Clash of Cultures Review

This review is brought to you by the letter "C" - guest reviewer Chris C.
 

Clash of Cultures is a civilization building game for 2-4 players.  It plays in about an hour per player. Designed by Christian Marcussen (also the creator of Merchants and Marauders), this game follows in a long tradition of historically-themed “4X” games, spanning back at least to the 1980 Avalon Hill classic, simply called Civilization.  That board game was the inspiration for Sid Meier’s classic Civilization computer game, and this thread has bounced back and forth several times, resulting most recently in Fantasy Flight Games’ popular 2010 release, Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game.  I'm happy to report that Clash of Cultures stands up very nicely against these giants.

Clash of Cultures is played over six rounds of three turns each.  Each turn, players take three actions.  Actions include moving units, researching technologies, harvesting resources and improving cities.  As in most civilization games, players begin with one city and a settler unit and the board is configured with randomized face-down land tiles waiting to be explored.  Each round is followed by a status phase where players have an opportunity to score objectives and then receive an action card, an objective card and a free technology advance.  Action cards provide special abilities, while objective cards provide ways to score points.  At the end of the game, players also receive points for each of their cities, their technology advances and constructed Wonders.  The player with the most points wins.

Beautifully sculpted pieces.

Cities form the heart of each player’s civilization, and the game features a number of novel related mechanics.  A city may be activated as an action to harvest resources, build units or increase its size with one of the four building types - temples, academies, ports and fortresses.  As a city grows larger, it can harvest more resources and build more units.  However, the size of individual cities is limited by the size of a player’s civilization, providing incentive to explore and found additional cities.  If a city is activated twice in the same turn, its citizens become unhappy and will be less effective.  Morale can be improved using mood tokens earned by researching new technologies.

The technology tree features a number of interesting options and combinations that I have not seen in previous 4X games.  One example is the Trade Routes technology, which will earn players resources each turn for putting units in potentially vulnerable positions near enemy cities.  Research technologies may also trigger events, where a player draws and resolves the top card from the event deck.  These can be good or bad - the player might be attacked by barbarians or simply have a good harvest.  Events introduce a substantial element of luck to the game, but also add much-needed variety and replayability.

The novel mechanics are supported by the excellent components.  Cities are round plastic miniatures, and the buildings are on curved bases so that each fits beautifully around the city taking up a quarter of the circle. Each player receives plastic warriors, settlers and ships in their color and as they march across the landscape the game takes on an epic feel quickly.  The individual player boards list the entire tech tree.  They are made of thick cardboard with square holes next to each technology - when a player researches a new tech, they simply place a cube in the appropriate hole.  This basic idea is a major improvement on previous 4X games, where players must often search through a deck of technology cards and refer to the manual if they wish to see all of the dependencies.  Each player also gets a reference card clearly listing the game’s phases, the ways to earn points, and the cost of each unit and building.

The highly intuitive player board

Though this game is excellent, it is not without flaws.  I wish more had been done to encourage combat earlier in the game.  In the groups I have played with, it is quite rare for players to attack each other before the last round of the game (and then only to attempt to capture cities containing valuable Wonders).  It is relatively inexpensive to found new cities, and additional cities after the first few do not benefit a player during the game, so there is little reason to attack other players earlier.  As a result, the game doesn’t have as much direct interaction as one might expect from a Civilization game.  This problem was solved elegantly, for example, in Empires of the Void, where mid-game scoring rounds provide an incentive to take planets from other players earlier.

The game does try to encourage combat with the objective card deck.  Each card lists two ways for the player to score points, one having to do with building up a civilization, and the other having to do with warfare.  However, players may only complete one of the two possibilities and both are worth the same number of points.  Since the civilization-building objectives are easier and combat will usually weaken the two players involved to the advantage of the other players, the groups I have played with have rarely attempted the combat objectives.  Additionally, the civilization-building objectives aren’t as varied as I’d like.  More than half fall into a few basic categories like building up a certain number of resources or completing a certain branch of the tech tree.  And, unlike in Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game, players do not have races with unique powers, so the game doesn’t feel as varied over repeat plays as I’d like.

These complaints are fairly minor, considering the overall quality of the game.  Any fan of Civilization-style games should pick this one up immediately.  It’s also a great choice for gamers new to the genre - it has an excellent rule book and is easier to learn and play than the Sid Meier’s Civilization board game, even if it lacks a little of that game’s variety.  It also works very well with 2 or 3 players, which is a bit rare for this style of game.  And while it might seem like a small thing, the game’s innovative components relating to cities and tech trees really make it a joy to play.

