FOFC Advanced Civilization Board Game

[Passacaglia]

The game begins!

The first step is to choose which civilization you want.

The options are

Africa
Asia
Assyria
Crete
Egypt
Iberia
Illyria
Thrace

I could have swore that the rules say that you should only have one of Asia and Assyria in the game (see how they are so close to each other on the map. If that's the case, I don't know why they even had both civs -- might as well just have Assyria. Anyway, I skimmed the rules the other day and didn't see any mention of that, so maybe I'm crazy.

Anyway, the computer randomly generated the order. We have:

1. Warhammer
2. britrock
3. Autumn
4. Passacaglia
5. tarcone
6. Furrball (Warhammer's friend)

I'm envisioning a pretty friendly game, so players should feel free to ask any questions they come across. Questions or comments from the peanut gallery are welcome, too.

[Autumn]

Awesome, I was just going to suggest setting up a thread for this, but you've done even better. This is great, we can kind of help the newbies like myself along here, and then get more competitive as we know what we're doing ;-)

[Passacaglia]

One note to begin. The site is pretty good about letting you input your orders even if it's not your turn. For example, you can make all your movements, and save them until it's your turn and you can review then, or just submit them, then when it's your turn, the computer knows the moves you want to make. You can also submit unless there's a conflict -- so as long as you're not attacked, or your movements don't attack anyone else, it'll do your turn.

With choosing a civ, you can't do a waiting list, but you can submit one choice, and as long as that choice isn't taken, the computer will claim it for you when it's your turn.

[Passacaglia]

Awesome, I was just going to suggest setting up a thread for this, but you've done even better. This is great, we can kind of help the newbies like myself along here, and then get more competitive as we know what we're doing ;-)

Thanks! I was thinking screen shots would be cool too, though I'm not great with them. I assume I need to store them on some site before I can post them? That seems like effort.

[Passacaglia]

Oh, another note about screen shots -- I was just thinking about the map, really, and maybe the AST table which shows the score. Just some minor flair to possibly get others watching interested in the game. I think you'll get a warning about this when the time comes, but it's considered a no-no to give a screen shot of your deck (or show the email with your deck in it) to prove what's in your hand. I think the idea is that lying about your hand is just supposed to be part of the game, and we don't want the truth getting in the way.

[Passacaglia]

Here's some info from the "Rankings" tab on the site.

Babylon -- 56 wins
Crete -- 41 wins
Assyria -- 40 wins
Egypt -- 39 wins
Thrace -- 27 wins
Illyria -- 26 wins
Africa -- 25 wins
Iberia -- 21 wins
Asia -- 10 wins

Babylon is not an option in our game. I chose a map that doesn't include it, to accommodate the fact that we have 6 players. If we get a 2nd game going that has 8, it'll include Babylon. Or if we do a second game of 6, we can have it include Babylon, and we'll all just be a bit more spread out. Although I think that can get unfair, since some civs will have more room to wander than others. Just my opinion, though. Also note that not every civ is in every game (there are 9 civs and the max players in a game is 8), and there's no info here about how many games each civ was involved in.

I find it interesting that Crete is so high -- starting on an island makes expansion difficult and results in a slow start, but they do have some other advantages to counter that.

[Passacaglia]

More info, and I guess this does say how many times each civ was involved in a game:

Babylon -- average rank 3.54, 249 games
Egypt -- average rank 3.76, 257 games
Assyria -- average rank 3.89, 203 games
Crete -- average rank 3.97, 236 games
Asia -- average rank 4.19, 84 games
Africa -- average rank 4.23, 261 games
Iberia -- average rank 4.37, 250 games
Thrace -- average rank 4.43, 192 games
Illyria -- average rank 4.69, 252 games

But what this doesn't tell us is how many civs were in each game -- could be anywhere from 3-8 in each game. So a 3rd place finish in a 3-player game is a lot worse than a 3rd place finish in an 8-player game.

[Passacaglia]

Anyway, all that said, my advice is to choose the civ you think you'll have the most fun with.

[britrock88]

I still consider myself a newbie, but in the build-up to this game, I did jump in a couple others on the site. To this point, I've learned a little bit about the early stages of the game (namely, territorial expansion and initial city building). We'll see if I can contribute anything here. :)

[britrock88]

By the way, the selections so far--

1. Warhammer - Egypt
2. britrock - Crete
3. Autumn
4. Passacaglia
5. tarcone
6. Furrball

[Autumn]

I took Assyria. Go Assyrians!

[Passacaglia]

Illyria checking in.

[Passacaglia]

Weird that I didn't get an email saying that Autumn's selection had been made, and mine as well. I guess no action is required, but would have been nice to be told, especially since I got an alert about Warhammer's and brit's pick.

[britrock88]

Wonder if it's because there are no time limits? Or maybe this is peculiar to initial placement. *shrug*

FYI, Tarc, you're up. (In case you didn't get an email, either.)

[Passacaglia]

Could be -- maybe they figured that since my turn was already made, they didn't need to bother notifying me.

[Passacaglia]

Looks like tarcone checked in here last night, but didn't make his move there. I sent him a PM.

[Warhammer]

I don't think Crete is that bad. I actually like them a lot, as you can play fairly aggressive and be able to justify it, much more so than say Egypt.

[tarcone]

WE ARE IBERIA! IBERIANS RULE!

I havent really checked the rules yet.
After initial placement then what? Do we place all 55 tokens or do those get used throughout the game?

[Autumn]

They get used during the game, as population expands. There's an expansion phase each turn.

[CrimsonFox]

I will Babylon and on...

[Passacaglia]

WE ARE IBERIA! IBERIANS RULE!

I havent really checked the rules yet.
After initial placement then what? Do we place all 55 tokens or do those get used throughout the game?

As Autumn said, there's a population expansion phase each turn. Your population essentially doubles, although each territory has a max growth of 2. So, for example, the nearest territories that can hold more than 2 are Aquitania and Narbo, which can each hold 3. If you have 3 dudes in there, it'll only grow to 5 -- and since it can only hold 3, you'd want to move them out once it grows to 5, otherwise they'll die.

Basically, your 55 tokens are split between three groups -- population, treasury, and stock. You start with all 55 tokens in stock, and now you've turned one of them into population.

Population is important because you use them to create cities. Cities are important because the more cities you have the more (and better) trade cards you get. Trade cards are important because you use them to "buy" technology. Technology is important because a) it makes your civ more powerful and b) it's a major component of your final score. Population is also important because you need it to support your cities -- for each city you have, you need to have two population tokens on the map (sort of an urban/rural balance, I guess), otherwise a city or two will go into revolt. Tokens become population mainly through the expansion phase I mentioned earlier. Tokens leave population mainly through city-building (put 6 tokens in a province and you remove the tokens and put in a city), and dying off from overpopulating a province (either as a result of conflict or not).

Treasury is important for buying technology and building ships. Well, you can build ships with population too, but since population can do more things, it's not done often (although you might see Crete do it in order to get off the island fast). And for buying technology, it's more like the pocket change, while trade cards are like the dollar bills. Tokens become treasury through taxation -- every turn, you take two tokens from stock and put them in your treasury. The max amount of cities you can have is 9, which would mean 18 tokens going from stock to treasury. Tokens leave treasury through buying technology or ships.

It may not seem like it, but stock is important, too. I talked about taxation earlier -- two tokens per city going from stock to treasury. It's not cool if you don't have enough in your stock -- if you don't, cities will revolt again. Stock is also nice because if it runs low, your population expansion won't be as much as it could be. Maybe that's not a big deal since the tokens are out there in some sense, but sometimes it blows to think you're going to get a big population increase, only to realize a bunch is in treasury and your stock is low.

A lot of this stuff changes as you get technologies, too -- but when you see the effect of that technology when you're shopping, hopefully this (and reading the rules) help you to understand what those effects are.

[Passacaglia]

And, furrball is up. Warhammer, you can tell him about this forum and thread and see if he's interested -- would probably be nice to get everyone in on the discussion.

[Passacaglia]

I will Babylon and on...

I'll try not to give you the squeeze too much on convincing you to join the next game!

[CrimsonFox]

I'll try not to give you the squeeze too much on convincing you to join the next game!


;)

[CrimsonFox]

Oh wait. Does that mean I'm too late to join? :( Pooh!

[Passacaglia]

Hey Warhammer, and word on furrball?

[Passacaglia]

Furrball is in and has selected Thrace!

Pity, I had him pegged for Africa, to be near his buddy. Now Warhammer's got a lot of room to expand.

