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PocketCiv
A solitaire game of building civilizations.
(version:07.11.06)
OBJECT:
Starting with a few tribes, lead your civilization through the ages to become...civilized.
COMPONENTS:
What you will definitely need:
• The deck of Event cards
If you are playing, basic, no frills, true PocketCiv style, you will additionally need:
• A pencil
• A pad of paper
• This set of rules
• A printout of the Advances and Wonders
If you want to play a bunch of pre-built Scenarios, you will need:
• The Scenario book
Finally, if you want a full “board game” experience, you will need to download, printout and mount:
• The files that contains the graphics for the Resource Tiles, and Land Masses
• The deck of Advances and Wonders
• Poker chips (for keeping track of Gold)
• Glass Beads or wood cubes (for use as Tribes)
A FEW WORDS OF NOTE:
It should be noted here that since this is a solitaire game, the system is fairly open-ended to interpretation, and how you want to play it.
For example, while in the following "Build Your World" section, it talks about creating a single Frontier area; there's nothing that
prevents you from breaking up the Frontier into two areas, which would give you two Sea areas, as if your Empire is in the middle of a
peninsula. It's your world, feel free to play with it as much as you like. Looking at the scenario maps will give you an idea how varied you
can make your world.
However, your first play should conform fairly close to these given rules, as the rules and events on the cards pertain to these rules. So,
when you go off and explore alternate rules from the one provided below, knowing how the cards operate will give you some
understanding of how far off you can deviate. So, if you want to create a set of islands with no Frontier, fine. But you will need to figure
out some way to handle the cases of when something happens that requires a Frontier.
If you are playing the bare-bones PocketCiv version, you will be using the pad of paper to draw your map, and keep track of important
data. You can draw the map on half the sheet of paper, and use the other half for data tracking; or you can use a full sheet for your map,
and then use the second sheet of paper in your pad for data tracking. It's all up to you!
When using the basic pen-and-pencil edition, you will be marking, crossing out marks, erasing, and mutilating the paper in various ways
that it will eventually become hard to keep track of some data. Do not fear! You can simply "refresh" your Empire at any time by copying
over your current data and Empire to a clean sheet of paper as is needed.
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DELUXE versus BASIC:
PocketCiv comes in two flavors, Deluxe and Basic. Basic refers to the barest, stripped down version that you play with the deck of
provided cards, and a pad of paper and a pencil. This version is very portable. However, if you want a more boardgame-like experience,
you can download all the other artwork, and mount it on cardboard, illustration board (my new favorite mounting material) or foamcore.
The rules don’t change, just the presentation. However, some of the terminology gets a little “wonky” between the two.
For example, while playing the basic version, you will be erasing and drawing things; in the deluxe version, the equivalence of erasing
and drawing is simply moving pieces on and off the board. Throughout the rules, there may be cases where things are stated as “erase.” If
you are playing deluxe-style, just remember to don’t try and erase anything, simply move the piece off the board. Along those same lines,
if you are asked to “remove” something, and you are playing the basic version, you need to erase that thing. It shouldn’t be too difficult.
The City counters in the Deluxe version should be stacked as your City Advance Values grow. Additionally, simply remove the top one
from the stack if you need to Reduce the Advance Value of a City.
DECIMATION, CREATION, and REDUCTION:
Events that happen to your Empire will often use the words DECIMATE and REDUCE, and possibly CREATE.
When you are told to Decimate something, you must cross it off, or erase, that thing completely. It has been removed from the world, and
doesn’t exist anymore. Decimating Tribes in a Region leaves no Tribes in that Region. Decimating a City removes the City completely.
Decimated Advances are returned to the deck of Advances.
Creation is the opposite of Decimation. When you are told to Create something, merely draw an Icon in that Region to Create it. Only one
each of Forests, Mountains/Volcanoes, Farms, and Deserts icons can be in a Region. If some Event indicates that you need to Create one
of these icons in a Region where that icon already exists, ignore that part of the rule. Creating something in the Deluxe means placing a
counter with the appropriate icon on the board.
When you are told to Reduce something, you will normally cross off, erase, etc. that thing down TO a certain amount, or BY a certain
amount. “Reducing Tribes to 1” means deleting all Tribes that you have in a given Region except for 1 (if you have no Tribes there, there
is nothing to Reduce, so you stay at zero). “Reducing Tribes by 1” mean deleting 1 Tribe from the target Region, if you have at least 1
Tribe there. This applies similarily to City AVs as well. However, if a City reaches an AV of 0 or less, that City is Decimated, and
erased from the Empire.
NEIGHBORING, AFFECTED and ACTIVE REGIONS:
An Active Region is the Region where an Event is centered on, or where it started. A Neighboring Region is one that simply borders the
Active Region, and will usually feel some repercussions from the Event that occurs in the Active Region.