If Clash of Cultures sounds interesting, you should also check out Empires of the Void, Civilization (by Fantasy Flight Games), and Civilization (by Eagle Games).

I would like to thank Z-Man Games for providing Board Game Reviews by Josh with a review copy of Clash of Cultures.

Through the Ages Review

A game that I made a point to play because of all of the great things I had heard was Through the Ages.

In Through the Ages, each player represents a civilization that is attempting to gain the most culture (victory) points. Since you each represent a civilization, you each have a government; which then determines how many civil and military actions you have each round. Each turn starts with the oldest cards from the "card row" (available developments, essentially) being cleared off, the cards being shifted down, and then the card row being refilled. From here, the active player has the option of playing a Political Action (attack an opponent, setup a global event for later, etc), and then they are able to take their normal actions. The actions available can include taking card(s) from the card row, building or upgrading buildings, training military units, discovering new technology (assuming you have enough science), and working on a wonder (among other things). Once the active player has completed all of their actions (that they choose to perform), he cleans up his turn - generate victory points, science, and food, consume food, generate resources, see if you're corrupt, draw military cards. The game continues like this until one of the Ages is over (which one depends on if you're playing the basic, advanced, or full game) - at which time a few extra things score points. Finally, whoever has the most points wins.

My first pro about Through the Ages is how well the game "flows." Once you understand the basics, the game mechanics are not very complicated. Each turn, you follow the same steps (though with many options because of the cards) - the question boils down to who is able to most efficiently use their actions. While most civilization based games can be very intimidating - between how the mechanics work, the setup time, and how the actual components are designed - Through the Ages is pretty easy to follow.

The next pro that I have for Through the Ages is that it is a "light" civilization game yet still has depth. I often hear Through the Ages described as a "civ-lite" game. To an extent, that is true - you can play Through the Ages in closer to 2 hours (even in the full game) than 2 days. However, Through the Ages definitely still has the depth to it that people who enjoy empire building games crave - your civilization can go to war, make raids, have leaders, build wonders, and discover technologies. Whoever is able to best capitalize on all of these elements will be victorious.

The third thing that I like about Through the Ages is how the "card row" works. This is really the mechanic that the entire game hinges on. Each turn, there are several cards that are available to the active player (I think it is 13, but I'm not sure). The cards that have been available the longest cost the least number of actions to put in your hand, whereas the new ones cost the most. At the start of each player's turn, a certain number of cards are removed from the front of the row; therefore you can wait to purchase a card so that it will become cheaper. But, if you wait, you risk one of your opponents taking the card. And if you wait too long, the card will go away of its own volition! This really does a good job of depicting the concepts of seizing opportunities, missed chances, and opportunity cost. Also, because the cards from the front of the line are discarded each turn, it really keeps up the pace of the game.

The final thing (that I will mention) that I liked about Through the Ages was how you kept track of everything. There are several different elements to the game - victory points earned each round, military strength, current amount of science, science earned each round, happiness, etc. The components for Through the Ages were brilliantly designed to allow you to easily see all of this at a (few) glance(s). This is another area that helps keep the pace of the game up without getting you as bogged down in the details. Specifically, you have a track not only to keep track of VP and science, but also to keep track of how much VP and science you gain each round - this way you don't have to re-add them up each turn. Whereas, this is by no means a game mechanic, it is definitely a wonderful aspect to the game that any other developers of empire building games need to shamelessly steal (quick, Eagle Games, go get it patented somehow)!

Ok, so I lied.  Here are a few more pros (with little to no explanation).  I liked:

• Multiple paths to victory
• How the Current/Future Events worked
• How the Aggression/Military worked - important but not too overpowering
• How building a Wonder worked

Unfortunately, there is still a con for Through the Ages that I have to mention. And that is, this game is "fiddly." Though the maintenance of this game works much better than most empire building games, there are still lots of things to adjust throughout the game (and on each turn) - and if you fail to adjust them, you might not notice for several turns. Not noticing that you should have been gaining one extra science per round can cost you a lot of valuable points. Again, this works better than in most empire builders, but it still is a nuisance to keep track of all of your civilization's different statistics, spent actions, and available resources.

Overall, I give Through the Ages a 9.5/10 (I only really debated between 9.0-9.5). It is by far my favorite empire building game. Unfortunately, since it still can take approximately 2 hours to play and is very intimidating looking to new players, it probably won't get as much playtime as it rightly deserves.

