Avalon Hill's re-release of Civilization was more than a revision and face lift of a great game. The game was out of print by an English manufacturer and nearly impossible to obtain. Avalon Hill made the game readily available to us again. The game has been well preserved, with only a few physical improvements and fewer rules modifications. This is a great game and worth the high $22 price tag.

The game comes with a playing board of four connected sections, beautifully illustrated. Also included are population and city tokens for up to seven players, trade cards, and civilization cards. There are no dice. Movement and combat are beautifully simple, as I will describe shortly.

The object of the game is to advance your empire through the various levels of civilization starting at 8,000 B.C. to approximately 300 B.C. There are a few obstacles which must be overcome such as the necessity of making certain "discoveries" before advancing into a later era. Each player must build two cities before entering the early bronze age. After a few turns, players must accumulate civilization cards of three different colors before entering the late bronze age.

These cards are bought with trade cards, which players accumulate by owning cities. Players receive one trade card per city each turn. These cards have points associated with them, and owning more than one of any type of trade card multiples this point value quite a bit, so owning sets of similar cards is better than owning many different types of cards. The trade card sets are cashed in for civilization cards, of which each player needs seven to enter the next game phase, the early iron age. Play continues in this manner until one player advances through all the ages and acquires enough victory points to win the game.

I think the best way to review the play system of Civilization is to describe the game turns. The game starts with each player placing one population token at his starting location. These tokens grow and move in successive turns, until players reach each other's border zones. Tokens grow at the rate of one or two per area, depending on the maximum number printed on the board. They may move only one area per turn -- to an adjacent area. When two players have tokens in the same area, conflicts arise.

The player with fewer tokens must remove one token, then the other player removes a token, and so on, until the population limit is reached. That is all there is to combat. Players may build cities if they have six tokens in an area with a city-support symbol printed on the board. Once movement, conflict. and building is finished, the most interesting part of the game is reached: trade.

Players receive one trade card for each city they own. These cards are drawn from nine different stacks, in order, from one to three if you own three cities, one to five if you own five cities, and so on. The gimmick is this: the higher the stack number, the better the trade card. These cards represent trade goods. The lower three piles have hide, papyrus, and salt. The middle piles represent grain, cloth, and bronze, and the last stacks contain spice, gems, and gold. Players are motivated to build as many cities as they can support in order to obtain the higher-value trade cards.

Once cards are drawn, players may trade with each other, announcing which goods they want and which ones they want to trade away. It's every man for himself, and the person offering the best deals will get the action. Players may not trade fewer than three cards with each other, and may never show their cards. All deals are strictly verbal, so a certain amount of trust and honor are at stake. Once the trading is through, players buy their choice of civilization cards. using the point values of their trade cards.

Randomly distributed throughout the trade-card decks are the imfamous calamity cards. Players receiving some of these may secretly include them with other cards in a trade deal. Others you are just stuck with. After trading is over for a turn, players with these calamity cards must resolve the individual calamities. A flood will wipe out your cities and population in a flood plain, while an earthquake or volcano will reduce one of your territories to rubble. An epidemic or famine will more than likely kill a third or even half of your empire, but you have the satisfaction of taking another two or three players down with you. A civil war will give another player (your choice) some of your cities and population. All the other calamities have similar effects when in play.

Treasury

Players have a treasury to use in purchasing civilization cards. This is very helpful if you are in need of a few extra points which your trade cards lack. The treasury is small in comparison to the trade points, so it is only used as a last-minute supplement.

The treasure is formed by taxing each of your cities two tokens per turn. This brings up an interesting uspect of the game. Each player operates with about 47 tokens, which represent population or treasury, depending on where they are currently placed each turn and which side is turned up. A large on-board population means a low stockpile of tokens. If you have a lot of cities on the board, it may be hard to collect all your taxes from the small stock pile. Thus a city or two may have to be eliminated. Each player must plan ahead so that he has enough tokens to pay taxes and still grow population each turn. This growth comes first, and could deplete the tokens needed for taxes. But now the plot really thickens -- each player must therefore keep their numbers of cities, population and treasury in proper balance.

The key to winning the game lies in the civilization cards which each player collects. These cards range in point value from 30 to 240 points. To win, players must acquire 1,200 to 1,400 points, depending on the empire they choose to play. These points are totaled from the civilization cards, but only 11 cards can be used in the final count. Players are hereby warned not to buy too many of the lessor value cards (which are cheap and easy to buy), since they might prevent you from winning.

Besides giving players victory points, the civilization cards are used in the game to help the owning player with his turn. For a few examples -- the medicine card helps out in an epidemic by reducing your losses, while the pottery card reduces the effect of a famine (if you have a grain card in your hand). The coinage card allows the user to raise or lower taxes each turn. The astronomy card improves navigation. and thus movement at sea, while the agriculture card allows more population in rural areas. Collecting these cards takes time, and it's often a hard choice when it is your turn to buy.

While the above paragraphs implies a complicated game, this is not really so. Civilization can be played easily with one rules review. The rather long playing time of the game (six to eight hours) is mostly spent truding or interacting with the other players, rather than waiting for them to complete their turns. This makes any game more enjoyable.

I recommend this game to all gamers.

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