How SERIOUSLY do you play Civilization?
Gary J. Robinson
This talk of memorization in Titan makes me want to take a poll:
How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
"count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
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AvlchPress
Egyptian trade cards and advances to the Thracian for a dozen donuts.
Captain Caaaaaaaaaaavveman!!!!
>How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
>"count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
>reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
Isn't this easier in vanilla civ, due to differences in the initial sort of
calamities in the piles?
I havn't play regular Civ in a long time, but I NEVER bother with this in
Advanced Civ, and I usually do pretty well. Of course, I may be playing with
people who don't do this either.
Also, I believe that much of the time, the exact calamity position is unknown
in AdCiv; calamities are mixed in with traded-in trade cards, and then put on
the bottom. At least, that's how we've been playing it.
--
I know that it's evil. | I must
I know that it's got to be. | yet
-- "Down Payment Blues" AC/DC | I cannot -- Robot Monster
==============================================================
Ben Hitz* hi...@cumbnd.bioc.columbia.edu *Dept. of Biochemistry
*** http://tincan.bioc.columbia.edu/Home/ben.home/ ***
Nappy
: Gary J. Robinson (grob...@mailer.fsu.edu) wrote:
:
: > How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
: > "count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
: > reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
: Civil War only. And usually only for the first run through the cards.
:
: Jay Rudin
John_Da...@cup.portal.com
> How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
> "count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
> reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
In Advanced Civ, this practice is explicitly banned. I agree that it is
unfair and needed banning. (They also removed the red-backed cards to thwart
those who would break this rule.) Still, once the board is built up, all the
calamities going to appear every two or three turns, so most of the time,
everybody knows whether to expect lots of calamities on a given turn.
I extend this principle by using a house rule (that should have been in the
original rules): Calamities are revealed one at a time, each one just before
it occurs. This is done in order to prevent the primary victim of a Volcano
or Famine from "tuning" its results to control who gets the benefit of a
Civil War.
John David Galt
RICHARD IRVING
: grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) wrote:
: >How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
: >"count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
: >reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
In regualr Civ, yes. You have to especially Civil War and possibly
Epidemic. But in Advanced Civ, it's much harder to keep track, so I
usually don't bother. But I do try to keep track to guess whether a
calamity is in someone' hand this round.
: Isn't this easier in vanilla civ, due to differences in the initial sort of
: calamities in the piles?
: I havn't play regular Civ in a long time, but I NEVER bother with this in
: Advanced Civ, and I usually do pretty well. Of course, I may be playing with
: people who don't do this either.
: Also, I believe that much of the time, the exact calamity position is unknown
: in AdCiv; calamities are mixed in with traded-in trade cards, and then put on
: the bottom. At least, that's how we've been playing it.
Not quite. Tradable Calamities are mixed into the spent trade cards.
Non-Tradables (Like Civil War) are then placed on the bottom, which
means Slave Revolt occurs more often than Civil War.
--
Richard Irving rr...@pge.com
I don't like disclaimers, but I have to put them in. The opinions here
are my own and not necessarily PG&E's.
(As if it had any opinions about this stuff!)
Made with recycled electrons.
Psychohist
Advanced Civilization.
I count cards in Civilization even though I dislike the 'memorization'
aspect. With some opponents, we leave the disaster cards face up for this
reason.
Sounds like counting doesn't work as well in Advanced Civilization - maybe
I should go out and buy it.
Warren J. Dew
BenF
> At the 1983 Origins tournament finals in Detroit I handed over all my
> Egyptian trade cards and advances to the Thracian for a dozen donuts.
And thats exactly how seriously you should take the 6 player Adv. Civ
tourneyment being run at Origins now.
- Ben
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Cold hearted orb that rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white,
But we decide which one is right.
And which is an illusion???."
from Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues 1967
DCORaspler
> How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
> "count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
> reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these
cards?
Not only do I actively NOT count cards in any game, but I also do my best
to subtly confuse and misdirect the guys who ARE counting cards. I don't
find the "memorization" gaming skill an appealing one.
Dan Raspler
David desJardins
>> How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
>> "count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
>> reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
>
This is not true. There is no such ban in the rules.
I think most tournaments now modify the rules slightly in order to avoid
this problem. For example, after returning a nontradeable calamity to
the bottom of the deck, shuffle the bottom three cards. This eliminates
most of the problem, without much of an effect otherwise. People might
still count the Civil War deck, but they probably aren't going to go to
the same extremes to avoid a 1/3 chance of drawing it, and it will be
harder to do so, anyway.
David desJardins
--
Copyright 1996 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.
Ryan Schneider
: This talk of memorization in Titan makes me want to take a poll:
: How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
: "count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
: reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
I think i speak for my whole group when I say "not really".