An Affected Region is a Region that has had some kind of status change acted upon it due to an Event. This can include both Active and
Neighboring Regions. If an Event causes the Tribe amount to change in a Region, or a City AV change, or a natural resource icon
change, or anything else, that Region is considered to be Affected.
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ICONS:
These are merely suggested icons that you will be using. Feel free to use these, or create your own. The most important thing is that the
icon easily represent to you what they are supposed to represent. I leave it to you to figure out how you want to draw Wonders.
Counter
artwork
from the
Deluxe
package
Suggested art
when using
pencil and
paper
Descriptions of use
TRIBES should be marked as “tic” marks; simple one line marks. Feel free to
draw smiley faces on them, or give them limbs. The image to the left shows 4
Tribes. You will need to provide your own counters for the Deluxe version, using
such things as glass beads, or poker chips.
CITIES need to be large enough for you to put in a number in the middle of the
Icon. The higher the number, the larger and more prosperous the City is. There
can only be 1 City in each Region. Cities in the Deluxe version come in two
colors, primarily for the two-player option.
These are simply MOUNTAINS. Mountains provide Stone when purchasing
Advances. There can only be one Mountain in each Region.
Mountains can become VOLCANOES through Events. They still provide Stone,
however, along with some nasty things that happen when a Volcano erupts. There
can only be one Volcano or Mountain in each Region.
FORESTS provide Wood for Advances. There can only be one Forest in a Region.
FARMS provide Food for Advances, and keep Cities from falling into a state of
disrepair. At the beginning of the game, you will have to Decimate Forests to
Create Farms. There can only be one Farm in a Region.
I prefer to use a Skull and Crossbones design for DESERTS. But…
You can also use the more appropriate Cactus design for Deserts. There can only
be one Desert in a Region.
For a Fault Line, do you best at drawing a crack in the ground.
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SETTING UP THE GAME:
When you buy an Advance, you can simply note the Advance on the pad of paper, or pull the card out of the deck and keep it near your
pad of paper as proof of “ownership” (assuming you have downloaded and printed out the Advance deck).
The Event deck, however, will be used often. You will need to shuffle and draw from this deck face down, and have another pile of faceup Event cards as you draw them. So you will need some amount of space for these piles, along with your pad of paper.
BUILD YOUR WORLD:
Using your pencil, you will first have to draw the world you will be playing in. This will be simple map of your own
design, using your very own art skills.
Draw a large shape. This shape will encompass the borders of your EMPIRE.
Divide your Empire up into 8 REGIONS. When drawing borders between
Regions, make sure that each vertex (places where lines/borders intersect) only
break out into 3 three lines. In other words, do not create a “four corners” case
(like the corner of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado).
Randomly give each Region a number 1 through 8. These numbers will be used as
identification for each Region.
Draw a large FRONTIER Region around the edge of your Empire. Make sure that
the Frontier borders on 4 or 5 Empire Regions. Label the Frontier.
Any border that does not touch the Frontier, borders the SEA. Label the Sea.
Tribes from other Kingdoms will "visit" you from the Frontier and the Sea. Most
likely as barbarian hordes or pirates, but sometimes as friendly traders.
Draw a MOUNTAIN Icon in 5 Regions. Mountains provide Stone to your Empire.
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Draw a FOREST icon in 5 Regions. You may put Forests in a Region with
Mountains. Forests provide Wood for your Empire.
Draw a DESERT icon in any Region that does not have a Mountain or Forest. If
all Regions have either a Mountain or Forest, then select on Region without a
Forest to Create. In other words, you must at least 1 Desert in your Empire.
Deserts provide the occasional desert bandit tribe. And the occasional sandstorm.
(note the skull and crossbones in Region 7)
If you don’t trust your own internal randomizer, you may use the numbers in the Circles on the Event cards to help you
place things.
(Note: When deciding on placements of the Forests and Mountains, putting Forests and Mountains
together in the same Region will make some elements of the game easier for you (notably, acquiring
some Advances earlier in the game); however, this will result in having more Regions with Deserts,
which will make things tougher for you in other aspects of the game (notably, Creating and moving
Tribes around, and more Bandit attacks).
Finally, Create 3 Tribes (small tic marks) in any of the Regions that you like (A good starting point would be to place
them in Regions that have both Mountains and Forests).
Congratulations! You have your starting map!
OTHER GAME SETUP STUFF:
You will also need a small area to keep track of Gold, which you can accumulate through either Trade or Expeditions,
or a few other means with the correct Advances.
You will need an additional space to keep track of your Glory. Glory is your running score of how well you are
managing your Empire and how it progresses. At the end of every Era (detailed below) you will score points that add to
your Glory.
You need to make a note that you are in ERA 1.
Shuffle and place the deck of Event cards face down. Draw and discard the top three cards from the Event deck. You
are now ready to play.
