Civilization -- the Board Game??

[Silmarillion]

Supposedly out in August. Anyone know anything about it? Here's all I have:

http://pub50.ezboard.com/fthrashersaxisandalliesforumsfrm3.showMessage?topicID=37.topic

Saw it on rec.games.board.....


joe

[yin26]

LOL! I just love all the people thinking it's too good to be true when, in fact, the computer game ALREADY IS a rip-off of a board game!

[Mannamagnus]

I bought civilization (the boardgame) some fifteen years ago. Didn't play it too much though because it took too long to finish.

[Grumbold]

I want more than one person posting on a board saying he knows no details before getting excited. Its certainly possible to make a game of cities, expansion and military conflict but it would have to be significantly different to the computer game to be playable.

The old Avalon Hill Civilization game is very good, but it does take even experienced players a long time to play. I have fond memories of playing all night games of it at college. The expansion set made the game a bit faster to play but weakened its gameplay IMO.

[Zoid]

The original AH Civilization boardgame came out in 1982 and is one of my all time favourite boardgames alongside Brittannia, Machiavelli (like Diplomacy with plauge and economy...), Republic of Rome, Settlers and History of the World

[Seghillian]

"The original AH Civilization boardgame came out in 1982"

Except that it wasn't original. The original game "Civilisation" of which the AH version was an exact copy, was originally published in the UK by Hartland Trefoil, a company belonging to Francis Tresham a guy with a genius for boardgame design. He sold it to AH. It is a great game as you say. The Sid Meier game is certainly not a "rip-off " of this boardgame but did act as an inspiration in prompting Sid to design the first Civ.

Francis Tresham also published the railroad game 1829 (about UK rails) and AH liked it and had him design 1830 the USA rails version. Brilliant games and the inspiration for Sid to do "Railroad Tycoon".

This new boardgame sounds interesting - a boardgame based on a computer game that was inspired by a boardgame. Movie next?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Kamrat X
The original AH Civilization boardgame came out in 1982 and is one of my all time favourite boardgames alongside Brittannia, Machiavelli (like Diplomacy with plauge and economy...), Republic of Rome, Settlers and History of the World

I think we share a board game collection...

Civilization was great, particularly if you had a gaming table where you could leave it set up. If you split the game into 2 or 3 sessions, its length was no concern!

[Barnacle Bill]

Sid's original Civ computer game owed more to "Empire" than the boardgame "Civilization". I'm having a hard time thinking of a single thing from the boardgame that appeared in the computer game:

Board game has no military units, just tokens representing (IIRC, depending on where there were at the time) population or money. Combat was essentially mutual annihilation of tokens occuppying the same map area. Sid Meier's Civ, on the other hand, copied the modern military units and how they work directly from "Empire" and apparently worked backwards from there to get the pre-modern ones.

BG map covered only the Mediterranean world, and consisted of rather large areas (akin to provinces in EU, except IIRC larger in terms of territoty per province), rather than a regular grid of tiles.

Cities were placed in areas specifically designated as city sites, if there was enough population there already, and replaced some of the population tokens, and had to be broken down if the population fell below so minimum (conceptiually not unlike hotels vs houses in Monopoly).

There was a lot of drawing & trading & passing of cards, which had to be accumulated to make tech advances and could trigger events like plagues & earthquakes.

The primary impact of the boardgame on computer civ is that legal shenanigans regarding rightfully ownership of the copyrighted name "Civilization" let Activision get away with calling CTP1 "Civilization: CTP", thus confusing consumers into thinking it was actually a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization. Activision bought the rights to use the name "Civilization" for a computer game from the owner of the boardgame and thus maintained in court that they, not Microprose, had the legal right to call their computer game "Civilization" (CTP was a Civ-too knock-off, though, not a computer port of the boardgame - AH did produce a computer port of the boardgame but only sold about 3 copies). Microprose (or whoever owned them by that time) then trumped Activision by buying AH. The legal settlement allowed Activistion to continue to call CTP1 "Civilization" but not its sequels.

[Grumbold]

I don't know who bought the other two but I have a copy of Advanced Civilization, the genuine computer game port of the boardgame A very good game as I recall. The mathematical simplicity of the expansion and combat sequences meant the AI could provide significant challenge to the human player(s). The only part I found dissatisfying was the trade bargaining because it could not match the spice of negotiating face to face with live opponents.

Certainly the only part of the game that makes it into Sid's epic is the concentration on cities producing wealth that you can use to acquire technology and the tech tree approach to learning more and more advanced ideas.

[Barnacle Bill]

I didn't mean to imply that it was a bad game - just that it was commercially unsuccessful. That tends to be the case with board game ports to the PC.

[Grumbold]

You're right. They expect only the boardgame market to have heard of it, so don't put out large adverts, so it gets niche reviews and no-one buys it because it isnt a flash FPS or RTS. I believe the German version did very well though - their game playing public is huge by comparison to the UK and US in percentage terms.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq

I think we share a board game collection...

[Dauphin]

"History of the World "

Thats a great game, unfortunately very few people have ever wanted to play it. So I don't get to play very often

Another one of my favourites is Campaign. A truly brilliant game.

"Francis Tresham also published the railroad game 1829 (about UK rails"

Hoo, Hoo!! I love that game, you have to visit various stations/locations throughout Britain. For some reason a lot of people ended up with measles in John O'Grotts, or checking out sheepdog trials in Perth.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
"History of the World "

Thats a great game, unfortunately very few people have ever wanted to play it. So I don't get to play very often

Too bad you don´t live in my neighborhood, no one wants to play with me either. Once a year at GothCon just isn´t enough...
At least I have the computer game, but it´s a poor substitute...

[Silmarillion]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I want more than one person posting on a board saying he knows no details before getting excited.

How about this then:

• http://www.eaglegames.net/news/pr_5.html
  

with slightly more info at:

• http://www.eaglegames.net/products/products.html
  

It's official, folks! Due out in August -- sounds interesting, to say the least. Damn few details, though...

Note: I've nothing to do with Eagle Games. Never heard of them before this. I'm just an avid Civ player and board gamer.

Also, for those who are interested in Civ-like board games, is a game from France that I am anxiously waiting for:

• http://faidutti.free.fr/jeux/article...renostrum.html
  

with, again, more info at:

• http://faidutti.free.fr/jeux/articles/3jeux/3jeux.html
  

Bruno (the reviewer) is a game designer himself of some note, so if he says it's good, it's certainly worth looking at!


joe