Occassionally, when playing Imperial variant, I'll not go above 10 cities
to avoid a second chance at calamties, but I've never purposely reduced a
city to avoid it. It kinda goes against the spirit of the game to be that
anal about the whole, I think.
Ryan
Daniel Blum
> CKevinW (cke...@aol.com) wrote:
> : In article <DMqCK...@snarc.artinet.de>, kl...@snarc.artinet.de (Klaus
> : Weidner) writes:
> : >If you enjoy games like Diplomacy and Illuminati, with shifting
> : >alliances, backstabbing and devious stratagems, you'll probably
> : >like RoR. You even get to make speeches to the Senate, since
> : >you have to convince the other players to do things your way.
> : I have seen multiple mentions of the game Illuminati in this newsgroup
> : recently. I am not familiar with the game. Could someone (or everyone)
> : please provide a short description of the game. I like games like
> : Kingmaker, Diplomacy and RoR. Based on the comments I might like
> : Illuminati too.
> lluminati is by Steve Jackson Games. The original version is out of
> print. :-( The only version available now is the CCG version,
> Illuminati: New World Order (INWO).
> The basic idea in Illuminati is each player represents a faction of
> Illuminati (the secret master who REALLY control everything, such as
> the Bavarian Illumiati, Gnomes of Zurich, etc.) Each Illuminati has a
> special power and special goal. The Illuminati attempt to control
> groups like the Post Office, the Mafia, the SF Fans, etc. Each group is
> represented on cards with arrows showing the control of each puppet to
> their master, and ultimately to their Illuminati.
> What makes the game fun is the satirical bent of the groups and the
> interaction of the players. Each opposing player can affect the
> takeover attempt of the group by spending money (Income is received each
> turn) or playing various event cards included in the deck. Often
> players had to team up to fight off an attempt at victory.
> The object is to control a certain number of groups or meet your
> Illuminati's goal (The Gnomes was accumulate 150 MB of money, etc.)
> The new CCG version INWO did several things:
> - Added much better artwork
> - Eliminated Money
> - Gave each group a special advantage and an action token to its power
> or special advantage.
> - Greatly increased the number of groups and "plots" event cards.
> - Separated the plots into a separate deck.
> - Added lots of chrome, GOAL card, New World Order cards which change
> the game.
> - Made it a deck building game (a la Magic.)
> Of all of the changes, the deck building was the worst change because it
> encourages building decks that simply don't interact at all. The best
> way to play INWO (IMHO) is to buy the complete set (403 unique group
> cards with 3*each of the 9 Illuminati) and play a one large deck game
> a lot like the original game. (another alternative is to buy several
> starter decks (each has 110 cards and play the same type of game, but
> then you will probably have duplicates and/or missing some fun cards)
> A few rules will ahve to be treaked with either version.
I probably shouldn't respond to this (since it's getting off-topic),
but I have to say that while one CAN build INWO decks that don't interact
with each other, they're not the best decks possible. I'll undertake
to beat up to 5 other players who are playing with non-interactive decks,
using an interactive deck. The decks that did well at GenCon were
most certainly interactive.
> Overall, I like the original version a little better because the game is
> better balanced. The new version has too many cards that require
> specific cards to use their advantages (which in a big deck game may
> never come up.) It is much better than playing it as a CCG.
> --
> Richard Irving rr...@pge.com
> I don't like disclaimers, but I have to put them in. The opinions here
> are my own and not necessarily PG&E's.
> (As if it had any opinions about this stuff!)
> Made with recycled electrons.
--
_______________________________________________________________________
Dan Blum to...@mcs.com
"I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't just made it up."
_______________________________________________________________________
Gary J. Robinson
: The problem is that Civil War is still potentially devastating except
: to the most advanced civilizations. Since in an average game it's
: only going to come out 3-4 times, this means that only half of the
: people (at most) have to face it, and the first time it comes out
: the recipient is usually too small for it to be a big problem.
: Thus the disaster really can act as the "hand of fate" coming
: down against you - a late game Civil War is usually a death sentence.
: There are variant rules to tone it down, although I haven't played
: with them. Making the disaster less disasterous might also eliminate
: the need for some people to keep track of it in the stack...
: Any opinions about this?
Yes, I share your opinion. I have come across two workable solutions,
depending on your taste:
a) My solution is to change Civil War. Instead of the normal effect, it
renders the person drawing it unable to trade that round. He can spend
trade cards as normal, he just can't trade them at all. If he draws more
than two calamities, Civil War always happens, plus one other random one.
Keep any unused calamities face down so other players won't know what they
are. The cards that usually reduce Civil War's effects (such as Drama and
Poetry) still do, but in this fashion: for each increment of 5 points that
the card would normally add to the player's faction, it instead allows him
to keep one extra trade card in his hand above the normal 8 limit during a
Civil War. Thus someone who would normally get to add 10 to his faction
under the old Civil War, instead gets to keep 10 trade cards instead of 8
at the end of his turn. We have found that this change works quite well.
b) Another solution is to play with a more "crowded" (smaller) board, so
that most civs are really small, and thus are not hit very hard by a civil
war because their own faction is such a large proportion of the whole that
Civil War becomes little more than a nuisance. Of course, this is not an
option for those who really like playing with those Dye, Gem, Gold and
Ivory cards....