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QUICK GAME PHASE LIST:
This is presented in more detail below. Here is a quick overview of the game phases, and what you will possibly need
to do in each Round. As you acquire Advances, you will gain the abilities to do more actions; or to modify these
actions.
1. Population Growth and Movement
* Create one new Tribe in each Region that currently has at least 1 Tribe.
* You may move each Tribe, if you wish, across one border to a new Region.
2. Draw an Event Card
* Draw the top card off the Event deck. If the card shows an Entry that matches the number of the current Era,
follow the instruction of the Event.
* If the Event deck has been fully “drawn dry,” add one to the Era number, and check to see that you have an
amount of Cities equal to or more than the new number of the Era. If so, the game continues, and you refresh the Event
deck by shuffling all of the Event cards, and drawing off the top three cards.
3. Advance
* Build Cities and Farms
* Acquire Advances
* Send Tribes on Expeditions
* Build Wonders
4. Upkeep
*Reduce City AVs if you don’t have Farms to support your Cities.
* Reduce unsupported Tribes in Regions. The amount of Tribes a Region can support is based on the total of
City AV, and Mountain/Volcano, Farm, Forest icons.
*Decimate all Gold
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PLAYING THE GAME:
The game takes place in a series of Rounds. Each Round has a series of Phase that you perform specific duties. The order of each Phase
is as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Population Growth and Movement
Draw an Event
Advance
Upkeep
Each of these phases is described below. In addition to scoring Victory Points (VP), most Advances alter the various rules of the game.
These rules modifications will be shown below in italicized blue (generally good things that happen) and italicized red (generally bad
things).
POPULATION GROWTH and MOVEMENT:
Create one new Tribe in every Region where you have a Tribe. Create a Tribe by drawing a simple ‘tic’ mark in that
Region.
If you have less than 3 Tribes, you may create new Tribes to get you back up to 3 Tribes, as long as each new Tribe
goes into a Region with a City.
If you have no Tribes AND no Cities, the game is over.
You may now move each Tribe to a neighboring Region by crossing a single Border. This is simply done by
Decimating the Tribe you want to move in its current Region, and then Creating it in the destination Region.
When moving your Tribes, you should be moving them where they will be used for the Advance phase of the Round.
Roadbuilding allows for Tribes to cross two borders; they may move an additional Region away.
If you have Equestrian, you may move any Tribe to any Region, with the following restrictions: Tribes may
not move through Frontiers. You can not use Equestrian to move Tribes across Seas.
If you have Fishing or Navigation, you may move a Group of Tribes from one Region to any other Region as
long as both Regions neighbor the same Sea. You must Reduce 1 Tribe from the group of Tribes that is doing
this. The definition of “same sea” is somewhat nebulous however when creating your own map. In theory, the
Frontiers should “extend forever,” and therefore you cannot sail around a Frontier. But it’s up to you.
If you have Magnetics, you do not have to Reduce 1 Tribe from the group of Tribes that is moving across the
Sea.
DRAW AN EVENT CARD:
Draw an Event card from the top of the Event deck, and place it face up.
Event cards have many elements, on the top left is a row of geometric shapes with numbers, and possibly a handshake
Icon; we’ll get to those in a minute. The parts that we are currently interested in are the large boxes in the middle of the
card with a number on the left side, and an Event name.
Look for a box on the card that matches the current Era you are in. If there is no box with that number, then an Event
does not happen on this Round. However, if there is a numbered box that matches your Era, then the Event that is in
that box occurs.
You will need to look up the Event and follow the instructions as closely as possible. Event explanations are described
later in this document. Or, if you have printed them out, look up the Event on the Event Explanation cards if you have
printed those out. In general, the instructions shown in this document are more detailed than the cards, but once you
have played the game enough, the basic descriptions on the cards should suffice.
If, at any point, the Event deck runs out of cards, you must do an END OF ERA check (see End of Era below).
Afterwards, shuffle all of the Event cards, place the deck face down, draw and discard the top three cards, and continue
as normal.
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ADVANCE:
After resolving any Event you may have, it is time to increase the power and knowledge of your Empire! You do this by
“assigning” roles to your Tribes. These Tribes are removed from the game once assigned, as they are now off
performing their roles that you have given them for the common good of your Empire.
You have many options at this point. Using your Tribes at hand, you can Create Farms and Cities, Create Wonders,
send out your Tribes on Expeditions, and develop Advances that help you run your Empire. You may do any of these
things in any order you wish. Also, you may do any of these actions as many times as you wish as long as you can
“pay” for them, AS LONG AS AT LEAST 1 TRIBE REMAINS IN YOUR EMPIRE. You cannot willfully Decimate
your last Tribe in the Empire to pay for any action during the Advance phase.
