applied to this game and a thing I personnaly like very much. For example applying realism to this part of the game: Historically Drama and poetry led to rhetoric which led to Politics. Empiricism led to medicine, which led to (advanced) Anatomy. Sculpture led to Architecture which led to (advanced) mining.
and maybe the best example: Written Record led to Cartography, which led to Library.

When changing the system of cards being lowered a step on the 0-100-200 priceladder I think this should be kept in mind.

Though:

There are some cards that have no need for being specific high-range or midrange.

We discussed this yesterday. As mentioned. Lowering highrange to midrange, should mean midrange should move up along.

Cards that apply for lowering one step could be Roadbuilding, (Diaspora), Public Works, but as many cards should step up.

You could make Architecture a highrange, but maybe giving it an additional advancement (like being abled to build 2 cities by half treasury, it gets close to politics or diaspora)

You could make Agriculture a highrange (by balancing the game) but historically it should be a midrange card.

You could make Naval Warfare a highrange but it should lose drawbacks.
and it doesn't solve the impopularity of red cards.

Without looking at yesterday's game you could ask why there aren't many players playing an aggressive strategy.

We discussed this yesterday and realized that (like I mentioned) both this strategy requires cards that have real drawbacks and this strategy requires cards that are really expensive (combined with the lack of red credits)

Looking at history you see that emperors being offensive made a big difference. (for example the romans, the greek/Alexander the Great).
You can't say this should not be applied to the game.
Still you can choose for a defensive strategy and playing defensive still should win the game, but right now it's not very interesting changing to a more offensive strategy where one of the goals of this project was making it able to choose different strategys and removing the requirement for certain strategys (like you required Law to buy Democracy) in the first place.

I never realized how balanced these stacks were until you mentioned it. Now I'm even more interested in the organization of the cards (I've always been more interested in the abilities than the credits).
So, in response to this new Enlightenment, I started looking through for some different options that can be switched, and found myself seeing huge changes which would seem more logical (at least to me). However, I don't want to rearrange the advancements, and considering all of the play-testing you and others have done, I think it would be foolish of me to even suggest an overhaul---so I'm not.

Anyway, keep us up-to-date on this latest playtest. I'll be interested to know if more people buy those cards.

I have joined last sunday and I actually won the game. Flo said exactly what I did: Bought two +200 cards for the credit scheme and then the cheapest +200 card: Library. (But that was because I was afraid of the Regression Calamity.)

I have thought of Trade Routes, but one of the reasons I didn't buy it was because I shoulded get the treasury tokens after the acquire Civilizations Cards phase but before the Taxation phase (I already had Coinage.)

About Empiricism, I think it is better to make it Green/(Other Colour) but give it only 5 Green Credit tokens: If we make it 10/10/5/5/5 we have a cheap Literacy.
About Trade Routes I think it is better to trade commodity cards for treasury tokens at the Acquire Civilization Cards phase, but before purchasing any Civilization Card. It is the same as doing it during the SA phase (unless it can be combined with Politics) but the problem is that players with Trade Routes uses their thinking time during the SA phase while the rest is thinking during the ACC phase. Since (thinking in) the ACC phase slows the game the most we better prevent two such thinking phases.

About Agriculture it balances the game if it should be a +200 card. But what balances too is make Agriculture more expensive (say 180 rather than 120) to compensate becoming cheaper of other midrange (Red) cards.

Also one of the players came with another interesting idea, now only for game variants: Like in Risk we can give all players the mission to purchase three given +200 Civilization Cards. Players who performed their mission gain a game advantage like additional Victory Points, going forward one space in the A.S.T. track or make it a requirement to enter the finish square of the A.S.T. track. This helps players to purchase different advances and they cannot choose their strategy before the game begins.

This was only a game variant, never ment as official rule change.

I think that changing things around this subject should in the first place NOT be major changes.

taking cards from the highrange to midrange or the other way round seems like a major change to me.

