What the **** do I care? I'm in Asia!

Truer words were rarely spoken. Last marked the debut of the monster epic crazy game, Sid Meier’s Civilization, the board game based on a video game inspired a board game. Still following? Good.

Civilization, or "Civ", as it is known to the terminally addicted, is a board game for up to 6 players. Although the back of the box says that it can be finished in 1-2 hours, that’s really only for the standard game and for experienced players at that. As we all know, standard games are for wusses! After two or three good tries at this game, I can pretty confidently say that this game will take a minimum of 6-7 hours with average players and the advanced rules.

The object of the game is no less than to create the most glorious civilization in the history of mankind, covering 6,000 years of human development, from the dawn of civilization at the end of the stone age until the first steps of man towards the colonization of another world. There are two different rulesets, standard and advanced, each using fairly different mechanics.

The game is played on a massive 36” x 47” board, using a veritable boatload of counters representing most of the military units you can imagine for a game of this scope from primitive swordsmen to modern machinegun infantry. The game plays out over four different ages – Ancient, Mediaeval, Gunpowder and Modern. Thrown in for extra spice is an array of City Improvements ranging from Ziggurats to the Internet (improves productivity my butt!), an assortment of randomized Civilization Markers (for resources and special events like plagues and barbarian hordes) and a technology tree that will be very familiar to players who wasted the better part of their young lives figuring out how to get Mechanized Infantry units faster than anyone else or how many superstructure modules to build.

To explain the rules is an epic in itself (though no so tough as many early SSI and AH games), but the general gist is that there are four phases in each turn: Purchase - where players buy new units, improve their cities and convert settlers into cities; Movement and Battles - in which players move their units about and wreak terrible miniature wars over the cardboard plains; Trade – which permits players to trade resources for special monopoly, unique resource and critical resource bonuses; and Production – allowing players to convert the hard work and sweat of their minions to gold. Technology is bought with cash during the Purchase phase, and the game moves to the next “Age” at the end of the phase in which the first technology of the new era is purchased. The advanced game has no less than four separate endgame conditions – final conquest, military victory, diplomatic victory or technological/space victory. Players receive victory points for wonders of the world constructed over the course of their civilization, populace size, and depending on the final endgame, points for military units or technologies.

Well, after a rules explanation of the advanced version at the beginning of the night and the usual lengthy set-up, we were finished eating and ready to play at 8:00 PM. We quickly discovered that ours was a resource poor world, and even things like a stretch of three wine producing regions on the west coast of North America were going to be fought over viciously. A number of factors lead to the usual situation of one player holding dominion over a particular area – in this case, Hapi in Central Asia, Tili in South Asia and Australia, Shemp in South America, Easy in North America and yours truly (Kozure) in Africa. A brief scrap in Central America lead to an ouster of Tili’s forces, leaving Shemp and Easy to scrap it out for California and the Mississippi. A few small skirmishes later, Easy’s early monetary income lead was erased. Shemp vaulted us into the Mediaeval age a few minutes before we closed up shop at 11 PM, with the game very close and all of the VP scores ranging from 10 to 15. We took digital pictures of the board so as to allow continuation next games night at Chez Kozure.

I really enjoy the epic scope and feel of this game, despite the relative complexity. The earnestness of the diplomacy and negotiations over territory and resources was remarkable, leading to Hapi’s immortal line in the title above. The combination of resource management, diplomacy and military competition make this game a real winner in my book, striking the right balance between the need for careful culture building and bold aggression. I’m looking forward to seeing how this game plays out.