Through the Ages on Noble Knight Games (about $49.50)
Through the Ages on Funagain Games (about $49)
Through the Ages on Amazon (about $47)

Civilization: The Board Game (2010 Fantasy Flight Games) Review

A game that I was quite intrigued by and definitely wanted to check out was Civilization: The Board Game. Since I finally got that opportunity, now it's time to ponder on my experience with the gameplay for your, my dear reader's, enjoyment.

In Civilization, each of the players takes on the role of one of the different historical world leaders who is attempting to grow and lead their civilization into world domination, whether that domination would be in military, technology, economy or culture. Each turn, players will collect an amount of "trade resources" (these are primarily research points but can also be used to help build things). Next, after they are allowed to trade with each other, each player uses his cities (up to 3 of them) to do one of the following: 1) build new units, buildings, etc, 2) gain cultural points, or 3) collect resources. After this, each of the players is able to move their various markers representing the locations of their military and their scouts. Finally, they are able to research a new technology assuming that they have enough trade resources to do so. This continues until one of the players has achieved one of the 4 victory conditions stated previously.

There were a lot of things that I liked about Civilization and a lot of things that I was not a fan of. The biggest thing that I liked about the game is that they "simplified" it (assuming you can call a game that takes about 3-4 hours and has 26 pages of rules "simple".) Essentially, they allowed you to have the feel of the computer game but without most of the monotony that normally comes with board games that are too closely tied to computer games. One of the best examples is troop movement. In this game, each of the players has "figures" which represent where they have troops deployed, and they also have a pile of cards representing their "standing army" which is their total military might. Instead of keeping track of exactly which pieces you have in which locations and having to move dozens of pieces each turn, there were only a few figures which had to be moved, and it allowed the movement phase of the game to flow smoothly.

The next aspect of the game that I need to discuss is how the battle system works. I really think a lot of the mechanics of the battle system are awesome, but I must confess that how this worked in practice made me so angry during the game that I was very tempted to quit and walk away. As stated previously, each of the players has a deck of cards which represents their "standing army". There are 4 different kinds of cards that can go in this deck - infantry, mounted, ranged, and aircraft. Within these cards, there are three different levels of cards and when the players purchase new units for their standing armies, they get a random card from the pile that they choose (ie, they can choose to get an infantry unit, but cannot choose how good that infantry unit is). Also, each of the cards is divided into quarters, with each quarter representing the strength of that unit for whichever technology level those units have. (That was a really complicated way of saying that if your infantry is at level 3, he is 2 points stronger and has a cooler picture than if he is at level 1.) Here's one of the places where I feel that this part breaks down - I do not feel like a good card that happens to be level 1 should be evenly matched with a crappy card that is at level 3, and this is a situation that you will in fact encounter.

Continuing with the battle system, each of the 3 basic unit types (aircraft are not really a "basic" unit type) has a unit type which it defeats and a unit type that it is weak to in a rock-paper-scissors system. Therefore, when buying new units, each player must make sure that his "standing army" is fairly evenly distributed. Once a basic battle starts, each player gets three random cards from his standing army deck (he can get more depending on if he has another figure in the square, what his government is, etc). These three cards are played one at a time, and each time a card is played the results of that skirmish are immediately determined. If a unit fights a unit type that it has a strength against, then it is able to deal its damage immediately without receiving damage in return (if it deals enough damage to successfully kill the opposing unit).

The rock-paper-scissors works pretty well. The difficulty comes in drawing cards. A situation that I encountered (when I was so frustrated I wanted to give up) was this: I had 3 level-3 infantry, 2 level-1 mounted and 1 level-1 artillery at the beginning of the turn. I intended to upgrade artillery during the research phase (after all the fighting), and so I bought 2 more artillery (while they were still cheap - now I had 3 level-3 infantry, 3 level-1 artillery, and 2 level-1 mounted). I went and fought barbarians (they get a level 1 unit of each type). For my three cards, I drew all 3 of my level 1 artillery (none of which were especially strong cards to start with because of a bad draw when getting them initially), and got absolutely destroyed because they drew good cards. This, in practice, just seemed like it did not work out well. I have played enough games to realize that this is the aberration and not the norm, but it was still excruciatingly annoying.

Now that the battles have gotten some press, its time to talk about the tech pyramid. I liked how the tech pyramid worked (well, mostly). Instead of having certain technologies which are prerequisites to other technologies, Civilization had a concept of a "technology pyramid". How this worked in practice was that you had to have 2 Level 1 techs before you could build a Level 2 tech, 3 Level 1's and 2 Level 2's before you could build a Level 3, etc. This was a neat, streamlined way to handle techs and prerequisites. Unfortunately, the world is still not all roses and cherries, as this system gets quite frustrating at the end of the game. If you play games like everyone that I know, you will start getting the best technologies as quickly as you can. Because of this, you don't do a great job of building the base of your pyramid. What this means in terms of actual gameplay is that towards the end of the game, you will be generating tons of resource points, but you will waste them all on some Level 1 technology that you care nothing about so that you can build a Level 2 technology the next turn (that you care nothing about) so that you can eventually buy a Level 3 technology that is actually helpful.