Anyway, here's the gang:

Tarc [ Iberia ]
passacaglia [ Illyria ]
furrball [ Thrace ]
britrock88 [ Crete ]
Autumn [ Assyria ]
Warhammer [ Egypt ]

[Passacaglia]

And we're ready to begin!

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

Collect taxes -- two tokens go from stock to treasury for each city. Since no one has cities, we move along, and also don't worry about cities going into revolt.

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

Population expansion -- everyone increases their population from 1 to 2.

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

Census -- Everyone has 2 units.

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

Ships cost two tokens, either from treasury or population. No one would be stupid enough to spend both population tokens on a ship, since that would kill their civilization. We move on.

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

Movement -- this is done in Census order, meaning the person with the highest population goes first, and the person with the lowest population goest last. We've all got the same population, and I don't know what the tiebreaker is, but tarcone is up.

[Autumn]

I think the tiebreaker is just what order they're listed in the AST track.

[Autumn]

So for the new guys (like me), just keep in mind you now have two tokens on the board. You can move one, both or neither. However make sure you don't leave them in a territory that can't support them (so at this point, don't leave two tokens on a space with a one on it).

[Passacaglia]

Good point. Also, we can all make our turns now -- it's unlikely that our movements will depend on what others are doing, so we can get our orders in now, instead of just waiting for tarcone.

[CrimsonFox]

Okay then, I'll just cheer on whoever's the underdog.
If anyone needs to drop out and needs a sub let me know.

[tarcone]

I need help Crimson. I am flying blind right now. You can be my Vice king. :)

[Passacaglia]

Okay then, I'll just cheer on whoever's the underdog.
If anyone needs to drop out and needs a sub let me know.

Sorry, I didn't know you were serious! I figured anyone interested would have been reading the Board Games thread and would have had a chance to join already. I'm fine restarting if others are, and maybe we can pick up an 8th by creating a thread in General Discussion.

[Passacaglia]

All movement has been complete. Nothing too interesting, but if someone wants to post a screen shot for those not playing, that'd be cool. My company's internet filter won't let me post one.

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

I'll blow through these in one shot, since most don't apply in the 1st few rounds.

Conflict -- No Conflict.
City construction -- No one has enough population to build a city yet (6 in a territory with a square in it are needed, 12 in a territory with no square)
Remove surplus population -- No surplus population
Trade card acquisition -- You get one card per city. Since no one has any cities, no one gets any trade cards.
Trade -- Since no one has any trade cards, no one is going to trade them this round.
Resolve Calamities -- Some of the trade cards are calamities. Whoever ends up with those cards in his has bad things happen to them. Since no one has any trade cards, we skip this, too.
Acquisition of Civilization Cards -- This is done with trade cards (which have a point value based on how many of each type you have) and treasury. No one has either of these, so we skip this.

Movement of Succession Markers on the AST -- This is a big one. The winner of the game is determined by points, and you get 100 points for each space you move up on the AST. You also get 50 points for each city you currently possess, the total points you've accumulated in civilization cards, and 1 point for each treasury token. For the first few rounds, there's no requirement to move up a space, but that changes as we move on to a new Epoch.

Epoch Entry Requirements:
Stone Age - none.
Early Bronze Age - two cities in play.
Late Bronze Age - three cities in play and ownership of at least three groups of civilization cards (i.e., three of the five colors must be present). Remember that some cards belong to and count as two groups.
Early Iron Age - four cities in play and ownership of at least nine civilization cards, including civilization cards from all five groups (i.e., all five colors must be present).
Late Iron Age - five cities in play. Each space in the Late Iron Age contains a point value. To enter such a space, the value of a player's civilization cards must at least equal the value printed in the space. Commodity cards and treasury are not counted.
END - The same city requirement as the Late Iron Age (5 cities)

Different civs need to reach the next Epoch at different points, so y'all should check out the AST tab in the game (look for it on the top of the screen). That tab also provides a running score -- right now, we're all tied at 100.

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

No cities, so no taxes
Everyone's population has expanded from 2 to 4
Census -- all of us have 4

Ship building begins! None of us have any treasury yet, but we can now build a ship using 2 population if we want.

[Autumn]

So I have a question. My tokens in Siwa (in Egypt) only seem to be able to move to the left. It won't allow me to move on to Upper Egypt, for example, or Western Desert. I can't find anything in the rules that explains why there would be a restriction there.

[Passacaglia]

So I have a question. My tokens in Siwa (in Egypt) only seem to be able to move to the left. It won't allow me to move on to Upper Egypt, for example, or Western Desert. I can't find anything in the rules that explains why there would be a restriction there.

Are you talking about a different game? What happens when you try to move them?

[Autumn]

Yes, sorry, I joined another game as Egypt, I forgot I was looking at that one. When I click on the unit it shows the arrows (I have that turend on) and it doesn't have any pointing to the right. If I try to click on the right, nothing happens. Just a glitch?

[Passacaglia]

Could be, I guess. But you can move to Jalo or Cyrenacia?

Try clicking on 'problem' to report it. From what I recall when I played a year ago, the guy who runs the site was pretty good about looking into things quickly.

[Autumn]

Turns out that part of the board is out of bounds since it's only a 5 player game. I thought there would be some kind of indicator. Good to know for anyone playing other games.

[Autumn]

Okay, so I didn't realize this, and figured it was just a glitch, so I'll let another new players know. The normal map view only scrolls over to the right to the edge of the legal territory. Since we only have six players the area further than that is out of play. If you zoom in you can scroll over there, so I had assumed it was part of the map but the site was glitched. But I was wrong. It probably only impacts me for the most part since I'm on that side. Screwed me a little bit but I guess I"ll figure it out.

[CrimsonFox]

I need help Crimson. I am flying blind right now. You can be my Vice king. :)


Viceking sounds great. :) But only if I get a cool robe.

So is this actual software you are using that everyone has? I thought it was a board game that Pass had and no one else needed it? And yes Pass I'm interested but I don't have any softw3are (but could get some if it isn't pricey). I do have Civ 2 and Civ 3.

[Autumn]

http://civ.rol-play.com/

It's run through this site, CF.

[CrimsonFox]

Neat site!

[Passacaglia]

Okay, so I didn't realize this, and figured it was just a glitch, so I'll let another new players know. The normal map view only scrolls over to the right to the edge of the legal territory. Since we only have six players the area further than that is out of play. If you zoom in you can scroll over there, so I had assumed it was part of the map but the site was glitched. But I was wrong. It probably only impacts me for the most part since I'm on that side. Screwed me a little bit but I guess I"ll figure it out.

Is this a 2nd reason to start over? I'm cool with that -- we can include CF, and maybe even grab an 8th.

[path12]

I haven't played board Civ in decades but I'd be up for an 8th if you guys end up restarting -- or for the next game. Cool site.

[Passacaglia]

path, good to see you! I'll give it until Monday for people to make an objection, and if no one objects, I'll start us over.

[britrock88]

Sure, start it over, but don't kill the first game over on the website. We could just play that one out without the dynasty thread's attention.

[tarcone]

Im lost. So using the 1st game as a learning tool might help me.

[tarcone]

And a start over would be ok by me

[britrock88]

(from another game)
Any advice on how risk-averse to be regarding tradeable calamities? I have a Treachery (2) that I'm trying to get rid of for something like an even deal, and I'm worried I could pull an Epidemic (6) from the other guy.

[Autumn]

I don't exactly mind starting over, since nothing has happened really. But let's make sure everyone's really raring to go. It's going to be slow anyway, but it would help if everyone would take a peek every day at least to see if their turn is coming up.

[Warhammer]

I say let's start over, I don't think Furrball will have any objection, he was complaining about a mistake he made a turn or two ago (then again, he always complains when he makes a mistake).

[Autumn]

Yeah I don't mind, because I screwed myself with my initial movements, not realizing how close to the border I was.

[Passacaglia]

All right, let's do this. CF and path, sign up on the site and add me as a friend.

[Passacaglia]

(from another game)
Any advice on how risk-averse to be regarding tradeable calamities? I have a Treachery (2) that I'm trying to get rid of for something like an even deal, and I'm worried I could pull an Epidemic (6) from the other guy.

Well, you get a potential gain by trading Treachery, unless he trades it to somene else. And Epidemic is not so bad, since while you lose 16 units, you can make some others lose 10 -- maybe your neighbors, or someone who's winning. I'd rather take the gamble of being calamity-free (thus trading away my calamity), instead of worrying about which calamity I end up with.

[CrimsonFox]

okay I accepted the thing it told me to accept. I'm you friend. Now what do I do.

[CrimsonFox]

And thanks guys. You are the coolest of the cool.

[Passacaglia]

Wait until path sends me a friend request, then I'll start the game. At that point, you should get an email telling you what to do. In the meantime, you can read the rules if you don't know them.

