At the annual gaming convention LinCon in Linkoping, Sweden, a playtest took place on May 22 from about 10 AM to 9 PM. We were 13 testers. Vidar and Aron (Ambrosiani) organized the test and Martin (Brodén) went by from time to time.

If you are lucky you can wiew a picture taken during the test at this link: http://hastur.net/abbe/gallery/lincon04/DSCF0213

I hope all or many of the participants will comment on the test here at the Forum.

Yours,
Christer "Chrisp" Pettersson
Sweden

Dogs have masters. Cats have staff.

I'll start off with some brief comments. Jon has a longer list which I am sure he will post here soon. I will also make my photos available, don't know yet where they will be uploaded but I'll post a link.

With some more work on it, this will be a great game! I enjoyed this playtest even more than the last one. There's still a lot to be done before we can consider this one completed. Here's my list:

*The trade chits worked, but the credit/cost ratios are simply way too high. All cards need their bonuses halved or removed. In turn 11 of our game, Egypt traded in commodities worth 45 points and bought cards for 1250 points...

*The division in eastern/western cards was not that good. No-one needed to complete series, since you could trade your all-but-one collection for the corresponding all-but-one collection from the opposing side. This made the trade rounds very strange, in that the two halves first traded among themselves, and then simply switched their almost-completed series across the board. Very strange.

*The map is still unbalanced which made a rough game for Arabia and the four Indian civilizations. Chorasmia had a very easy ride to nine cities and probably needs one removed.

*Some cards are very cheap for what they give. Theocracy (cost: 80) cancels Iconoclasm at the cost of two level 1 commodity cards, for instance.

*The new untradable calamities are a bit weak compared to famine, civil war and flood. Maybe they should be changed, or the order of the cards changed?

cheers,
Aron

I was there as well and it was a good game. I took some notes on what people said and thought about the game and will start some threads in the apropriate forums. Thanks Vidar and Aron for organizing, and you too Chrisp for printing the new nice map.

Well, well. I think this playtest made me "smell the game parfume".
It seems we are in time with Velusion's plan.

Apart fixing the trade/credit system, we should now think creating the scenario book.
I think it would be fun making a 2-players scenario (one playing West, the other playing East).

I could try to make one italian playtest as the new version of the rulebok is released.

Raffaele

Chorasmia has made it´s fortune two test games in a row now, it´s true there is a lot of cities in Central Asia, but I also think that Chorasmia has an unfair advantage with the map edge in the north, the Caspian Sea in the west and a zero population desert in the north west. Chorasmia is practically working out of a corner, which means that making a mad dash for all those Central Asian city sites is a rather safe enterprice.

Redistributing the population limits from Central Asia to the northern Caucasia would open up the north for a game between Thrace, Hatti, Assyria and Chorasmia. Chorasmia would no longer have it´s back safe. No other civilization has the corner advantage anymore anyway.

I'm working on a comprehensive update...

UPDATE!

Ok... here is what I have for now:

MAP CHANGES:
Remove the city of bracara from spain
Remove the city of Gjaur-kala from Chrom
Add the city of Vidisa right under the 2 pop limit in the former indian area of Vakatakas
Make the Nubian Area of Armer a 0
Make the Nubian Desert a 1

COMMODITY CHANGES:
Change - When trading in sets from the opposite side you not only get the set value you also get the raw face value of the cards. Shared don't give you anything special. *yea it's usually not going to be worth the trouble, but it might with high value cards*

CIVILIZAION CARDS
The new Civ Credit sheet is going to be out by Jonno in the forums very soon (and I'll post it). The Rulebook should follow. Credit bonuses have been reduced.
When purchaceing dual colored cards you can apply one set of field credit tokens (not both).

CALAMITIES:
Tyranny - Instead of number of cities + 3 it is now number of cities X2

-I know some people wanted more changes... but lets not be too hasty. I'll address each topic seperatly in future posts. Right now these are official changes.