+-----------------------------+
| Gary J. Robinson | "Care for a game?" - Lady Sylvia Marsh
| grob...@mailer.fsu.edu \ _______________________
| Gary's Wargaming Page: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~grobinso \
+---------------------------------+-----------------------+
BenF
> grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) wrote:
>
> >How many of you, when playing Civilization or Advanced Civilization,
> >"count cards" so as to avoid Civil War, Piracy and other calamities by
> >reducing your number of cities so as to avoid drawing one of these cards?
>
> I havn't play regular Civ in a long time, but I NEVER bother with this in
> Advanced Civ, and I usually do pretty well. Of course, I may be playing with
> people who don't do this either.
The first Civil War will be the 17th "4" card. Since the first Civil War
is much worse than any others, it makes sense to count cards. In AvalonCon,
the Civil War is mixed in with two other cards and placed on the bottom
of the 4-deck. This is done to avoid card counting.
Actually, I was the reason they started this practice. In a game I played
with the moderator, I had the "Civil War Countdown" (I wasn't going to get
it). The moderator was horrified that I was counting 4-cards to avoid
that calamity. He asked me if I though other players were card
counting. "I would be surprised if they weren't.", was my response. In
the next game, the finals, he instituted the current policy.
BenF
> Tom Leete (le...@mail.med.upenn.edu) wrote:
> : The problem is that Civil War is still potentially devastating except
> : to the most advanced civilizations. Since in an average game it's
> : only going to come out 3-4 times, this means that only half of the
> : people (at most) have to face it, and the first time it comes out
> : the recipient is usually too small for it to be a big problem.
The number of times a Civil War occurs varies according to the game. In
the usual 8 player game, it will occur about 6-8 times. Actually the
first time it happens the recipient usually doesn't have defenses. I
usually have 8 or 9 cities when the Civil War hits, so I am not any
smaller. So the first time it hits it can be devastating.
> : Thus the disaster really can act as the "hand of fate" coming
> : down against you - a late game Civil War is usually a death sentence.
Huh??? A late game Civil War usually doesn't hurt much unless you have
Philosophy. Once I get Democracy, I scoff at Civil Wars.
> : There are variant rules to tone it down, although I haven't played
> : with them. Making the disaster less disasterous might also eliminate
> : the need for some people to keep track of it in the stack...
> : Any opinions about this?
> Yes, I share your opinion. I have come across two workable solutions,
> depending on your taste:
>
> a) My solution is to change Civil War. Instead of the normal effect, it
> renders the person drawing it unable to trade that round. He can spend
> trade cards as normal, he just can't trade them at all. If he draws more
> than two calamities, Civil War always happens, plus one other random one.
> Keep any unused calamities face down so other players won't know what they
> are. The cards that usually reduce Civil War's effects (such as Drama and
> Poetry) still do, but in this fashion: for each increment of 5 points that
> the card would normally add to the player's faction, it instead allows him
> to keep one extra trade card in his hand above the normal 8 limit during a
> Civil War. Thus someone who would normally get to add 10 to his faction
> under the old Civil War, instead gets to keep 10 trade cards instead of 8
> at the end of his turn. We have found that this change works quite well.
No way, I will take the standard Civil War disaster over this any day.
Gary J. Robinson
: > a) My solution is to change Civil War. Instead of the normal effect, it
: > renders the person drawing it unable to trade that round. He can spend
: > trade cards as normal, he just can't trade them at all. If he draws more
: > than two calamities, Civil War always happens, plus one other random one.
: > Keep any unused calamities face down so other players won't know what they
: > are. The cards that usually reduce Civil War's effects (such as Drama and
: > Poetry) still do, but in this fashion: for each increment of 5 points that
: > the card would normally add to the player's faction, it instead allows him
: > to keep one extra trade card in his hand above the normal 8 limit during a
: > Civil War. Thus someone who would normally get to add 10 to his faction
: > under the old Civil War, instead gets to keep 10 trade cards instead of 8
: > at the end of his turn. We have found that this change works quite well.
: No way, I will take the standard Civil War disaster over this any day.
: - Ben
Suit yourself. In our games, no one ever won after getting Civil War late
in the game under the original rules. But several times people have
gotten the "no trading" version late in the game and still won. I vastly
prefer it to the Russian Roulette nature of the original Civil War.