[path12]

Done, I think. It says unverified but I guess that will be when you accept it.

[britrock88]

Well, you get a potential gain by trading Treachery, unless he trades it to somene else. And Epidemic is not so bad, since while you lose 16 units, you can make some others lose 10 -- maybe your neighbors, or someone who's winning. I'd rather take the gamble of being calamity-free (thus trading away my calamity), instead of worrying about which calamity I end up with.

Took the gamble, didn't get burned, and somehow was able to use my trade of the Treachery to get a non-aggression pact out of the guy (my neighbor, Babylon, to my Assyria).

[Passacaglia]

Done, I think. It says unverified but I guess that will be when you accept it.

It's unverified on my end, too. I'm not sure what that means, but I know where to find you now. Starting the game.

I figure I'll make a new thread for "the" game, and we can use this one to discuss other games we're in (including our 6-player game).

[Autumn]

Damn, #7. I'm going to end up being New Jersey.

[Passacaglia]

Took the gamble, didn't get burned, and somehow was able to use my trade of the Treachery to get a non-aggression pact out of the guy (my neighbor, Babylon, to my Assyria).

Congrats! Things had been going well for me in my other game. I'm Thrace, and rocking out with 7 cities. I've been trying my hand at counting cards, and I knew that both barbarian hordes and flood were in the Top 6. I thought that at least 6 others had 5 cities, but Crete and Illyria both has less than 5 cities, and I ended up drawing the 6th level 5 card -- of course it's Flood. And to pile on, I draw Epidemic with my level 6 card. At least that one is tradeable.

[Passacaglia]

So I'm trying my hand at counting cards. When I played this game a while back, I got an email from someone asking me not to build as many cities as I wanted to, since it meant that he would draw a non-tradeable calamity, and that he would make it worth my while. I forget whether or not I did it, but it made me wonder if I should be paying more attention to the trade deck.

So in my other game, we're in the 3rd round or so of trading -- I went back and skimmed through all my emails, and saw what people were saying they had and what they wanted, and what trades they made. And I've been paying attention to what cards were put back in the deck when civilization cards were purchased. I think it's really helped.

Is this kind of discussion something you want to see in the thread? I figure I can document one of our two games, though we should keep at least one game to be free of card discussion. Or if we want to keep both games free of card discussion, I can document how I've been doing in my other game. I guess it depends on how much we want to make our games a learning environment -- if so, discussion is probably fine. But if we want more gamesmanship, we probably shouldn't talk about it, and maybe even if I document what I'm seeing in the other game, people might think that's giving out too much info. Thoughts?

[Warhammer]

Depending on the stage of the game, you can have an idea of where the untradeable calamities are. That said, I think calamities are something you just roll with. Heck, if I get two, I tend to collect them to see what hits and what doesn't (since you can only get hit by two calamities a turn).

[CrimsonFox]

So I'm trying my hand at counting cards. When I played this game a while back, I got an email from someone asking me not to build as many cities as I wanted to, since it meant that he would draw a non-tradeable calamity, and that he would make it worth my while. I forget whether or not I did it, but it made me wonder if I should be paying more attention to the trade deck.

So in my other game, we're in the 3rd round or so of trading -- I went back and skimmed through all my emails, and saw what people were saying they had and what they wanted, and what trades they made. And I've been paying attention to what cards were put back in the deck when civilization cards were purchased. I think it's really helped.

Is this kind of discussion something you want to see in the thread? I figure I can document one of our two games, though we should keep at least one game to be free of card discussion. Or if we want to keep both games free of card discussion, I can document how I've been doing in my other game. I guess it depends on how much we want to make our games a learning environment -- if so, discussion is probably fine. But if we want more gamesmanship, we probably shouldn't talk about it, and maybe even if I document what I'm seeing in the other game, people might think that's giving out too much info. Thoughts?

It almost sounds like he was trying to threaten you without a threat. Yuk. Actually that kinda thing goes on in RL in games too. People whining and telling you to do or not do something while only trying to help themselves and I find it lame. I can guess it's even worse on the internet, especially to players that are new.Not a fan of that kind of "coersion".

[Passacaglia]

Congrats! Things had been going well for me in my other game. I'm Thrace, and rocking out with 7 cities. I've been trying my hand at counting cards, and I knew that both barbarian hordes and flood were in the Top 6. I thought that at least 6 others had 5 cities, but Crete and Illyria both has less than 5 cities, and I ended up drawing the 6th level 5 card -- of course it's Flood. And to pile on, I draw Epidemic with my level 6 card. At least that one is tradeable.

Update. I managed to trade away Epidemic to Egypt, and got my 3rd Silver in the process. Africa and Iberia had the remaining Silver, and Iberia traded his to Africa. I was pretty sure that Africa had Treachery, so I was happy to see him make that trade, so I could try to get the Silver from him and not worry about taking his Treachery. I offered him Wine, Salt, and Timber for 2 Silver and unspecified -- kind of a ripoff, but that was just to get an offer in there, let him know I'm interested, and ask what he wants. A few hours after I propose the trade, he accepts the offer -- immediately after a trade with Egypt, in which he got Epidemic, which he dealt back to me. Pretty savvy -- I was trying to be on top of that, but he did it while I was either on my way home or feeding babies, and even so, he probably did it all faster than I could cancel. And I'm not sure if I wanted to cancel -- Warhammer may be right that sometimes you just have to roll with the calamities and accept it, and now I have all 5 Silver. The good news is that Epidemic will be the last calamity, so I can distribute my damage in such a way that I eliminate as many cities as possible. It would have been nice to have a calamity that happens before Flood, though.

Crete is weirding me out in this game. They attacked me in Thrace and Paeonia, and left Appolonia without a city. They've got 12 cards, but haven't made a trade all game. I share a pretty large border with them, so I want to hurt them with Epidemic, but they're doing so badly -- 4 cities, 17 population, and no trading means they'll be lucky to get 1 crappy technology. But on the other hand, that attack was annoying.

[Passacaglia]

tarcone, FYI -- the first game is waiting on you.

[Passacaglia]

Update. I managed to trade away Epidemic to Egypt, and got my 3rd Silver in the process. Africa and Iberia had the remaining Silver, and Iberia traded his to Africa. I was pretty sure that Africa had Treachery, so I was happy to see him make that trade, so I could try to get the Silver from him and not worry about taking his Treachery. I offered him Wine, Salt, and Timber for 2 Silver and unspecified -- kind of a ripoff, but that was just to get an offer in there, let him know I'm interested, and ask what he wants. A few hours after I propose the trade, he accepts the offer -- immediately after a trade with Egypt, in which he got Epidemic, which he dealt back to me. Pretty savvy -- I was trying to be on top of that, but he did it while I was either on my way home or feeding babies, and even so, he probably did it all faster than I could cancel. And I'm not sure if I wanted to cancel -- Warhammer may be right that sometimes you just have to roll with the calamities and accept it, and now I have all 5 Silver. The good news is that Epidemic will be the last calamity, so I can distribute my damage in such a way that I eliminate as many cities as possible. It would have been nice to have a calamity that happens before Flood, though.

Crete is weirding me out in this game. They attacked me in Thrace and Paeonia, and left Appolonia without a city. They've got 12 cards, but haven't made a trade all game. I share a pretty large border with them, so I want to hurt them with Epidemic, but they're doing so badly -- 4 cities, 17 population, and no trading means they'll be lucky to get 1 crappy technology. But on the other hand, that attack was annoying.

WTF, Crete had Treachery, too, and still didn't trade. And it's not like this guy is totally inactive. Sure, he didn't respond when I asked him why he attacked me instead of building a city in Appolonia, but he's been making his moves, he left the market about midway through the trading period (although, he never posted what he has or what he wants). I'm just glad he's never had 6 cities, so he didn't have any of the Silver that I was collecting.

Stuff like this is why I wanted to play with people I know from this board. :)

[Passacaglia]

Depending on the stage of the game, you can have an idea of where the untradeable calamities are. That said, I think calamities are something you just roll with. Heck, if I get two, I tend to collect them to see what hits and what doesn't (since you can only get hit by two calamities a turn).

Just a note about this if you play in other games, it's pretty common on this site to play with "Stoic Option" which means that you can get hit by more than two calamities in a turn. Neither of the FOFC games use Stoic Option, though.

[CrimsonFox]

tarcone, FYI -- the first game is waiting on you.


So much pressure!

