Sid Meier's Civilization, Part Two (and Three)

I've played a couple more games since then...

My second game, my Romans faced off against the Egyptians and Germans, as the fourth player couldn't make it. It was a tough thing, as both players are generally demonstrate excellent war-maker skills. I decided to go for an okay military, combined with culture gain...the Germans jumped to a strong early start, with their extra military cards. I traded a little with the Egyptians, giving me some flexibility with culture cards - which managed to bounce/kill Germany's unit flags that were coming to kill my capital, while I eeked out a Culture win. 4.5 hours.

The third game, we planned for an early start at noon, with things set up...4 players. Again, we only managed 3 with a 12:45pm start, but we cleared it in 3 hours. I played the Egyptians better than I did the first game, against the Russians and Chinese. The Russian player had one game under his belt, and the Chinese player had nearly crushed me militarily (before winning with gold?) in that initial game.

It seemed like a tough start - the Chinese player was wiping huts and villages as a fast & early culture beginning. The Russians were slow to start - he clearly wanted to steal technologies by crashing his guys into our cities, but it is a slow beginning. My start turned out to be a powerful engine - Egypt gets a free building (that they have the technology for) - no production points needed, while it takes up the city action for that city. It also starts with a free Wonder, which this time was the Hanging Gardens. A free unit flag (no production, no action needed) every turn. This is like 4-6 free production each turn, without spending a precious city action.

The China player dried up on his raids against the enemy huts...he didn't really refresh his military cards, as he was racing towards culture. Russia was having a slow start still, as I started flooding the world with unit flags. The other players started working together to dull my edge - my capital was producing culture and trade points, while my first non-capital-city had 12 production points a turn...the second non-capital city picked up some trade and had a little production. (The heavy production city also made the Himeji Castle, which is a free +1 for all of your units!)

I drew enough culture cards to dull the worst of the Chinese player's anti-military culture cards, while my military units marched on his capital for my military win.

Some things learned: If you split your military unit flags up, they can't move together into the same space the next turn. Stacking flags, quite good (you get to take more military cards into combat - even 4 to 3 is generally a win). Even if your opposing side has no units left at the end of combat, they can still win if they have enough Barrack buildings, or famous people with bonuses. Game rule: you can spend culture points during City Management, even if you don't choose culture generation for the city's action.

A pure culture win is probably next to impossible - maybe if there are 4-players, and the culture players band together enough to stop the military player.

Anyhow, it's a fair-to-good game. My friend Regan is heading off to Spokane for a spell, and he spotted me a copy of Civ as a leaving-gift...I'm sure I will see some more plays!