(Advance Action) BLACK MARKET:
If you have the Black Market, you MAY try to collect taxes from the Market. This is done in the following
manner.
Draw the top Event card.
Add the amount of Gold Nuggets shown on the card to your common stock.
If the Event card shows a Handshake symbol, you must Decimate 1Gold from your stock, and draw the next
Event card, again adding the amount of Gold Nuggets shown on this new card to your stock.
Once you have stopped drawing Event cards with handshake symbols, Black Market taxation is over.
If at any time you cannot pay the 1 Gold for the Handshake symbol, you must start an Anarchy Event. Play this
as if you have drawn an Anarchy Event from the Event Deck.
End of Era checks must still be made as you draw out the last card from the deck. As usual, if you pass
the End of Era check, reshuffle all of the Event cards, and draw and discard the top three cards before
continuing.
(Advance Action) MINING:
If you have Mining, you MAY try to mine for Gold. This is done in the following manner.
If you have Surveying, you may look through the discard pile to see how much gold “has been mined” already
in this Round. Otherwise, you are not allowed to look through the discard pile before deciding to Mine or not.
Decimate 3 Tribes from any Region with a Mountain or Volcano. Draw the top card from the Event
Deck. If the Event card has 1, 2, or 3 Gold Nuggets, keep track of how many Nuggets you have. Your
collected Nuggets become your “Mine Cart.”
You may now stop Mining, and collect all of your Nuggets from your Mine Cart by adding your
Nuggets to your common Gold stock. Or you may attempt to “dig deeper” and draw another Event
card.
As long as you can continue to draw Event cards with Nuggets, you can continue adding them to your
Mine Cart. However, if you draw an Event card that has no Nuggets, you lose ALL OF YOUR
NUGGETS collected in your Mine Cart, and your attempt at Mining comes to an end.
At any point, you may stop drawing Event cards, and collect your Gold; at this point, your attempt at
Mining also comes to an end.
You may attempt Mining as many times as you wish, as long as you Decimate 3 Tribes in a Region
with a Mountain or Volcano for each attempt.
End of Era checks must still be made as you draw out the last card from the deck. As usual, if you pass
the End of Era check, reshuffle all of the Event cards, and draw and discard the top three cards before
continuing.
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(Advance Action) EXPEDITIONS:
You may send out Tribes in your Regions that border the Frontier on dangerous expeditions to bring
back Gold for your Empire. Decimate any number of Tribes from a single Region; this amount is
known as your Expedition Force. Flip over the next Event card, and subtract the number in the BLUE
HEX from your Expedition Force.
If you have Magnetics, divide the number from the BLUE HEX by 2, round up.
This remaining number is the amount of Gold your Expedition has collected (assuming it’s above
zero). Keep track of this amount somewhere on your pad of paper, as Gold is helpful to acquire
Advances and to build Wonders.
You may send out as many Expeditions as you like in a Round, but remember that Expeditions from
each Region ‘eat up’ Event cards. Also, 1 large Expedition will bring back more Gold than numerous
small Expeditions (usually).
If you have Navigation, you may send Tribes in Regions that border the Sea off on
Expeditions. During Sea Expeditions, use the value of the GREEN SQUARE instead
of the BLUE HEX to determine Expedition losses.
During a Sea Expedition, if you have Magnetics, divide the number from the GREEN SQUARE
by 2, round up.
Since Roadbuilding allows for greater movement of your Tribes, you can gather
larger amounts of Tribes for Expeditions with it.
If you have Cavalry, each Tribe on an Expedition to the Fron1tier counts as 2 Tribes
when determining the size of your Expedition Force.
If you have Meteorology, each Tribe on an Expedition to the Sea counts as 2 Tribes
when determining the size of your Expedition Force.
At the end of each Round during Upkeep, you will need to Decimate your Gold
supply, unless you have Coinage. You can then keep any Gold obtained for the rest
of the game.
(Advance Action) CREATE A CITY:
Cities are important centers of life in your Empire. Cities allow you to purchase Advances.
To Create a City, there must be at least 4 Tribes in the Region you want to build your City. Decimate
4 Tribes in that Region to Create a City with an Advance Value(AV) of 1 there.
If you have Common Tongue, you only need to Decimate 2 Tribes to Create a City.
All Cities start out with an Advance Value (AV) of 1. Some Advances will allow you
to increase this amount.
EXAMPLE: The City to the left has an AV of 3.
You can only build one City per Region. So you can only have a maximum total of 8 Cities in your
Empire.
1
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Cities require a Farm in their Region (unless you have Roadbuilding) to survive, so be sure to build a
Farm first in the Region where you want to build a City.
After building a City, you can immediately use that City to acquire Advances.
(Advance Action) CREATE A FARM:
To Create a Farm in a Region, you need to Decimate a Forest and 2 Tribes in that Region.