Actually this will be my first game here too. Can you give me a rundown of basic strategy and basic "how turns progress)

[Passacaglia]

1. Collect Taxes (possible city revolts)
2. Population Expansion
3. Census
4. Ship construction and maintenance
5. Movement
6. Conflict
7. City construction
8. Remove surplus population (check for city support)
9. Trade card acquisition
10. Trade
11. Resolve calamaties (check for city support)
12. Acquisition of civilization cards
13. Movement of succession markers on the AST

This is the list of what happens each round. I'll give a little basic description of what happens in each part.

1. Collect Taxes -- For each city you have, take two units from stock and put them in treasury. Treasury is nice, since you can buy ships and technology with it. If you don't have enough units in stock, whatever cities you can't afford to put in treasury go into revolt, and whatever civ has the most units in stock takes control of them. So you need to be careful how many units you've got on the map (population), in your treasury, and in stock. You can check this in the game by clicking on "AST" on the top of your screen.

2. Population Expansion -- Basically, your population doubles, with the exception that no territory grows more than 2. If you don't have enough units in stock to accommodate this, it's no big this time -- you just don't expand as much as you could have.

3. Census -- This is just record keeping. The next two phases are done in population order, with the highest population civ going first. In this phase we basically just set the order.

4. Ship Building and Maintenance -- It costs two units to build a ship, which can come from population or from treasury. It costs one unit to maintain a ship that was built in a previous round. You can have at most four ships on the board at a time. Ships can move four spaces per turn and hold 5 units.

5. Movement -- You can move each token one space (and each ship four spaces).

6. Conflict -- If units from two or more civs are in the same territory, there might be conflict. Conflict occurs if the total number of units is higher than the number pictured in the territory. Units are removed one at a time, with whoever has the least units in the territory going first, until the total number of units equals the number pictured in the territory. Cities can be attacked here also -- a city counts as 6 units (as long as the city owner has 6 units in stock).

7. City construction -- The territories with a black or white square in them are good city locations. If you have 6 units in one of those territories after the conflict phase is over, you can create a city with them. If the territory does not have a black or white square, it takes 12 units to put a city there. Here I'll warn against building a city too quickly. Once your population doubles enough so that you have 8 units, you can build a city, but then you'll be down to just 2 population. I find it best to wait a while to build cities until my population is as high as can be, then start.

8. Remove Surplus Population (check for city support) -- Kind of the same as conflict, but this just applies to a territory with just one civ in it, but has more units than it can hold. And there's a check for city support here -- you need to have two population for every city you've got. If you don't, you need to replace cities with population equal to the number it can hold until you've got two population for every city.

9. Trade card acquisition -- For each city you have, you get a trade card. There's 9 stacks, and you can have up to 9 cities, so for each city you have, you draw from the next stack. You want more cities not just so you can get more cards, but also because the cards in the higher stacks are more valuable. However, each stack has 1 or 2 calamities, and those get more harmful in the higher stacks, too.

10. Trade -- Here you trade your cards with other players. Basically, you're looking to collect sets, because the more you have of one card, the more points you get for it. The rule is that the number of points is equals the number of cards you have of that type squared, times the point value of the card.
So, for example, in my posts earlier, I was collecting Silver, which has a 6 point value (which also means it's in the 6th stack). If you've got 1 Silver card, it's worth 1x1x6=6 points. At some point in my posting, I had 3 Silver, so that's worth 3x3x6=54 points. In the end, I had 5 Silver, which is worth 5x5x6=150 points. If you click on "Trade Cards" at the top, and hold the mouse over each card name, you can see a picture of the card, which shows the value at each level. You'll also see your hand below that, once you acquire cards.
Trading works like this: You must trade at least three cards, and you must tell the truth about at least two of them. Generally, people like to use "Unspecified" for the third card -- this basically ensures that that third card is the non-truthful card, which means the other two must be truthful. Anyway, some of the calamities are tradeable, and if you ended up with one, that third untruthful card is where you get rid of it. Of course, when trading, you run the risk that someone trades a calamity to you as well.

11. Resolve Calamities -- After everyone is done trading, whoever has calamities in their hand does whatever the calamity requires -- usually it's something like losing cities or units. Also, there's another check for city support here, so you need to keep two population for every city still, which can get problematic, as a lot of population gets wiped out from the calamities.

12. Acquisition of Civilization Cards -- So you've traded your cards to get as many points as you can. Here's where you use them to "buy" technology. Each tech has a different price, and you can pay for it with your cards, and your treasury. Most of the technologies you buy also change a bunch of the rules that I've listed.

13. Movement of succession markers on the AST -- If you can, you move a spot up on the AST. You can click on AST to see the table, and below that you can see the rules for what you need to have to move up a table in each age -- usually either a certain number of cities, or a certain number of civiliation cards (technologies). The game ends when someone gets to the last space on the table, and the winner is the person with the most points, which is 100 points for every space you've moved up on the AST, 50 points for every city you have, 1 point for the point value of the civilization cards you've purchased, 1 point for every unit in your treasury, plus the value of the cards in your hand.

Hopefully that wasn't more detailed then you wanted, but I didn't want to leave too much out!

[CrimsonFox]

Bless you!

[CrimsonFox]

So these early moves we'll just all be going into unpopulated countries and taking them over with attacks if we have a number of units that can beat the number in the country?

[Passacaglia]

No. These unpopulated countries are empty, so you can just move into them. The number listed in each country is the number of units that it can hold*. So right now, the only units on the board are the ones we each put down when we claimed which civilization we want, and you can see the colored squares indicating those.

* -- The population can go above that number, during population expansion. The number it can hold only applies during the "conflict" and "remove surplus population" phases.

To make this more about you, you've got a unit in Corduba. It's going to expand to 2. Corduba can hold 2 units, so you can keep them both there, or you can move them. The first few rounds are a territory grab, so you'll want to move them. Your nearest neighbors are Illyria, which has a unit in Germany, and (assuming furrball selects them) Africa, which will start in a territory adjacent to the brown line. But Africa is not likely to build a ship for a while, so your prime concern is taking as much territory as you can from Illyria. Meaning it's probably best to move both units up that way. You could move them both into Hispania, but Hispania can only hold 1. So it might be better to put 1 in Hispania, and one in New Carthage. Then, next round, your population will expand again, and you'll have 2 each in Hispania and New Carthage -- and you'll want to make sure you move at least 1 out of Hispania, since it can only hold 1.

Also, I realized I forgot the City Construction phase. I'll edit.

[CrimsonFox]

Cool. So at the end of each turn you lose units if you have too many in a province? (over the number)

[Passacaglia]

Well, during Step 8. But I don't think it's possible to get above the number after Step 8, so yeah, effectively, at the end of each turn. But I guess it's important to note that if you're over the number in a province, you're going to lose those units before calamities happen.

But really, you shouldn't be over the number at all, since you just had the chance to move them all around. Although, it can happen if you're trying to build a city near your neighbor, and your neighbor moves in just enough units so that you go down to 5 in conflict -- then you don't have the 6 you need to build a city, and the 5 units you have left there is probably more than the territory can hold, so you lose the rest.

[CrimsonFox]

Well, during Step 8. But I don't think it's possible to get above the number after Step 8, so yeah, effectively, at the end of each turn. But I guess it's important to note that if you're over the number in a province, you're going to lose those units before calamities happen.

But really, you shouldn't be over the number at all, since you just had the chance to move them all around. Although, it can happen if you're trying to build a city near your neighbor, and your neighbor moves in just enough units so that you go down to 5 in conflict -- then you don't have the 6 you need to build a city, and the 5 units you have left there is probably more than the territory can hold, so you lose the rest.

*brain explodes*
*numbers leak everywhere*

[Passacaglia]

*brain explodes*
*numbers leak everywhere*

As you can see, it goes pretty slow -- there'll be time to figure it out as you go.

[britrock88]

Could you give me a brief overview of strategy in buying advancement cards? I'll give you some details that might inform you... I'm Thrace in an 8-player game, with 5 cities already, and a grand total of $110 to spend (no prior purchases) from my one 1, five 2s, four 3s, and $11 in the treasury (IIRC).

[Passacaglia]

Sure. The first thing you need to note is that you can only keep 8 cards from round to round (I think that's a number that can be set on the website by the person who started the game, but in the rules, it's 8). So, if you don't buy anything, you're going to have to discard two cards.

I'm assuming when you say five 2s and four 3s, they're all the same type? You can't mix Papyrus and Iron, and say you have 5 2s, it has to be all Papyrus or all Iron.

I think at a time like this for you, it's important to look at the AST, and look toward entering the Late Bronze Age. Since you're Thrace, you don't enter the Late Bronze Age until later rounds, which is a good thing. I don't know what round you're in, but it's a good idea to look at meeting the Late Bronze Age requirement now, which is: three cities and three groups of civilization cards. Note that some cards count as two colors, the cheapest of which is Mysticism, which makes that card rock.