Risk-cards will never make it to a rule, but is a nice varient. still a lot of playtesting can only make it succesful. (It's easy to create anunbalnced set of cards, but difficult to create a balanced set of cards.)

12 hours of playesting for a single game is a hard thing expecially when things don't work.




Again, I cannot decide for official rule change, but our own playtesting of a new Wonder of the World and in addition Written Record and Monument worked out great. Still it is a minor change in the game. Major for a single card.



I'm looking for REALISTIC playtest options. one at a time or more if combined. I'm not looking for wild ideas to throw over a system, or change the subject of this game.

It's easy to let your fantasy do its work and a thousand varieties are possible. I'm talking slave-trades, risk-cards, different maps, new time-era's, bonus-VP's ect etc. All these are in the catagory of gamevariants. Please use the right subforum for that.

I'm looking for a way to slightly adjust the rules so that the game gets more balanced at the civic-side of development.

There has been some discussion before about the power of military card here: http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=260&highlight=roadbuilding

What's not regarded is here that a player going for military-like game in this way is highly picked on with secondary calamity effects and possible conflict / cityattacks and so. That's a drawback on itself

Going for a trade ascendancy doesn't get the attention of as many players and this way choosing for a trade style is more effective.

Therefore I think being picked on as a result of the usage of aggresive cards should be read as drawback on the cards itself.



Rereading the above I think a pricelowering is step 1.

A full set of trade cards might give you 256 points in the early game when you don't have much credits, this may be attractive to spend it to advanced military or public works, but right now it isn;t.

I think these cards should be affordable. Maybe 200 for PW is the maximum price after all. 220 is a reasonable price for advanced military

now let's again lookat another thing.

When you want to goal for a military strategy and your aiming to purchase Military, Advanced Military and Naval wafare, you first want to buy Cloth Making, Metalworking, Engineering, and Astronavigation.
Diplomacy and Cultural Ascendancy are in line. Maybe Roadbuilding and Architeture are needed too.

That's a lot. Why make it even less attractive by adding the drawbacks on mil, adv.mil and navalwarfare. The cumulative civil disorder reduction is a real drawback. 3 more cities for the full range really keep players from buying.

Let's remove it from Naval warfare in the first place. (realistic, you need order to get a ship moving, no disorder. in any disorder situation, no slave is going to row for his master). it could be changed to five additional tokens for slave revolt, but that might be bad either. let's just take it away from the card.

This way Naval warfe becomes a nice option that might push a player into the civic-branch. Make the card a little better make it attractive and still it can keep its price form the system balance. It might be the key card in military strategy

Also for all of these 3 cards I'd rather change the destroy 5 from both sides in civil war to an addional 2 instead. Maybe:

Naval Warfare: an additional 1 from both factions are destoyed
Military: an additional 2 from both factions are destoyed
Advanced Military: an additional 2 from both factions are destoyed

This way you still get the 5 form both sides, but fractioned in 3 steps. This way it more attractive for players to buy the first of these 3 cards.

I really connect Urbanism to Advanced Military since it makes you both think about where to place tokens around a certain spot your strategy focusses on. It should be attractive to purchase red cards in the first place and I suggest to remove the earthquake drwakback from Urbanism

It might be a card many player have and makes the civic strategy more logical instead of almost impossible.

Just these changes for next playtest? (leave the rest as is for now)

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 200



Which of you can't live with these playtest-options? and what are your idea's?

I like those changes. Nothing extreme, but gives the conqueror-style player a little more chance of enjoying the game.

The only thing I would do differently is set Public works as 210 instead of 200. Right now, there are no cards which are exactly 100 or exactly 200. I know the rules say 200-290, but having a card on that border price range makes people (especially new players) think twice about whether it "counts" as a high level advance. I'd rather not have to point out the little greater-than-or-equals distinct from the greater than.

This is just my opinion. It certainly doesn't break anything, but not having border cases is certainly cleaner than having only one. It feels like an exception.

I agree, so:




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