Agriculture will let you Create Farms without Decimating Forests, once per Round.
(Advance Action) ACQUIRE ADVANCES:
Advances help you build better Empires, allow you to bend the rules of the games, and help your
Empire flourish more quickly than without. A majority of time, they help you combat disastrous
Event that plague any growing Empire. Also, Advances score Victory Points, which are how your
Empire is rated when the game is over.
Advances can be acquired with the following requirements.
You may not acquire Advances unless your Total City AV is greater than the current number of
Advances you currently own. Your Total City AV is the sum total of the AV of all your Cities.
Each City may acquire one Advance per Round. The various Resources and Costs for an
Advance come from the Region that the acting City is in. This Region is known as the Active
Region.
EXAMPLE: At the beginning of the game, you have no Cities. Therefore, you have no City
AV, and cannot buy an Advance.
EXAMPLE: After building your first City, which has an AV of 1, you can immediately
purchase an Advance, because your total City AV of your Empire is now 1.
EXAMPLE: You have four Cities, two of them have an AV of 2, two of them have an AV of 1.
You have a total City AV of 6. If you have 5 or less Advances currently, you can purchase a
new Advance.
Advances have 3 checks which must be “paid” before acquiring them. They are COST,
RESOURCES, and REQUIREMENTS.
Costs are either Gold or Tribes, which are Decimated when you purchase the Advance. Gold comes
from your common Gold stock; the Tribes that are Decimated come from the Region that the Acting
City (the City that is acquiring the Advance) is in.
Resources are things that you must have, but you do not Decimate. These are Wood, Stone, and
Food. These are based on the Resource Icons the Region that the Acting City is in. A Mountain or
Volcano provides Stone resource; a Farm provides Food, and a Forest provides Wood.
EXAMPLE: The Advance known as Good Grooming(not a real Advance) has a Cost of 1
Gold and 3 Tribes. It also needs the Resources of 1 Stone. So, for a City to acquire this
Advance, the Region that the City is in must have a Mountain, and 3 Tribes to Decimate.
You must also have at least 1 Gold in your common stock to Decimate.
If you have Machining, you may substitute Wood for Stone, or Stone for Wood. So, if
you wish to acquire an Advance that requires Stone, you may use a City that has
either a Mountain, Volcano, or Forest. The same thing occurs if you require Wood.
However, a resource can only fulfill 1 requirement, so if something requires both
Wood and Stone, you will need to find a Region that has both a Mountain/Volcano
and a Forest Resource.
Requirements are other Advances that you must have already acquired before you can acquire this
Advance.
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EXAMPLE: Irrigation has a requirement of Agriculture. You must own Agriculture first
before you can purchase Irrigation.
After acquiring an Advance, you can either make a note of it on your pad of paper. If you have
printed out the Advance cards, you can keep a separate pile of Advance cards for the ones you have
purchased.
Note, that while Advances are acquired by a single City, your entire Empire gains all the “knowledge”
of that Advance, and any additional help or rules that the Advance brings is commonly shared
throughout the Empire. In other words, Advance effects are Empire-wide.
In the case where your Total AV drops below your number of Advances (due to an Event), you DO
NOT have to discard Advances, you simply cannot acquire a new Advance until you re-construct your
City AV enough to have the “open AV space” for new acquisitions.
When you acquire Black Market, add 5 Gold to your common stock. This is a one
time addition that occurs immediately when you acquire the Black Market.
(Advance Action) BUILD WONDERS:
Wonders share some traits of both Cities and Advances. Like Cities, they are drawn on the map.
However, unlike Cities, there is no limit to the amount of Wonders you can build in a Region.
Like Advances, Wonders score Victory Points at the end of the game for you. Wonders also have a
cost, and occasionally, some Requirements you must have to build them.
You may build multiple Wonders of each kind. Unlike Advances, Cities do not “build” Wonders, so
you may build as many as you wish per turn, in any Region that can supply the cost of the Tribes, and
as long as you have the Gold to spend.
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UPKEEP:
At the end of the Round, you must perform some “clean up” duties, in the following order.
1. Each Region can only Support a certain amount of Tribes. The Support Value of a Region is the number of
resource Icons (Forests, Mountains, Volcanoes, and Farms), plus the AV of any City in the Region. If you
have more Tribes than the Support Value of a Region, you must Decimate Tribes down to match the Support
Value.
2. Decimate all Gold that you have earned from Expeditions or Trade.
If you have Coinage, do not Decimate Gold.
If you have the Black Market, you must Decimate 1 Gold. Coinage does not prevent this from
happening.
3. If you have Culture of Thievery, you must check for Violent Profits:
3.1. Draw the next Event card. The number in the RED CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
3.2. If the Active Region has at least one Tribe:
3.2.1. Decimate 1 Tribe in the Active Region.
3.2.2. Draw the next Event Card. Add Gold to your common stock equal to the amount
of gold nuggets shown on this event card.