If you're able to get into the Late Bronze Age this turn, I'd get Mysticism and either Cloth Making or Pottery. If you've got a while to wait, it's probably best just to spend the five 2s and save the 3s for next turn (and collecting more of them). The five 2s are $50, which screams Mysticism, since that's exactly what it costs. However, I like to spend down my treasury when I can, which would point to using the 5 2s and $10 form treasury to get Music or Drama&Poetry. But this depends on your current population. Think about how many cities you have and how much population you have, and recall that you're going to have taxation before population expansion. So let's say, for example, you've got 5 cities and 20 population, to go with your 11 treasury -- assuming 55 tokens are in the game (sometimes it's 47), this means you've got 24 in stock. Taxation will take 10 of them, so you'll have 14 in stock that you can use to expand. Maybe that's enough -- and maybe some of those 20 population you have can't expand because of the limit of 2 growth per territory. And maybe you want your population low so you can do your movement later in the round, and not have to worry about attacks. On the other hand, if you have 5 cities, 10 population, and 45 in stock, might as well keep your treasury high so you can spend them next turn, since your population will expand all it can anyway.

Also, Music and Drama&Poetry do you little good in getting three groups -- you'll still end up having to pay $90, you'd have to buy Mysticism and Cloth Making or Pottery still, the only help you get is a $5 discount on Mysticism.

[britrock88]

Thanks for this!

I have a couple turns until the Late Bronze Age. I thought of buying Literacy straight off, as it is the most expensive advance I can afford. But Drama & Poetry allows me to spend the five 2s and $10 (saving the four 3s, a 1, and $1), and gives me a $20 discount toward Literacy in the future, which I think will be useful, because Literacy is the cheapest advance in Civics.

[Passacaglia]

That's a good call, I don't think I'd noticed that about the $20 discount on Literacy with Drama & Poetry. That's a big deal for when you get to the Early Iron Age, and need to have all five groups. And if you have four 3s and five cities now, you should have no trouble getting to 6 3s next turn, putting you at 108, and you should be able to get up to three groups then.

[Autumn]

Okay, I've read the rules several times, but not having a physical game in front of me makes some of this hard to figure out. Explain to me like I'm a five year old the decks. There are nine decks? It seems like each deck has a different value commodity card (and associated calamity) in it? So deck one has ochre and hides and deck nine has gold and ivory in it? Or am I not understanding that?

And if I have five cities I get to draw one from deck one, one from deck two, one from deck three, etc., up to five?

Oh and I see, you can always buy from the ninth deck. That explains an option I was given in another game. I might have explained things to myself. But tell me if I'm missing something.

[Passacaglia]

Okay, I've read the rules several times, but not having a physical game in front of me makes some of this hard to figure out. Explain to me like I'm a five year old the decks. There are nine decks? It seems like each deck has a different value commodity card (and associated calamity) in it? So deck one has ochre and hides and deck nine has gold and ivory in it? Or am I not understanding that?

And if I have five cities I get to draw one from deck one, one from deck two, one from deck three, etc., up to five?

Oh and I see, you can always buy from the ninth deck. That explains an option I was given in another game. I might have explained things to myself. But tell me if I'm missing something.


Sounds like you have it exactly right. Buying a card from the ninth deck costs 18 from your treasury, so that's pretty expensive. Also, note that the people who have the least cities draw first, so if you have a lot of cities, decks 1 and 2 might be empty by the time it's your turn to draw.

[tarcone]

How do I build a city?

[Warhammer]

6 guys in one area with a city site (marked by a black or white square) can build a city. You can use 12 guys to build a city in a non-city site.

[tarcone]

So how do I build a city? The rules are not real clear.

[CrimsonFox]

so you mean that you have to move all 6 guys at once? or maybe just move all the guys eventually onto the same place (as kong as the place can hold that many?)

Boats are confusing me. I have 2 boat icons and I don't know why. I built one I know. but now there are two icons. Are they actual units or do they go away? do they land on islands and turn into land units?

[britrock88]

So how do I build a city? The rules are not real clear.

The way to build a city is to move 6 units onto a region with a city square (black, or white on a floodplain) during the movement phase. (You could also do 12 on a region without a city square.) Then, during the city construction phase, the site infers that you intend to build a city by default -- if you don't want to build a city where you have 6/12 gathered, click on the city icon surrounded by the dashed green square to turn the square red and cancel the city construction. When things are as you like, finalize the city construction phase and the cities will be built accordingly.

[britrock88]

so you mean that you have to move all 6 guys at once? or maybe just move all the guys eventually onto the same place (as kong as the place can hold that many?)

Boats are confusing me. I have 2 boat icons and I don't know why. I built one I know. but now there are two icons. Are they actual units or do they go away? do they land on islands and turn into land units?

Eventually onto the same place.

Boats are a tad bit tricky. They cost '2' to construct -- with those quotation marks, I mean that they can be built with 2 units, $2 from the treasury, or a combination thereof (though players don't have money in the treasury until they build cities).

Once you build a ship in a given location, it can travel 4 spaces through coastal water, carrying as many as 5 units at once. It can load/unload at any point on its journey. Once built, though, the ship cannot be converted back into units. The ships also must unload all units by its last move of the turn.

Ships also cost '1' to maintain per turn after their initial construction. Sometimes, it's better strategy to maintain a ship (frequent use in a nearby location); other times, it's better to sink one by failing to maintain it and build another later (in a far-off location, or for infrequent use).

[CrimsonFox]

Eventually onto the same place.

Boats are a tad bit tricky. They cost '2' to construct -- with those quotation marks, I mean that they can be built with 2 units, $2 from the treasury, or a combination thereof (though players don't have money in the treasury until they build cities).

Once you build a ship in a given location, it can travel 4 spaces through coastal water, carrying as many as 5 units at once. It can load/unload at any point on its journey. Once built, though, the ship cannot be converted back into units. The ships also must unload all units by its last move of the turn.

Ships also cost '1' to maintain per turn after their initial construction. Sometimes, it's better strategy to maintain a ship (frequent use in a nearby location); other times, it's better to sink one by failing to maintain it and build another later (in a far-off location, or for infrequent use).

ugh .

well I'm fooked because I hit the wrong button and it wouldn't let me undo it.

[britrock88]

I see you as having 2 on Tarraconensis, 2 on Iberus, and a ship at Balaeres. If you think you ordered another ship this round and finalized it, go into the game and hit the "Reset Done" button at the top right corner. Then you should hopefully be able to cancel the production of the extra ship (and probably let the one you have go, too).

[Passacaglia]

CF, I sent an email to the admin. I think you built a ship last turn, and that might have really screwed you. I'm hoping he can make it so you never built the ship last turn.

[Passacaglia]

so you mean that you have to move all 6 guys at once? or maybe just move all the guys eventually onto the same place (as kong as the place can hold that many?)


This is a tricky question. Britrock answered 'eventually onto the same place' but I would answer that both are right. I mean, you have to have 6 guys in the territory when you want to build the city. So the turn you're doing it, all 6 guys have to be there at once, after the movement phase is over. And the conflict phase, too, which can be important.

[CrimsonFox]

And I made the ship last round. It was somewhat an accidnet as I was seeing what countries were around and suddenly this ship pops up. And then I stupidly hit done instead of reset. But I lived with it since I could get those islands. But now I'm unsure. Do I actually have people on those boats? I would think so since I converted two to do it. Now I don't know what I can do with this boat.

[Passacaglia]

You don't have people on them. It costs the two population just to build the ship, and once the ship was built, they went away. Plus, it costs one population to maintain it, and that population needs to be in the territory bordering the boat. And since you don't have any population there, you can't maintain the boat, anyway.

[CrimsonFox]

You don't have people on them. It costs the two population just to build the ship, and once the ship was built, they went away. Plus, it costs one population to maintain it, and that population needs to be in the territory bordering the boat. And since you don't have any population there, you can't maintain the boat, anyway.


oh boy! I guess I will just try not to come in last then. If that admin thing works let me know. :) Really I did not mean to build that. And obviously I didn't realize it didn't act as a unit.

[Passacaglia]

CF, it looks like no luck on getting your ship from last round unbuilt. Sorry. The good news is that IMO Civ is a very forgiving game. If you've got a low population, you get to go last, which is nice, you'll probably benefit when someone draws a Civil War calamity, and you'll probably get left alone when people are distributing losses due to the Famine and Epidemic calamities.

Anyway, it's my turn to build ships, but I'll wait until you're sure that you've reset any ship-building actions from this turn, so this doesn't happen again. Let me know if you're okay for me to make my turn!

