Avalon Hill Civilization

Specialty Variant

From: bengalt@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Pencil Rain)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: [AdCiv] More Variants
Date: 21 Mar 1994 18:06:56 GMT

I'm glad to see all the recent discussion about Civ and
AdCiv recently.  It's reminded me of a variant that I came
up with that I've always wanted to try, but never got
around to (yet).

After the selection of countries, but before play begins,
each player is randomly assigned a "specialty" category of
civilization cards.  These specialties break down as
follows:

Color		Specialty	Related		Opposite	Rel. Opposite
=====		=========	=======		========	=============

green		Science		Technology	Religion	Arts

orange		Technology	Science		Arts		Religion

blue		Arts		Religion	Technology	Science

yellow		Religion	Arts		Science	 	Technology

Note:  You cannot specialize in Civics (red)

Each specialty represents an area that the people of your
country have decided to focus their society on.  Your
specialty gives you a 10 point discount on civilization
cards of that color and a 5 point discount on all cards in
the related area. (Example:  A country speializing in Art
gets a 10 point discount on Drama/Poetry and a 5 point
discount on Monotheism) Because your country is so focused
on these aspects of civilization, however, you suffer a 10
point penalty on cards from your "opposite" area and a 5
point penalty on cards from the "related opposite" area.
(Example:  The country described above must pay 10 points
extra for Metalworking and 5 points extra for Astronomy) 
Civilization cards with mixed colors receive the cumulative
bonus/penalty of the colors involved.

The only other change is the requirement that, in order to
advance to the final spot on the AST, a civilization must
have all cards of it's specialty color (including mixed
cards containing it's color) to win.

I think that this is fairly balanced, but would make for
some interesting strategies.  Countries based on Art will
play very differently from a country based on Science. 
Also, it makes the game less of a try-to-rack-up-the-points
game to one where building up a coherent civilization
becomes an important goal as well.  Any feedback on this
idea would be greatly appreciated...

later
bengalt@wpi.WPI.EDU