by: Michael Barnes

With SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION, designer Kevin Wilson’s first major game since the tragically flawed but forward-thinking ANDROID, the idea of making a boardgame based on the classic PC strategy game can finally be laid to rest—not because the game is the best of those that have tried to bring its core civilization-building to the table because it absolutely isn’t. Games such as MARE NOSTRUM, THROUGH THE AGES, and even the minimalist INNOVATION are its superiors, and those have succeeded because they’ve been inspired by CIV, not because they have strived for an almost slavish fidelity to the videogame’s surface tenets. Further, the processes and procedure of playing CIVILIZATION on a tabletop does more to point out why you should pack the game up and play the game on the PC.

Outstanding production values and lots of interesting artwork and components sell its subject matter wholesale, and anyone who has experienced that sleep-obliterating “one more turn” feeling will likely be thrilled to learn that the game really does look, feel, and play like CIVILZATION. In fact, I find myself realizing that some of the key reasons that I don’t like the game will probably be selling points for many who will be satisfied with a game that employs an almost checklist-like approach of wedding PC game elements to a laundry list of largely Eurogame-derived mechanics.

As expected, each player takes charge of the social, political, cultural, economic, and military development of a nation beginning at its earliest days exploring the environs of a vague region comprised of various terrain types and struggling to establish new settlements. As the game progresses, new technologies can be purchased that impart special benefits and improvements can be made to cities. There is a military option that is highly abstracted but surprisingly effective and congruous with the scale of the game. Accordingly, there are four key paths to victory encompassing a nation’s success along economic, military, cultural, or technological means.

What this boils down to, looking a little deeper into the military victory’s impetus to wipe another player off the map or the technology-focused player’s drive to achieve the game-ending Space Flight tech, is a fairly convoluted “efficiency engine” game wherein players attempt to maximize outputs of four different currencies (trade, production, coins, and culture). Despite the glossy presentation and high-profile theme, the game ultimately has more to do with PUERTO RICO and similar mid- to heavyweight Eurogames than might be expected from Mr. Wilson and Fantasy Flight Games, although the geographical element replaces the usual individual player mat to track holdings. But even that is present in the game as each city and its eight surrounding squares serve the same function as a player mat, with the key difference being that someone can park a military unit on top of a building or wonder to block its production or ability.

The military function can, under some circumstances where players are hostile and not focused on other business, provide avenues for interaction as do some surprisingly loose trading rules and Culture Cards that affect other player’s units and holdings. However, in several games that I have been party to CIVILIZATION isn’t any more interactive than the most isolationist Eurogames. In one game we wound up taking turns practically simultaneously stopping to check for turn order priority only when it was applicable. I was, at one point, completing my entire turn and leaving the table for ten minutes since there was literally nothing else I could do other than watch people count and dicker over buying either a city improvement or a wonder. There were exactly two military actions involving more than one player, but given that combat breaks out into one of those dreaded mini-card games rather than an on-the-board dice-based or deterministic resolution, I was glad because it would have extended the game more than I would have cared to play.

Certain nations, the Romans and Germans in particular, are geared toward a military path so it can be expected that games with those nations might tend to be more aggressive. However, if you decide to pick a certain victory path, it becomes extremely difficult early on to shift gears and do something else. This is problematic because it can happen that halfway through the game you’re simply behind the efficiency curve and can not really correct the course. And forget about trying to work towards two of them and decide halfway through the game- actions and resources are so limited it’s just not feasible.