3.3. If the Active Region has no Tribes, then do nothing.
4. If you have the following Advances, you perform these duties as well at this point.
4.1. Advance Cities.
A large part of the game is advancing the AV of your cities, which make them able to survive disasters,
and enables you to acquire more Advances.
As you acquire Advances, you will be able to advance your cities multiple times. There is a cost to this;
you must decimate a number of Tribes equal to the AV you are advancing to. So, if you are advancing a
City AV to 3, you must Decimate 3 Tribes. These Tribes can come from anywhere in the Empire.
If you have Masonry, you can increase the AV of any 1 City.
If you have Civil Service, you can increase the AV of any 1 City.
If you have Slave Labor, you can increase the AV of any 1 City.
The effects of these three Advances above are cumulative. For example:
If you have both Masonry and Civil Service, you may increase the AV of any 1 City by two, or increase the
AV of two Cities by 1.
If you have Basic Tools, you can reduce the Decimation of Tribes when increasing a City AV by 1.
If you have Simple Tools, you can reduce the Decimation of Tribes when increasing a City AV by 1.
If you have Machining, you can reduce the Decimation of Tribes when increasing a City AV by 1.
The effects of these three Advances are cumulative. For example:
If you have both Basic Tools and Simple Tools, to increase a City AV to 3, instead of Decimating 3 Tribes,
you only need to Decimate 1.
City AV’s cannot go higher than 2, unless…
If you have Engineering or Metal Working, the maximum City AV is 3.
If you have Architecture, the maximum City AV is 4.
If you have Centralized Government, you may denote 1 City as a Capitol. Draw a Star next to the City you
wish to be your Capitol.
Capitols can increase their AV beyond 4 up to 10AV. Up to 4AV, it is advanced with the City Advance
instructions as described above. To Advance beyond 4, you must Decimate 1 on the following Resource Icons:
Forest, Mountain, or Farm, from anywhere in the Empire PLUS the amount of Tribes (in the Capitol’s Region)
equal to the amount of the Target AV. Forest or Farm may be rebuilt as normal. A Capitol can only Advance
once per Upkeep.
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EXAMPLE: To increase the AV of a Capitol to 6, you must Decimate one Resource from anywhere, plus 6
Tribes in the Capitol’s Region.
Basic Tools, Simple Tools, and Machining effects do not apply to Capitols.
If a Capitol is ever Decimated, you may choose another City to become your Capitol.
4.2. Gold Management.
If you have Banking, if you have more than 3 Gold in your common stock, add 1 Gold.
If you have Patronage, add 1 Gold to your common stock for every City you have over four.
EXAMPLE: 6 Cities provide 2 Gold.
5.
For any City that is in a Region with no Farm, reduce that City’s AV by 1. If a City AV is Reduced to 0,
Decimate the City.
If you have Fishing, Cities in Regions that border the Sea do not need a Farm to support them.
If you have Cartage, you may use any Farm in your Empire to support a City. However, each Farm
can only support 1 City, so if you have more Cities than Farms, you must Reduce AVs by the
difference between Cities and the amount of Farms. You may choose which Cities you want to
Reduce.
After doing Upkeep duties, start a new Round, with Population Growth.
When playing with the Deluxe version, and you are increasing your City AV, you should stack your City AV counters
on top of each other. Likewise, if you need to Reduce a City AV, simply take off the top City counter from the stack.
END OF ERA:
If the deck of Event Cards run out, you have reached the end of an Era.
At the End of an Era, first check to see if you have the same amount of Cities as the Era you are leaving. If you do, you may add up
Glory from your acquired Advances. If not, you do not get any Glory for this Era. So, if you have 2 Cities at the end of the 2nd Era, you
can gain Glory. The end of the 8th Era does not have the City requirement.
The amount of Glory you receive is based on the VP that is listed on your Advances. However, you may only use an amount of Advances
for Glory score equal to the amount of Tribes that currently exist in your Empire.
EXAMPLE: You currently have 8 Tribes existing your Empire. Therefore, you can only use
the VP from 8 Advances that you currently have. So, you should look through your Advances
that you have Acquired, and add to your running total of Glory the VP listed on your 8
highest VP scoring Advances.
Wonders do not add to the Glory count at the end of an Era. Instead, their VP is added to your Glory at the end of the game.
Unlike earlier version of this game, the game DOES NOT end if you cannot fulfill your City requirements to match the Era. However,
you can optionally end the game during any End of Era check.
If you are in the middle of an Event when you run out of cards in the deck, the End of Era check interrupts the Event and occurs
immediately. After performing the End of Era instructions, you can go back, re-shuffle, and continue the Event.
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WHEN THE GAME ENDS:
The game can end in three ways:
• When you have played through all 8 Eras.