[Passacaglia]

A little smooth talking, and I got the admin to give CF two more population to make up for the ship he built. The ship is still there, but it's going to die off anyway, and there's nothing CF can do with it. So we should all be even.

One slight problem -- he added the extra two population to Aquitania, which CF couldn't have reached in two turns from the starting point he chose at Corduba. Of course, if he had chosen to start at Lusitania, which would have been wiser IMO, he could have reached Aquitania by now. Personally, I'm cool with that being no big deal, but it affects path, who might have been planning his moves based on knowing that CF was further south than he is now (though I don't have any good specifics of how he'd do that, personally).

I'd rather not get the admin involved, but I'll leave it to path and CF to work this out in a way that's agreeable to both, and for CF to realize he's already been bailed out big time so it's probably okay to give a little bit here, and for path to realize that if CF had been making wise moves in the beginning, he'd be in this position.

[CrimsonFox]

A little smooth talking, and I got the admin to give CF two more population to make up for the ship he built. The ship is still there, but it's going to die off anyway, and there's nothing CF can do with it. So we should all be even.

One slight problem -- he added the extra two population to Aquitania, which CF couldn't have reached in two turns from the starting point he chose at Corduba. Of course, if he had chosen to start at Lusitania, which would have been wiser IMO, he could have reached Aquitania by now. Personally, I'm cool with that being no big deal, but it affects path, who might have been planning his moves based on knowing that CF was further south than he is now (though I don't have any good specifics of how he'd do that, personally).

I'd rather not get the admin involved, but I'll leave it to path and CF to work this out in a way that's agreeable to both, and for CF to realize he's already been bailed out big time so it's probably okay to give a little bit here, and for path to realize that if CF had been making wise moves in the beginning, he'd be in this position.

awesome thanks. Yeah I sent a "beg" email to the admin too to remove the ship. But you've done that I see. ANyway. thanks. making the ship wasn't really intentional. I accidently clicked the mouse and there it was and didn't realize what was happening. Even though it happened I assumed it wouldn't cost me big as I figured the ship was a unit where I could take over those islands (other games act like this) but guess not.

Thanks again. I'll probably just take those extras and retreat make to my area.

[CrimsonFox]

SO what's the goal here. Don't we want to actually CLAIM these areas by having a unit in them? If there is no unit in a country, we don't own them right?

[Autumn]

You don't get a benefit from having an area, per se. But you want to grow your population, which requires spreading out. And you want to build cities, which require getting 6 units in a city site. Of course there will be conflict over territories as we spread out, so you want to have the numbers and strategic locations.

[Passacaglia]

Well, you never really 'own' a territory. You just have population tokens in it, or you don't.

Take Aquitania for example. You've got 2 dudes there, and it can hold 3. Great. There's room for one more. But let's say path wants to put dudes in Aquitania. There's a lot of things that can happen here.

Example 1: path brings 1 dude into Aquitania, and you keep your 2 there. So there's 3 in the territory, and it can hold 3. No conflict is needed, you keep your 2 there, and path keeps his 1.

Example 2: path brings 2 guys, and you bring in 2 from Pyrenees. So you've got 4, he's got 2. That's 6, but the territory can only hold 3. So there will be conflict. The civ that has the last amount of tokens in that territory loses a token first -- in this case, that's path, with 2. He loses 1, and now it's 4-1, still above 3, so conflict keeps going. You take turns at this point -- you lose a guy, and it's 3-1. His turn, he loses one, it's 3-0, your guys. You can say you 'own' it now if you want to, but there's nothing special about your being 3-0 instead of 2-1.

Example 3 -- path brings in 2 dudes, and you keep your 2 in there. 2 each, so that's 4, which is above 3, so there's conflict. Since you guys are tied at 2, You both lose a token at the same time. When that happens, it's 1-1, which is under 3, and conflict is over.

Example 4 -- path brings in 2, and you bring in 2 from Pyrenees, and 2 from Tarraconensis. With the 2 already there, you've got 6. So it's 6-2. He loses a guy first, it's 6-1. You lose a guy then, 5-1. He loses a guy next, it's 5-0. Then in a couple phases when it's time to remove excess population, you'll drop to 3, since that's all the territory can hold. Before remove excess population is city construction -- and if only you had 6 units there still, you could have built a city! Oh, although not really -- it's only 6 in a territory with a black or white square, but since Aquitania doesn't have one, you need 12.

The closest you can come to 'owning' a territory is having a city there. You can't place population tokens in a territory with a city, whether it's yours or someone else's -- the city is all that's there. You can attack a city -- to do so, you need to have at least 6 tokens, then the city gets replaced by 6 tokens, then conflict proceeds as before.

I hope that helps, but feel free to keep asking stuff!

[CrimsonFox]

some useful videos the admin sent me,



Advanced Civilization Rules Explanation - Part 1a - YouTube (http://youtu.be/jQSgUUKtnPg) (Part 1a (setup and phases 1-9) (http://youtu.be/jQSgUUKtnPg))
Advanced Civilization Rules Explanation - Part 1b - YouTube (http://youtu.be/dlmuAwaK0oc) (Part 1b (phases 10[trade]+ and end game) (http://youtu.be/dlmuAwaK0oc))
Advanced Civilization Rules Explanation - Part 2 - YouTube (http://youtu.be/5ZZhgCQ3d5c) (Part 2 (calamity and advancement overview) (http://youtu.be/5ZZhgCQ3d5c))

[CrimsonFox]

Well, you never really 'own' a territory. You just have population tokens in it, or you don't.

Take Aquitania for example. You've got 2 dudes there, and it can hold 3. Great. There's room for one more. But let's say path wants to put dudes in Aquitania. There's a lot of things that can happen here.

Example 1: path brings 1 dude into Aquitania, and you keep your 2 there. So there's 3 in the territory, and it can hold 3. No conflict is needed, you keep your 2 there, and path keeps his 1.

Example 2: path brings 2 guys, and you bring in 2 from Pyrenees. So you've got 4, he's got 2. That's 6, but the territory can only hold 3. So there will be conflict. The civ that has the last amount of tokens in that territory loses a token first -- in this case, that's path, with 2. He loses 1, and now it's 4-1, still above 3, so conflict keeps going. You take turns at this point -- you lose a guy, and it's 3-1. His turn, he loses one, it's 3-0, your guys. You can say you 'own' it now if you want to, but there's nothing special about your being 3-0 instead of 2-1.

Example 3 -- path brings in 2 dudes, and you keep your 2 in there. 2 each, so that's 4, which is above 3, so there's conflict. Since you guys are tied at 2, You both lose a token at the same time. When that happens, it's 1-1, which is under 3, and conflict is over.

Example 4 -- path brings in 2, and you bring in 2 from Pyrenees, and 2 from Tarraconensis. With the 2 already there, you've got 6. So it's 6-2. He loses a guy first, it's 6-1. You lose a guy then, 5-1. He loses a guy next, it's 5-0. Then in a couple phases when it's time to remove excess population, you'll drop to 3, since that's all the territory can hold. Before remove excess population is city construction -- and if only you had 6 units there still, you could have built a city! Oh, although not really -- it's only 6 in a territory with a black or white square, but since Aquitania doesn't have one, you need 12.

The closest you can come to 'owning' a territory is having a city there. You can't place population tokens in a territory with a city, whether it's yours or someone else's -- the city is all that's there. You can attack a city -- to do so, you need to have at least 6 tokens, then the city gets replaced by 6 tokens, then conflict proceeds as before.

I hope that helps, but feel free to keep asking stuff!

I think Passa is a warmonger and wants path and I to fight! KILL HIM!

[CrimsonFox]

so why does path only have 6 guys when the rest of us have 8

[Passacaglia]

My guess is that he had 4 population all in one territory, and population expansion is limited to 2 per territory. Not sure if that was a mistake or intentional.

[Warhammer]

That or a ship built, not looking at the map, at most you can add 2 guys to one territory during the pop growth phase.

[Autumn]

So looks like in Take Two nobody wanted to trade. But I'm still trying to get familiar with the trade mechanics on the site. I see you can post a message, letting people know what you want to trade. And then you can click on their colored boxes on the right to send them a message? How do you go about actually trading?

[britrock88]

Take Two? There are no cities yet... As for the first FOFC game, I think the site tends to wait until players are bumping the card-in-hand limit (8) before trading really gets going.