Dr. Teeth
grob...@mailer.fsu.edu (Gary J. Robinson) writes:
>
>Suit yourself. In our games, no one ever won after getting Civil War late
>in the game under the original rules. But several times people have
>gotten the "no trading" version late in the game and still won. I vastly
>prefer it to the Russian Roulette nature of the original Civil War.
I have found that one can cope very well against Civil War (in its
original form) simply by carefully managing one's resources. If you do it
right, you can usually manage to have more tokens in stock than anyone else,
thus making yourself the beneficiary of the CW. I still find the first CW to
occur the most debilitating, but I have won in games were the first 3-4 CWs
happened to ME. (Boy did I feel uncivil!) If a late game CW kills you, then
you're doing something wrong. By then you should have the tools to minimize
the loses to little or nothing.
|_
Oo\ Alex 'I've never lost a single game as Crete' Rhodes
Gary J. Robinson
: I have found that one can cope very well against Civil War (in its
: right, you can usually manage to have more tokens in stock than anyone else,
: thus making yourself the beneficiary of the CW.
"Carefully managing one's resources" - is this a euphemism for counting
cards? Or do you try to end every turn with more tokens in stock than
everyone else? Give me a break.
:I still find the first CW to
: occur the most debilitating,
I don't. I'd much rather get Civil War when I have 5 or 6 cities than
when I have 9.
:but I have won in games were the first 3-4 CWs
: happened to ME. (Boy did I feel uncivil!) If a late game CW kills you, then
: you're doing something wrong.
Everyone I have ever played Civ with would laugh out loud at that
statement. I guess we're all doing something wrong. Then again,
considering that this is the one card everyone seems to hate, and many
people count cards to avoid, perhaps you're the one who's wrong. I get
the feeling that you play with crowded boards. There is no way, in a
neck-and-neck game where everyone has nine cities, that a late Civil War
is not going to be devastating. Actions by other players, and earlier
calamities, can remove your fine control over how many tokens you have in
stock, as well.
:By then you should have the tools to minimize
: the loses to little or nothing.
Ridiculous.
: |_
: Oo\ Alex 'I've never lost a single game as Crete' Rhodes
Winning in Civ is often a question of what other people let you get away
with. It sounds to me like you are playing with people who are letting
you get away with something. If I was playing with you, I'd buy Military,
always go after you, and disrupt your careful token-counting.
David Michael Kass
Gary J. Robinson <grob...@mailer.fsu.edu> wrote:
>BenF (bf...@access2.digex.net) wrote:
>: > a) My solution is to change Civil War. Instead of the normal effect, it
>: > renders the person drawing it unable to trade that round. He can spend
>: > trade cards as normal, he just can't trade them at all. If he draws more
>: > than two calamities, Civil War always happens, plus one other random one.
>: > Keep any unused calamities face down so other players won't know what they
>: > are. The cards that usually reduce Civil War's effects (such as Drama and
>: > Poetry) still do, but in this fashion: for each increment of 5 points that
>: > the card would normally add to the player's faction, it instead allows him
>: > to keep one extra trade card in his hand above the normal 8 limit during a
>: > Civil War. Thus someone who would normally get to add 10 to his faction
>: > under the old Civil War, instead gets to keep 10 trade cards instead of 8
>: > at the end of his turn. We have found that this change works quite well.
>
>: No way, I will take the standard Civil War disaster over this any day.
I'll agree with Ben here...
>Suit yourself. In our games, no one ever won after getting Civil War late
>in the game under the original rules. But several times people have
>gotten the "no trading" version late in the game and still won. I vastly
>prefer it to the Russian Roulette nature of the original Civil War.
The only times when I've seen the Civil War keep a player from winning are
either when the same player gets it twice in a row (at any point in the
game really) or when in a close race, an overextended second place player
gets it on the second to last turn of the game. If the players are running
neck in neck in good shape, it usually isn't much worse than any other
calamity. Its when the second player over extended (say to attack the first
place player or gambled on building the 9th city when he didn't really have
the resources to support it) that they get severely affected by it... As
far as getting it twice in a row, most major calamities, if gotten twice in
a row, will really hammer a player (especially barbarians and piracy).
Are you one of the groups who feel that nine cities are necessary to win? I've
seen many games won by a player who usually only had 7 or maybe 8 cities a
turn through most of the game. With only 7 or 8 cities, civil war usually
only costs two, maybe three, cities and is not really much worse than CD,
I&H or Piracy. It does require a bit of knowledge to decide exactly which
cities/tokens to choose for your faction. Do you want interior units, border
units, tokens, cities. This requires figuring out the benificiary first. Do
they only have a few cities? then leave them lots to choose from... I find
that Music and D&P are to be purchases as soon as 6 cities are reached (if not
earlier). For most Civs, they represent one of my three colors...
--
David Kass Caltech Grad Student
E-Mail: dk...@cco.caltech.edu Planetary Science
Research: dk...@venus1.gps.caltech.edu