• If at any point in the game, you have no Tribes and no Cities.
• When you want it to end during an End of Era check.
Do a final Glory check, and add to your Glory the amount of VP on the appropriate amount of Advances as determined
by your amount of Tribes.
Add up the VP value of all Wonders that you have built. Add this amount to your running Glory total. This total
amount is your score for the game.
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2- PLAYER VARIANT
At some point, there’s a chance that you will want to play the game with more people than just yourself. Here’s a way to do it.
You will most likely have to use the Deluxe version to do this. But if you want to try just doing it the PocketCiv way, go right
head!
Remember, this isn’t a war game; in the 2-player game you cannot go out and directly attack your opponent, or bring his Cities
down in burning ruins. There are plenty of other games that do that. In this game, while things don’t have to be totally cooperative, the goal is the have the most advanced civilization.
Here are the changes to the rules:
** There is no End of Era check. However, the Eras progress as normal; the first time through the deck, you play the Era 1
Events, the 2nd time, you play the Era 2 Events, etc.
** The Empire will need to be made up of 16 Regions (plus desired Frontiers). There will be two sets of each number 1 through
8 (two #1 Regions, two #2 Regions, etc.). These Regions should be randomly laid out.
** There will need to be some kind of token, which we will call the Totem that will be passed back and forth between the
players. Randomly decide who gets the Totem to start. This is the major addition to the game, and determines which player has
“the power” in certain parts of the game. In short, the Totem does this:
• The player with the Totem goes first when asked.
• The player with the Totem controls the Event cards; however, the player without the Totem may take it after an Event is
about to take place, but before the Active Region is decided.
• The player with the Totem goes first when removing Tribes for Tribe Support “overload.”
** In general, while each player can perform their Actions simultaneously during each Phase of the game. However, if there is a
case where going first is important, the player without the Totem can ask the player with the Totem to go first, and then the
player without the Totem can take his turn after the Totem player has completed his turn during that Phase.
** The player with the Totem is in charge of the revealing the Event card that determines the Event.
After revealing the Event, but before revealing the Active Region, the player without the Totem may take the Totem.
The player with the Totem reveals the Active Region number, and then selects which of the two numbered Regions in the
Empire becomes the Active Region for that Event, and plays out that Event. When playing out the Event, all Cities and Tribes
are considered colorless, and the Totem player may choose which Tribes and Cities are affected by the Event, if there is a choice
to be made.
** Each Region may hold 1 City for each player, and Regions may hold Tribes for each player.
** When determining Tribe Support, Cities provide Tribe Support for BOTH players’ Tribes. If a Region has more Tribes than
it can support, and the Tribes are of different colors, then the player take turns removing 1 Tribe until the amount of Tribes that
the Region can support is reached. The player with the Totem removes first.
** When checking for City support, 1 Farm in a Region can support one City of each color.
** When performing special actions with the Event deck (such as Mining, or Expeditions), the other player just sits and watches.
These events are individually handled. Since there is no End of Era check, there is no need to worry about the other player
rushing through the deck to nail you against that (however, there’s no reason someone couldn’t Mine to finish the game more
quickly).
** When Acquiring a particular Advance, if the other player has already Acquired it, then the 2nd player to Acquire it can reduce
the cost of it by 1 Gold AND 1 Tribe, due to knowledge spreading throughout the land.
** The game ends when one player has lost all of his Tribes and Cities, or if the Game plays through all 8 Eras, at which point
the player with the highest VP total of Advances and Wonders wins.
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EVENT EXPLANATIONS:
This is the list of Events, and a detailed Explanation of how the Events work. The Event Explanation cards detail the rules
regarding each Event in a less detailed manner. Events are listed in alphabetical order.
The applications of the multiple Advance Effects on a given Event should be performed in the order as given in the Event.
ANARCHY:
1. In any Region where the amount of Tribes is greater
than the City AV, Reduce the City AV by 1 and
Reduce Tribes by 3. Continue to Reduce Tribes and
City AV’s this way until the City AV is 1, or until
amount of Tribes is less than the City AV.
1.1. If you have Literacy, Reduce Tribes by 5
instead of 3.
1.2. If you have Law, do not Reduce City AV.
Reduce Tribes by the City AV in each Region.
1.3. If you have Organized Religion, only a
maximum of 4 Regions are Affected. You select
the Regions. You may select Regions without
Cities. Regions with no Cities do not feel the
effects of Anarchy.
2. If you have Slave Labor, Draw the next card.
Reduce Tribes throughout your Empire an
additional amount as shown in the RED
CIRCLE.
3. If you have Machining, Reduce an additional
2 City AV of your choice (these may be from the
same, or different Cities). Law cancels this
affect.