Mechanics... there's lots of good hover-text on the Trade Cards page, explaining calamities, showing the card images of the cards you don't have, so on. As you noticed, posting a public message of "Looking for ___, trading ___" is most helpful to the group. Typing and hitting enter up top accomplishes that. The little envelopes next to players' names on the rights link to email addresses for trade negotiation. To actually input a trade, though, just click within a player's colored box, but not on the envelope. A box will appear underneath that allows you to drag-and-drop your cards to add them to the trade. Once that box has opened up and you've dragged a card into it, I think it becomes pretty self-explanatory.

[Passacaglia]

Yeah, brit's right. No cities yet in Take Two, and in the first game, I guess Crete, Illyria, and Egypt could trade, but the game assumes we wouldn't bother. I don't recall even being given the option.

Brit has a lot of good points in his post, although I should also mention that there's a "lie" button that shows up once you are trading cards away. You have to trade cards in sets of at least 3, and you have to tell the truth about at least 2. So beware -- if someone offers you 4 cards, 2 of them can be lies, which means 2 of them can be calamities. Also, the 'unspecified' term is key here. Best I can explain it, it's like you're saying "this card is going to be the lie" -- so that's something to watch for when you're trading. If you want Bronze, and someone offers you Bronze, Salt, and Ochre, they could be telling the truth about the Salt and Ochre, but the Bronze could be a lie. However, if they offer you Bronze, Salt, and Unspecified, the Bronze and Salt have to be the truth. Brit also mentioned the 8-card limit, which is another thing to think about when you're trading -- if you don't buy any civilization cards, but have more than 8 cards (not including calamities), you will have to discard.

[britrock88]

Where is tarc when we need him (in both games)? :D

[Autumn]

So a wrinkle of conflicts I'm only now coming to understand as I do them in several games. I'll explain for anyone who is along wtih me on the learning curve:

I was thinking that if tokens are in conflict you just subtract them from each other and whoever has some left wins. But it's more complex. You actually take away one token from each side, alternating, until you reach the territory limit.

So if the territory has a limit of 2, I have 3 tokens, and an invader adds 2 tokens: They take away first because they have less tokens. Then I do, then they do and then we stop, because there's now only two tokens left. So I end up only losing one token, not two.

If the two sides have equal tokens, then you take away from both sides at once, so if they invaded with three, we would both lose one, then we would both lose one and then stop, with each of us having one in the territory.

Definitely impacts strategy, and as I'm starting to get into conflicts in several games I'm realizing the huge import of turn order. Ic ouldn't quite understand why you'd want to go last, but now that I see all movement is done turn by turn, and then conflict, so the person who goes last gets to decide what the conflicts will be or escape them.

[CrimsonFox]

You definitely are in the center of the conflict area. I'm surprseid Thrace and Babylon are ranked so high for wins.

Meanwhile Pass and furball seem to have a clean getaway to run up 5 cities quickly. Granted I don't know what surprises the cards give but I thought that as long as you aren't by a flood or a volcano your cities are safe from cards (just not people sttacks)

[Passacaglia]

So a wrinkle of conflicts I'm only now coming to understand as I do them in several games. I'll explain for anyone who is along wtih me on the learning curve:

I was thinking that if tokens are in conflict you just subtract them from each other and whoever has some left wins. But it's more complex. You actually take away one token from each side, alternating, until you reach the territory limit.

So if the territory has a limit of 2, I have 3 tokens, and an invader adds 2 tokens: They take away first because they have less tokens. Then I do, then they do and then we stop, because there's now only two tokens left. So I end up only losing one token, not two.

If the two sides have equal tokens, then you take away from both sides at once, so if they invaded with three, we would both lose one, then we would both lose one and then stop, with each of us having one in the territory.

Definitely impacts strategy, and as I'm starting to get into conflicts in several games I'm realizing the huge import of turn order. Ic ouldn't quite understand why you'd want to go last, but now that I see all movement is done turn by turn, and then conflict, so the person who goes last gets to decide what the conflicts will be or escape them.

Yep -- sorry, I may have hinted at some of this stuff, but not come out with it exactly. If you guys are curious, there are some technologies you can buy that help you if conflict is your thing.

You can get Metal Working for pretty cheap (80 gold), which makes it so that whenever there's conflict, the other civ starts losing population first. Unless you both have Metal Working, in which case it works like normal (the civ with less population in the territory removes first).

You can get Military, which is more expensive, but it lets you go last in every round. That is, everyone with Military goes after everyone without it.

[Passacaglia]

You definitely are in the center of the conflict area. I'm surprseid Thrace and Babylon are ranked so high for wins.

Meanwhile Pass and furball seem to have a clean getaway to run up 5 cities quickly. Granted I don't know what surprises the cards give but I thought that as long as you aren't by a flood or a volcano your cities are safe from cards (just not people sttacks)

I agree on Thrace, things get pretty crowded there. Babylon is pretty good, though -- you've got 6 city sites that no one can get to before you, and several opportunities to get to 9.

I agree with you too on me and Egypt -- I think they win most often IIRC, since they have a lot of city sites right in their area, and a lot of ways to get to 9. Plus a lot of high-numbered territories. I guess the risk with both Egypt and Babylon is that Floods hit them hard. Not sure about furrball and Africa. Yeah, he can get to 5 with no real conflict (although, I let him off the hook in Cyrene, I strongly considered sticking two population there and not letting him build that city there), but after that 5, options start to fade.

[CrimsonFox]

I agree on Thrace, things get pretty crowded there. Babylon is pretty good, though -- you've got 6 city sites that no one can get to before you, and several opportunities to get to 9.

I agree with you too on me and Egypt -- I think they win most often IIRC, since they have a lot of city sites right in their area, and a lot of ways to get to 9. Plus a lot of high-numbered territories. I guess the risk with both Egypt and Babylon is that Floods hit them hard. Not sure about furrball and Africa. Yeah, he can get to 5 with no real conflict (although, I let him off the hook in Cyrene, I strongly considered sticking two population there and not letting him build that city there), but after that 5, options start to fade.

isn't game over after five cities?

[britrock88]

I agree on Thrace, things get pretty crowded there. Babylon is pretty good, though -- you've got 6 city sites that no one can get to before you, and several opportunities to get to 9.

I agree with you too on me and Egypt -- I think they win most often IIRC, since they have a lot of city sites right in their area, and a lot of ways to get to 9. Plus a lot of high-numbered territories. I guess the risk with both Egypt and Babylon is that Floods hit them hard. Not sure about furrball and Africa. Yeah, he can get to 5 with no real conflict (although, I let him off the hook in Cyrene, I strongly considered sticking two population there and not letting him build that city there), but after that 5, options start to fade.

Maybe I'm playing Babylon wrong, but the fact that most of Babylon's nearby city sites are in areas that would be good farms (5/6 are 3s) or flood areas (3/6, but you mentioned this already) takes off some of their luster. Well, if setting up a line against Warhammer in Assyria or you in Egypt goes badly, I suppose I can turn back toward home.

isn't game over after five cities?

Five cities are necessary, but not sufficient to win the game. Pass can tell you more...

[Passacaglia]

Pass can tell you more...

Sure. When in our game, click on AST at the top. The info here is kind of the state of the game. First thing there is a table. Each round, we all have a chance to move one square to the right. We've had 4 rounds, so everyone has moved 4 spots, except Egypt and Crete. That's because the Early Bronze Age comes early for those guys -- you can see below what's required to move up a space in each epoch.

The game ends when someone reached the last column. But that's not the winner. The winner is determined by points, which are also spelled out on that page.

[Autumn]

This is definitely a learning game for me. I've made a lot of screwups already, but like any game, each turn I understand the game a bit more. I'm having a lot of fun though. The whole "talk at each other through e-mail" element adds an interesting diplomatic twist.

[Warhammer]

Maybe I'm playing Babylon wrong, but the fact that most of Babylon's nearby city sites are in areas that would be good farms (5/6 are 3s) or flood areas (3/6, but you mentioned this already) takes off some of their luster. Well, if setting up a line against Warhammer in Assyria or you in Egypt goes badly, I suppose I can turn back toward home.



Five cities are necessary, but not sufficient to win the game. Pass can tell you more...

Those 3 City Sites are nice because when your cities reduce, you still have 3 guys left, rather than getting hit and having it reduced to 1 or 2.

[Warhammer]

Africa is very tough, but don't let the genie out of the bottle.

[britrock88]

Those 3 City Sites are nice because when your cities reduce, you still have 3 guys left, rather than getting hit and having it reduced to 1 or 2.

Good point. ... I sure feel lucky playing between you and Pass, who (I take it) are the 2 most experienced players here. :)

[Passacaglia]

Africa is very tough, but don't let the genie out of the bottle.

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean!

