How proceedeth the boardgame?

The Rusty Gamer · August 9, 2002, 08:47

Just wondering how the Civ 3 boardgame was proceeding. Does anyone know? Is there an official site for it? When is it due out?

Dan Magaha FIRAXIS · August 9, 2002, 10:17

All the official info is @ http://www.eaglegames.net/products/civ.html

I'm acting as the production liaison between Firaxis and Eagle Games, and I must say it looks like it will be a fine product. The production values are great and by all acounts the game is really, really fun.

Last I heard they were shooting for a late August / early September release.

Dan

Pythagoras · August 9, 2002, 10:49

Theres a board game for a pc game that was inspired by a board game... hmmm.

Demerzel · August 9, 2002, 12:22

gosh and in the terms of our American cousins...

Originality steps up to the plate.

Strike One.
Strike Two.
Strike Three.

You're outta there! Originality is struck out by Irony.

The Rusty Gamer · August 10, 2002, 03:00

Well, according to the site, they're going to put up the rules soon.
Of course, the good thing about a boardgame is, unlike most computer games, you can fiddle with the rules to suit yourself if you're not happy.

Robert Plomp · August 10, 2002, 05:43

Quote:

Of course, the good thing about a boardgame is, unlike most computer games, you can fiddle with the rules to suit yourself if you're not happy

last time I checked, civ3 (computer game) got an editor. Did they remove it in their latest patch?

Leland · August 10, 2002, 08:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Pythagoras
Theres a board game for a pc game that was inspired by a board game... hmmm.

The only question is when they make a PC version of Civilization: The Boardgame?

Ijuin · August 10, 2002, 10:46

I believe that the original Civilization computer game was based upon a board game of the same name.

Pythagoras · August 10, 2002, 11:26

Quote:

Originally posted by CyberShy

Quote:

Of course, the good thing about a boardgame is, unlike most computer games, you can fiddle with the rules to suit yourself if you're not happy

last time I checked, civ3 (computer game) got an editor. Did they remove it in their latest patch?

Unfortunately you can only edit what they let you

The Rusty Gamer · August 15, 2002, 23:36

I must say I'm a little disappointed at what I've seen so far. The map looks like it is static. No random map generator! This is normally such a basic function in Sid Meier games. How could they miss this out!

alva · August 16, 2002, 00:51

best one all day

btw: will we be getting complaints now there isn't a SP mode, ah well, they will patch it

P.S.:will anyone of you buy this?

Ethelred · August 16, 2002, 03:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Ijuin
I believe that the original Civilization computer game was based upon a board game of the same name.

No. Avalon Hill made the VERY FIRST computer version of the original Civilization board game was for no discernable reason called Incanabula and it was bad enough and buggy enough that I can only remember that it was in GLORIOUS CGA colors. Black, white, purple, green, and two other colors that were carefully chosen to be completely useless. The game disapeared without a trace real fast. So did AHs first attemp at a computer game division.

Sid claimed he never played the board game untill after he finished making Civilization. It sure didn't work like the board game.

Avalon Hill later made another PC version of the board game version of Civilization and this time they actually got it to work. I hear that it wasn't very good though. It would be awfully hard to get the AI to be good enough for that kind of trading game.

Robert Plomp · August 16, 2002, 03:58

I'll defenitely buy it.
That there's no random map generator is a pitty, but I can understand it. The game must already be awfull complex for a boardgame.

khyron · August 16, 2002, 16:22

From what I've seen of it to this point, I'm impressed enough. I'm itching to get my hands on it, simply so that I can share the wealth with my wife. I've tried getting her into any of the Civ games, but she hates computer games. Now she'll have no excuse.

Plus, it's been a long time since I've played the AH boardgame, and I'm looking forward to seeing the evolution here with regards to the gameplay compared to the AH version and how they ported Civ over from the PC...with a buncha willing guinea pigs.

