 | Avalon
Hill
Civilization |
Mercer Variant
Date: 2 Nov 94 20:09:50
From: dmercer@oracle.com (David Mercer)
Subject: Advanced CIV: rule changes and comments?
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
My roommates and I have been playing A-CIV for a bit, and
have found the game, while fun, to have a few flaws.
The problem is that the game seems to end up in a pretty
static state, with everyone just working on picking up
bigger civ cards. No-one wants to attack the other as there
is not enough to gain. You can build your 9 cities within
your territory (albeit, some of them not at city sites, and
some powers require agriculture in order to do it, but
agriculture gives you points anyway) and not have to go to
war. Besides, the only ones who profit from war are the
non-warring neighbors. This is is not realistic. In
ancient times, war was *immensely* profitable, and it also
provided the impetus for improving civilization -- to keep
ahead of the Joneses, and to have an edge on your neighbors
should war break out.
We're going to try Imperial CIV (unlimited stock) to try to
encourage war as an outlet for expansion. Furthermore, we
have an additional change:
The central treasury is no longer used (these are
civilizations, not governments). Taxation is taken
during population expansion from the newly expanded
population, instead of from stock, and is removed to
the cities (two to a city) *as population* (until
coinage). There are three reasons behind this: (1)
excess population in the cities was an important
driving force toward going to war in ancient times
(and the excess produced must move out of the city,
lest it starve), (2) it gets around the annoying
phenomenon of an impassable "wall of cities," and
(3) if those two tokens providing agricultural
support to a city are sending all their excess food
to the cities, there is no excess food to support an
increase in population.
If a city cannot be supplied with the necessary
tokens for taxation, it revolts, as do any other
tokens placed on the city as partial taxation.
Since coinage is a portable form of wealth, once
coinage is developed, *any* population expansion,
including that ported to the cities, may be taken as
treasury tokens (in addition, the number ported to
the cities can be fixed at 1, 2, or 3 per city, as
is usually the case with coinage). This decision
can be made on a token-by-token basis, although no
more than two population tokens can be ported to a
given city (if the tax rate is three, then at least
one of the tokens must be treasury). Treasury
tokens reside on the board and may be moved as any
population tokens with the exception that they can
only move to regions where population already exists
(usually, but not necessarily, population of the
same color). Treasury tokens are not subject to the
population limits of areas, including cities, and do
not influence combat. When treasury is to be spent,
it can be taken from any place on the board.
Once combat is resolved, treasury tokens may end up
in a region that is shared by two or more sides, or
that is held by a different side from the owner of
the tokens, or in which no population exists. The
following take place immediately following combat
and before trade cards are obtained.
o If treasury tokens exist in a region without
population, or where the only populations do
not yet have coinage, the treasury tokens
are removed from the board.
o If the treasury tokens exist in a region
held by only one power, *and that power has
coinage*, that power gains ownership of the
tokens.
o If the treasury tokens exist in a region
occupied by more than one power, but only
one power has coinage, that power gains
ownership of the tokens.
o If the treasury tokens exist in a region in
which more than one power has coinage, then
all treasury tokens are distributed: the
side with coinage with the largest
population takes one, then the next largest
side, and so on, and then repeat. If two or
more sides are tied for size, they take
theirs simultaneously; if there are not
enough tokens for the sides to take
simultaneously, then the excess is
discarded.
Example: Thrace, Illyria, and Italy find
themselves in Germany (population 5), with
the following populations:
Thrace 1
Illyria 3
Italy 1
and the following treasury tokens:
Thrace 3
Italy 2
for a total of five treasury tokens. All
three powers have coinage. Illyria, with
the greater population, takes one first,
followed by Thrace and Italy simultaneously.
Now Illyria takes his token again, and there
is one left. Since it is not enough for
Thrace and Italy to take simultaneously, it
is discarded, so the final distribution of
wealth is:
Thrace 1
Illyria 2
Italy 1
I also want to solicit opinions on another two changes I
would like to make:
1. Since population expansion in any given territory
is limited to two, it would follow that one must
have at least one territory per city in order to
provide taxation (or risk revolt). This provides no
advantage to holding the agriculturally rich areas
of the board. I propose that, while no more than
two new tokens (regardless of whether population or
treasury) may be placed in a territory during
population expansion, expansion beyond the two up to
the size of the original population, can be ported
to cities. Thus, when a territory with population
three expands, only two new tokens may be placed on
the territory, but an additional one may be ported
to a city as taxation.
2. Since population is clearly more valuable than
treasury (it only takes six population tokens to
build a city, which gives you a trade card forever),
to encourage players to build up wealth, I propose
that the value of treasury tokens be increase to ___
(I don't know -- any suggestions? I favor something
around 3.)
I think the overall effects of these changes would be to
make players find a happy medium between expansion (and war)
and wealth. If a power is concentrating too much on wealth
he will find himself overrun by marauders eager for pillage.
Does anyone have any comments? Has anyone ever tried making
changes similar to these?
Regards,
---DBM