[Passacaglia]

Good point. ... I sure feel lucky playing between you and Pass, who (I take it) are the 2 most experienced players here. :)

We'll see if that plays a factor. I've found that what's worse than bordering an experienced player is bordering an overly aggressive player. It does look like we've done a better job in the land grab than you, using a back-of-the-hand calculation of number of city sites. But I'm not as experienced with this area, I have played Europe more often, so maybe this is normal.

[britrock88]

We'll see if that plays a factor. I've found that what's worse than bordering an experienced player is bordering an overly aggressive player. It does look like we've done a better job in the land grab than you, using a back-of-the-hand calculation of number of city sites. But I'm not as experienced with this area, I have played Europe more often, so maybe this is normal.

Counting movement by turns from theoretical starting set-ups, I don't think Babylon has any advantages in territories like Assyria/Aleppo or Jericho/Damascus. So it comes down to the finer issues like strategically warring to control population and other micro-level tactics that I don't have a feel for yet. I gave it a shot and some long thought, though!

[Warhammer]

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean!

An Africa that is allowed out of Africa is a tough nut to crack. If Africa is kept largely to Africa, they are not a threat.

[Warhammer]

Counting movement by turns from theoretical starting set-ups, I don't think Babylon has any advantages in territories like Assyria/Aleppo or Jericho/Damascus. So it comes down to the finer issues like strategically warring to control population and other micro-level tactics that I don't have a feel for yet. I gave it a shot and some long thought, though!

My theory having experience with this side of the map (I've never played west of Assyria!) is that Assyria should get the upper Levant, Babylon should push for Jericho and Damascus. Egypt should be kept bottled up in Egypt. The only reason why I believe Babylon wins more than Egypt is that most experienced players recognize Egypt as a HUGE threat in the game and can affect them easier than they can Babylon.

Assyria will not wind up with all of Asia Minor in any game. Crete, Thrace, and possibly Asia, will all make inroads in the area. At best, they can hope for 5 sites in the area. If Babylon cuts them off from the sea, it makes Babylon the best hope for Assyrian aggression.

EDIT: A Babylon with no enemies is in a very powerful position. They are hard to hit, Egypt and Assyria are their only natural neighbors. Assyria has too many borders to really look for a fight, and Egypt and Babylon have some pretty defensible borders between one another.

[Warhammer]

How do you discard excess cards?

EDIT: No matter what I do, it is giving me an error...

[britrock88]

Waiting on Autumn in both games.

[Autumn]

Sorry, I had family visiting this weekend, then a sick wife, so I've just gotten on and taken care of business.

[CrimsonFox]

passenger limit on a ship is 4?

Do passengers on a ship vanish at the end of a turn? or do they stay on through next turn as if the ship had a permanent 4?

YOu can pick up and drop off as many as you need in the same turn as long as the guy has more movement left? Hmmm can you pick a guy up, move boat then drop him off all in same turn?

[Passacaglia]

Passenger limit is 5.

I believe it's impossible to leave passengers on a ship -- once the ship makes its final move, it automatically unloads all passengers. Not sure what happens if you're on the open seas, but (at least in our games) no one has Astronomy, so you can't go into those zones.

Yes, population can (and must) be picked up and dropped off in the same turn.

It looks like you're considering buying ships, so let me be clear about open seas. Until you have the Astronomy tech, you can only put your ships in areas bordering land -- for you, this means you can't use the Western Mediterranean zone, but you can, for example, go from Narbo, to Massilla, to Corsica, then to Rome and Neapolis, or to Sardinia and Caralis.

[CrimsonFox]

Yeah I knew about open sea rules. Just a little unsure of how the people/ship movement totally works and don't want to assume something wrong.

[Passacaglia]

Okay, hopefully this will help. I use myself as an example. I built a ship at Tyre, which has 4 population.

I start by double-clicking the ship. Maybe a single click works, but I've never been patient enough to find out. Incidentally, this is a pain to do in my experience, it helps if you click the "view large" button in the upper right corner. What pops up is a window asking me how many population I want to load on the ship. The pop-up window knows I'm in Tyre, so it gives me the option of loading 0 to 4 population. Then it gives me the options of:

"save and done" which means you don't want to move the ship anymore (although again, I think it will give you an error message if you finish with units on the ship)
"save and move" which means you've selected the number you want loaded and are ready to move it somewhere
"cancel move" which cancels your last move
"reset ship" which cancels everything you've done with that ship

So let's say my goal is to move some units over to Salamis and Cyprus. I'll select to load 2 from Tyre, then "save and move", then I select Sidon to move it there. I double-click the ship again, and now I'm given an number to both load and unload. I could unload some here, but Sidon is already full, so I don't want to. But I will load 1 more. So I select 1 from population loading, then save and move, and click over to Phoenicia. Double-click it again. I've got no population in Phoenicia, so it just gives me the option to unload. I'm not looking to attack Phoenicia in this example, so I keep it at 0, and save and move. Click over to Salamis, then double-click it again. I can unload up to 3 here, but it can only hold 1, so I select 1, then save and move. Click on Cyprus, double-click the ship. This is the ship's last move, so it automatically unloads the remaining population (2) in Cyprus.

You can play around with the order -- load, unload, load, unload, instead of load, load, unload, unload like I did, for example. But that's the gist of the controls. Let me know if you have any questions, and if you want, feel free to PM me your plan if you're worried you can't do it (I'm on the other side of the map from you, so I shouldn't be affected).

[Passacaglia]

I got an email that I had a trade offer from Warhammer, then the site had difficulties, so I couldn't view it (why don't they just tell you what the trade offer is in the email?) -- once I could get back on, the offer is gone, and Warhammer is not in the market, which I don't think he intended, since he has 15 cards. Did you mean to do that, Warhammer?

[Warhammer]

I got an email that I had a trade offer from Warhammer, then the site had difficulties, so I couldn't view it (why don't they just tell you what the trade offer is in the email?) -- once I could get back on, the offer is gone, and Warhammer is not in the market, which I don't think he intended, since he has 15 cards. Did you mean to do that, Warhammer?

No I meant to be in the market. Not sure what I did wrong...

[britrock88]

The "reset done" should bring you back into the market, I hope. Did you click "done" after you offered Pass a trade? During the trading phase, you only need to hit "done" once you've completed all the trading activity you want to for the phase.

[Warhammer]

I'm back in.

[britrock88]

Waiting on tarcone in both games.

[britrock88]

Hey, Pass, am I obliged to remove my units before you (for the Famine)?

[Passacaglia]

I think we all just do it when we can in no particular order

[britrock88]

I think we all just do it when we can in no particular order

For a game this well-regulated, that's kind of surprising.

[Passacaglia]

For a game this well-regulated, that's kind of surprising.

That's true -- I hadn't thought about it until you asked. Maybe the rules just aren't clear about it, or the people who made the site thought it was not that important, and didn't want to hold up the game any longer?

FYI, thanks for reducing my city at Miletus in Game 1. Took me forever to find where Miletus was, then once I found it, I didn't realize I had a city there. Finally came back to me that I got it with Treachery last round.

[britrock88]

Treachery cities are funny that way.

[Passacaglia]

Yep. and if I had paid attention, I would have dropped the population there with Famine, since it's not doing me any good over there.

[britrock88]

Warhammer must have it out for me in the v1 game... A 10-unit loss out of 18 vulnerable units total? Crete is crumbling before your eyes...

Btw, there's actually no combination of moves I can make to reduce exactly 10 units -- all but 1 of my farms have 1 unit, 1 has 2 units; all but 1 of my cities reduce to 1, 1 reduces to 2. I can reduce 9 units or 11, but not 10. I decided to be proactive and went ahead and submitted a help ticket.

[britrock88]

Dola--

I'm also a moron and forgot about my African outpost. Sabrata's 2 units allowed me to remove a 10th unit from there and make it through the calamity round with TWO cities remaining!

[Autumn]

These calamities seem just awful. Is the strategy to avoid them at all costs, or is it just given that yo'ure going to get blasted by some of them at some point?

[CrimsonFox]

huh?

[Passacaglia]

huh?

He's talking about Take One, which you're not in. We'll get to calamities in Take Two soon.

Autumn, I think the answer is 'both' -- avoid them at all costs, but realize that you're going to get blasted. And to some extent, it doesn't matter that much if you get "hit" with the calamity, since whoever ends up with Famine and Epidemic also gets to dole out losses to their enemies.

[britrock88]

It's been a few days since we've had any action in the first FOFC game. I think it's tarcone's turn.

[britrock88]

Tarc's up in FOFC and CF's up in FOFC2...

[britrock88]

Waiting on you x2, Pass...

[Passacaglia]

Sorry about that. I wanted to take a little while to strategize, and finding that time was hard.