Civilization (board game)

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Civilization
US version of Civilization
Players	2-7
Age range	Recommended for 12 years or older.
Setup time	15 minutes
Playing time	3-12 hours
Random chance	Low
Skills required	Tactics, Strategy

Civilization is a board game designed by Francis Tresham, published in Britain in 1980 by Hartland Trefoil (later by Gibson Games), and in the US in 1981 by Avalon Hill. The game typically takes eight or more hours to play and is for two to seven players. The Civilization brand is now owned by Hasbro but is no longer published in the US.

1 Overview
2 Expansions
3 History
4 Legacy
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Overview

The Civilization board depicts areas around the Mediterranean Sea. The board is divided into many regions. Each player starts with a single population token, representing 7,000 people, and grows and expands his empire over the course of turns. Each player, of course, tries to build the greatest civilization.

As each nation grows, adding more and more population to the board, players can build cities in regions they control. Each city grants a trade card to the owner, which allows trade with other players for any of nine commodities, such as iron, grain and bronze. Along with trade come eight calamities such as volcanoes, famine and civil war, which destroy population and cities. Trade cards are combined in sets to purchase civilization cards, which grant special abilities and give bonuses toward future civilization card purchases. The civilization cards grant access to abilities such as agriculture, coinage, philosophy and medicine.

The goal of Civilization is to be first to advance to the final age on the Archaeological Succession Table (AST). The AST contains fifteen spaces and players are advanced on the AST each turn. The AST starts at 8,000 B.C. and ends at 250 B.C. At several points, however, certain conditions must be met (such as, the civilization must have a certain number of cities) in order to advance. Since most civilizations do not meet the advancement criteria at all stages on the AST, games usually last more than fifteen turns.

Civilization is unusual in that it does not focus on war and combat as many games of its genre do. Instead, players are encouraged to trade and cooperate in order to advance. War and combat are entirely permissible, however, and are sometimes inevitable.

Trade (via trade cards) is the most important activity in Civilization. Trade cards give the player's civilization wealth, which ultimately help the civilization advance on the AST. Cards are more valuable the more of one type the player possesses. For example, one salt is worth 3 points, two are worth 12 points, and three are worth 27 points. If a player possesses all the cards of one type, he effectively corners the market and gains the most value for his cards. Many "trade sessions" can become quite vocal and exuberant as players try to out-trade one another. Trades are done in groups of three or more cards. Since players are only required to tell the truth about two of the cards they are trading, calamity cards can be slipped into a trade, thereby avoiding receiving the primary effects of the calamity.

[edit] Expansions

All the game expansions require the Avalon Hill base board game:

Western Expansion Map: Extends the game board west of Italy to cover Gaul, parts of Iberia, Britain and Northwest Africa. (Note that a version of this expansion was also available for the original Hartland Trefoil version of the game)
Trade Card Expansion: Adds additional commodities such as timber, silver and ivory to add some more scope and options to the game's trading system. Not compatible with Advanced Civilization (which includes its own expansions for the standard trade deck).
Advanced Civilization: Contains simplified trading rules and gives every civilization the possibility to buy all civilization advances. It also adds more trading cards, civilization advances, calamities and rules for up to eight players. It contains all the cards available in the Trade Card Expansion.
Civilization: The Expansion Project: is a unofficial expansion extending the map from Scandinavia to Central Africa and from the Atlantic to the Ganges Delta, and can be played with up to 18 participants. It is based on the Advanced Civilization expansion, but is completely standalone. It also features additional trading cards, calamities and civilization cards, as well as minor simplifications to some problematic rules. Rule-wise it is to Advanced Civilization as Advanced Civilization is to Civilization.

Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization is a computer version of the board game, but does not require the board game version. The rules are slightly modified from the board version for computer play.

[edit] History

Civilization went from being a board game to a computer game and back to a board game based on the computer game. The original computerized version of Civilization was 1984's Incunabula. Sid Meier's version was the first computer game based on the board game to carry the Civilization name.

Sid Meier was a fan of this game and developed a computer game containing many of its elements. He named his game Civilization also, but gave a nod to the board game upon which he based his work (he included a flyer advertising the board game in early printings of his game). Meier's game was a huge success and gained a wide fan base.

In 1995 a new version of Meier's Civilization was released along with a computer version of Avalon Hill's board game. Avalon Hill released their game under the name Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization in an attempt to prevent confusion with the established computer game by Meier. Its multiplayer implementation was considered by many to be sub-par and it did not do well in the marketplace. Many players also felt that the trade sessions did not translate well to the computer.

Several computer sequels of Meier's game were developed over the years. Though the titles included his name, most did not involve Meier at all as the brand name was bandied about various game publishers. With the development of Civilization III in 2001 however, Meier regained control of the brand and developed the game in his rather new company, Firaxis Games. About this time, Eagle Games released a board game version of Sid Meier's computer game Civilization.

Though Avalon Hill was not involved in Meier's Civilization games, it is clear that Civilization came full circle from board game to computer game and back to board game again. Though Avalon Hill's game is no longer published, Meier's board game version is still available.

[edit] Legacy

Despite being out of print for several years, the Civilization board game still holds a loyal following. The Origins International Game Expo holds a yearly tournament featuring the game, and awarded the game the Charles Roberts Award for Best Pre-20th Century Boardgame of 1982. Twenty years later, the new Civilization board game repeated its success, winning the Origins Award for Best Historical Board Game of 2002.

Eagle Games published a boardgame version of the Civilization computer game series in 2003. This boardgame was a version of the computer game version of the original Avalon Hill boardgame but was a fundamentally different design.