The Rusty Gamer · August 17, 2002, 00:02

BTW, what is the PC version of Advanced Civilization like? Anybody know?

Ethelred · August 17, 2002, 00:21

I never played it but that was a PC version of the Board Game. I don't know how close it came to the real thing.

Link to review.

http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/...ec/advciv.html

khyron · August 17, 2002, 01:36

I've got the PC version of AC. It's...slow.

But so was the boardgame. When I was young and didn't have a life....

....I used to play it sometimes, when my friends and I couldn't get together to do the boardgame.

Ethelred · August 17, 2002, 01:42

The boardgame usually was an all day game. Start early and end in the evening with seven players. It helps if you use a timer to limit the discusions.

khyron · August 17, 2002, 01:59

All day? Timer? What foreign and alien concepts are these?

You're right of course, and in hindsight, it would have saved us a lot of time over noting unit locations at the end of an 8-hour stretch so we could resume the following weekend...and sometimes the weekend after that...if we had done it your way. But we were such gluttons for punishment back in the day....

In that vein, I'm interested in seeing what this new game has to offer in the way of shortened versions. I'm sure that I could get wifey to sit and play this boardgame for a long time--heck, she loves a good long game of Risk--but she works, and I work, and time is a precious commodity.

Ethelred · August 17, 2002, 02:17

Quote:

Originally posted by khyron
All day? Timer?

Our gaming group started with Diplomacy. Half of us lived in Long Beach and the other half in Pasadena which are about an hour apart depending on traffic. So we usually spent the whole day in one city or the other. The rules for Diplomacy include a timer on the discussion phase so we were used to using a timer. We didn't always use one for Civilization though. Only if it got out of hand.

khyron · August 17, 2002, 02:26

We were of the opposite extreme with Civilization. The limit on the number of trades per turn was tossed out, we did private negotiations, both in-game and during breaks...any way we could think of to make that game more spicy. Of course, unlike your case, Ethelred, we all lived about 10 minutes apart, and that was when a good Floridian storm was blowing through during summer. So we had time to waste in spades.

Tossing the trading limit kinda made things amusing, because after the third round of trading, you could always figure out who had which calamities, and how badly they were going to get whammed with them...many was the time that desperation to make "really sweet deals" was met with mockery at the misfortune that was about to befall the victim. (By the way. Ever up the number of barbarians that would sweep through to...25? Needless to say, we were in an odd mood that day.

)

Ethelred · August 17, 2002, 03:00

I don't remember barbarians except maybe as a disaster card.

We didn't have rounds of trading. Everyone was at the table and we just traded with each other till we were done or if needed, time was up. I learned to count cards on the big disasters and it was REALLY hard to trade a disaster to someone. Card count, one card specified and a point total makes it pretty to slip one by. A person either has to need a card bad or been a bit distracted to get caught IF you play by the rules.

I had to learn to count the cards and to control my city count to avoid the drawn disasters. Playing a trading game with my brother tends to be futile if don't use every technique you can think off. About the only games I have a tactical edge on him have been Monopoly and Clue and my edge in Monopoly was that my brother kept forgetting that my Mother was a sucker for railroads.

khyron · August 17, 2002, 03:11

Exactly, the Barbarian Hordes disaster card. The base number of barbarians was 15, they started in the victim's start area and basically went after the juiciest targets they could find until there were no more attackers available.

We would experiment with a lot of rule customizations, though none of them were too unusual. (There was a section in the back of the Adv. Civ manual that had some really radical changes to the mechanics. We didn't use these.) One way we avoided the counting of commodity cards was to shuffle the stacks at the end of every trade session, no matter what was traded. That way you just never knew. Piracy could pop up in two consecutive turns, Civil War could do the same. Alternatively, you could end up with ages of total tranquility.

On topic, that's one advantage of the boardgame format for this new Civilization. As Rusty Gamer said, if you think a rule can be done a little better, great, more power to ya. That's why God invented "house rules."