Which of the following rules is it you mean?
A:
28.53 In a game with 12-15 players the face values of set redeemed in its non-native trade block is added to the set value. That is if an eastern player trades in three oil cards (each worth 4) it has a value of 3 x 3 x 4 + 3 x 4 = 36 + 12 = 48, rather than 3 x 3 x 4 = 36, which is the value if a western player had traded in the same three cards. This rule may not be used to increase the value of a set of commodity cards beyond the limit printed on the commodity card itself.

B:
28.53 In a game with 12-15 players the face value of set redeemed in its non-native trade block is added to the set value. That is if an eastern player trades in three oil cards (each worth 4) it has a value of 3 x 3 x 4 + 4 = 36 + 4 = 40, rather than 3 x 3 x 4 = 36, which is the value if a western player had traded in the same three cards. This rule may not be used to increase the value of a set of commodity cards beyond the limit printed on the commodity card itself.

I gues you mean A by your wording, but I'm not sure, as it was B I meant in my proposal.

Sorry... A is what I ment.

This should hopefully put a little incentive there to do east-west trades but not give huge bonuses. I figure the highest bonus that can be achived is 45... not huge but not piddly either.

So here is the corrected note:
28.53 In a game with 12-18 players the face values of set redeemed in its non-native trade block is added to the set value. That is if an eastern player trades in three oil cards (each worth 4) it has a value of 3 x 3 x 4 + 3 x 4 = 36 + 12 = 48, rather than 3 x 3 x 4 = 36, which is the value if a western player had traded in the same three cards. This means the set can be worth more than the maximum set value on the cards.

So the value is MORE with a complete set.

Rulebook, QuickChart, CreditsQuickChart and Civcards are now updated (though some of the Civcards still lacks illustrations).

It can all be found at http://jon.severinsson.net/civproject/

If you find any errors, please tell me, and I'll fix it.

Ok everything is updated so far with the exception of the map changes. I don't know Martin's schedule but if he can't update it soon I'll try and get the source files and update it myself (should be interesting.. hehe!).

I still need those Republic of Rome high resolution scans if anyone has a chance.

Is it me we are waiting on? Oh, sorry...I´ll fix it tonite. Of course, as I said on another place, you (as everybody else) already HAVE the source files, but I kinda want a second chance on some small graphic things i missed out on anyway so I´ll be happy to change it.

Apart from the game issues, I would like to ask the forum what you think of the following things:

* When I saw the map in print, I noticed that things that were supposed to be outside of the printing area were not. I don´t know any other work around than a border around the whole thing, but this could be done in different ways; either a white, black or brown border, and the AST and/or trade/census could be imbedded in the border, just like the Beta 1 map.

* More geographical names; like oceans and seas; The Atlantic Ocean, The Indian Ocean, Caspian Sea, The Greater Saharan Desert, The Arabian Desert are names that I think could be fitted on the map in some discreet way without making it to crowded. I also have a dream about marking the silk road on the map, but I´m not sure if it´s period.

* Does anyone miss the compass rose or the ship from the Beta 2, Panel 1? The compass rose is a medieval thing, thats why I removed it. Maybe some camels in the desert? Other graphics?

* Displaying AST or trade card stacks in a different manner? Larger boxes for the census?

* A more distinct color for the volcanoes?

* More graphical issues? I´m open for ANY suggestion.

A few quick notes:

The silk road actually started right at the end of the time period covered by Civilizaion (early AD). We should probably leave it off though along with the Compass Rose.

One interesting graphical thing that could be introduced: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient world...

Anyone else have any other suggestions?

Massilia is at a wrong place

If you in some way cound make the census a line instead of a box it would be wonderful. Otherwise please reverse it so it will be the same as the original (that is from the left to the right instead of from the right to the left).

Tradestacks would also be nice in a row instead of two. Perhaps something like this would work:

(The exra census row is for when more than one civ got the same census)

Please do not add any camels etc. I think that would only make the map more cluttered.