Now for pondering about cities. In this take on a Civilization game, each player is only allowed 3 cities (and the 3rd one only after you have a certain technology). I'm pretty sure this was to keep the game streamlined and "short" (short.... 4-5 hours.... hmmm... I guess it's better than 12 hours or more.)  Each city is only allowed to do one thing per turn (and if it is building, it can only build one thing - unless you have the right technology, then one of your cities can build two things). What's more, the only buildings that you're able to build during your turn are ones that you have discovered the technology to unlock. Perhaps I just built way too often and should have focused more on other things, but I regularly had significantly more production points available than I was able to use. This seemed a bit messed up to me.

Since I have rambled on much more than I normally do, I'll just hit a few more points of note quickly and without explanation:

• Governments seemed useful but not especially important (I never changed mine)
• Economic and Cultural victory seemed much harder to achieve than Technological and Military
• The way that city attacks worked grows on me the more I think about it
• How resources work is interesting, but I don't know if I like it
• The game turned being "cultural" into being able to back-handedly screw your neighbor through culture cards
• I wasn't a fan of the terrain limitations for building buildings - this seemed unnecessarily
• I liked that the different civilizations actually had different traits and victory conditions that they would more easily be able to achieve

Overall, I give Civilization a 7.0/10.  Almost everything I liked about the game also frustrated me, and so I'm really confused about whether I like it - that makes it hard for me to really give it a great score.  With that said, though, there were a whole lot of things that I liked about the game.  If you're a huge fan of empire building games, then you should give this a shot.  However, for my time, I think I'm going to play Through the Ages instead.

Love Fantasy Flight Games? Some of my favorites are Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Battlestar Galactica, Blood Bowl: Team Manager, and the often under-appreciated Lord of the Rings (Knizia's co-operative version).

Civilization the Board Game (Eagle Games) Review

So, I finally got around to playing the copy of Civilization Board Game that I bought a year ago. As a disclaimer, I only played the standard version of the game due to learning and time constraints (the standard version still took 2.5 hours).

Civilization has a few good features. First, as with most Eagle board games, it has high production value including over 200 figures that were well sculpted along with a very large, detailed board. Secondly, the game has several fun elements to it (assuming that you enjoy empire building games). You are able to advance through multiple ages, build on previous success, and attack when you have a strategic advantage militarily.

Unfortunately, the cons on this game highly outweighed the pros. When playing this, when one person got an advantage, there was no way of gaining ground. And, unfortunately, a lot of the early advantages are luck based more than strategy based. In the game that we played, one person was able to get several good tiles while exploring, whereas the other person had some of the bad tiles that were revealed. This gave the first person a minor advantage early, but then since success builds so heavily on itself in this game, that person's advantage grew quickly. As a disclaimer, we played this game 2-player, and I would assume that a third player would keep some of this in check, as the two people that were losing would be able to join forces to gain ground on the person winning.

The next problem that I had with this game came with being able to easily recognize what was going on. Since the military units were all the same color (and distinguished with a flag bearer in the same region as the military units) it is difficult to see what units are yours and where you have the strategic advantage.

The next point of interest could be a pro or con, depending on what kind of game you enjoy. The amount of time to play the game is very excessive. Our game took 2.5 hours, and we played 1) the standard "fast paced" version of the game, 2) we only had 2 players, 3) we had very little military conflict, 4) we advanced through the final 3 ages in approximately 3 rounds. As stated previously, I think that this game would work better with 3 or more players - however the problem with that is that I would imagine that this would take 4+ hours to play with more players and in the "full" version of the game. This is a time commitment that I am rarely able to make to a game, and there are several games that I would rather play if I were to make this commitment.

This was a decent game, and I don't feel like I wasted my time playing it. I would, however recommend Through the Ages if you are interested in empire building games, as it can be played much more quickly.

Overall, I would give this game about a 5.0/10. Next time that I'm in the mood to play a game like this, I think I'll just wind up playing Sid Meier's Civilization V or Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution.

If you're looking for a civilization board game, you might check out Fantasy Flight's Civilization board game, Clash of Cultures, and Empires of the Void.