ATTACK (VISITATION or BANDITS):
1. If you have Ministry, draw the next Event
card and Reduce the size of the Attack Force by
the value in the GREEN SQUARE. Increase
your amount of Gold by 1 for each Attacking
Force Reduced in this manner.
2. Starting with the Active Region, Reduce Tribes and
Attacking Force.
2.1. Reduce 1 Tribe to Reduce 1 Attacking Force.
Unless….
2.2. If you have Military or Metal Working,
Reduce 1 Tribe to Reduce up to 2 strength of
Attacking Force.
2.3. If you have Military and Metal Working,
Reduce 1 Tribe to Reduce up to 3 strength of
Attacking Force.
3. If Attacking Force remains after Decimating all
Tribes…
3.1. Reduce 5 Attacking Force to Reduce 1 City AV.
Unless…
3.2. If you have Architecture, Reduce 8
Attacking Force to Reduce 1 City AV..
3.3. If there is not enough Attacking Force to Reduce a
City AV, then the Attacking Force is Decimated.
3.4. For every AV reduced by the Attacking Force,
Decimate 2 Gold from your common stock.
4. If Attacking Force remains after Decimating the
City, then Attacking Force moves to the Neighboring
Region with the least amount of Tribes.
4.1. If there is a tie between Regions with equal (or
zero) Tribes, then Attacking Force moves into the
Region with the City with the highest AV. Otherwise,
you choose.
4.2. If the Attacking Force is in a Region where all
neighboring Regions do not have Tribes or Cities, then
the attack is done. Attacking Forces do not move
through empty Regions.
4.3. If you have Equestrian, Reduce strength of
Attacking Force by 2 when entering a new
Region with Tribes.
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BANDITS:
1. Draw the next card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
CIVIL WAR:
1. Draw the next card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2. If the Active Region, or a Neighboring Region,
contains a Desert, you are being Attacked by Bandits.
Otherwise, disregard the Bandit Event.
2. All City AVs in the Active Region, and in
Neighboring Regions, are Reduced by 2. Cities
Reduced to 0 are Decimated.
3. If you are being attacked, keep this card off to the
side, and then determine the size of the Attacking
Force by drawing the Next Card. Based on the symbols
on the right side of the Event box of the original Bandit
Event, add up the values in the same symbols on the
newly drawn card (See the “Q and A” section later on
for an example). This becomes the strength of the
Attacking Force. See Attack below.
2.1. If you have Military, Reduce City AV in
Neighboring Regions by 3 instead of 2.
3.1. If you have Law, reduce the value of the
Attacking Force by one BLUE HEX.
2.4. If you have Architecture, City AV
reductions are reduced by 1. “Base” City
Reductions are now 1. Architecture plus
Military Reductions are 2 and Architecture plus
Mythology are 2.
3.2. If you have Democracy, reduce the value of
the Attacking Force by one BLUE HEX.
3.3. If you have Equestrian, increase the value
of the Attacking Force by one BLUE HEX.
3.4. If you have Slave Labor, increase the value
of the Attacking Force by one BLUE HEX.
You cannot become Trading Partners with Bandits.
2.2. If you have Mythology, Reduce City AV in
Active Region by 3 instead of 2.
2.3. If you have Civil Service, Cities cannot be
reduced below 1.
3.1. Draw the next card.
3.2. If you have Law, the number in the GREEN
SQUARE indicates your Collateral Damage.
3.3. If you don’t have Law, the number in the BLUE
HEX indicates your Collateral Damage.
4. Reduce total Tribes in the Affected Regions by the
value of your Collateral Damage. You must expend all
of the Collateral Damage, if possible; however, you
choose how to Reduce your Tribes if you have more
Tribes than Collateral Damage in the Affected
Regions.
If you have Arts, subtract 2 from Collateral
Damage.
If you have Theater, subtract 2 from Collateral
Damage.
If you have Meditation, divide your Collateral
Damage in half, round down.
After you have finished applying Collateral
Damage, if you have Medicine, Create 1 Tribe
in Affected Region.
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CORRUPTION:
1. Draw the next Event card. Using the symbols shown
on the ORIGINAL Event card to the far right of the
Corruption event, add up the values in the symbols on
the newly drawn card. The total value that this creates
determines your amount of Corruption (see the “Q and
A” section later on in this document for an example of
the symbols usage).
If you have Government, add 3 to your
Corruption value.
If you have Literacy, divide your level of
Corruption in half, round down.
2. Reduce City AVs throughout your Empire equal to
the amount of Corruption. You may choose which
Cities to reduce. Any City Reduced to 0 AV is
Decimated.
3. Decimate all Gold you currently have.
If you have Law, do not Decimate your Gold.
EARTHQUAKE:
Note: Fault Lines should be drawn in the affected
Region as a small series of cracks. Fault Lines are not
considered to be a Resource, therefore, they do not
provide the additional “space” for Tribes during
upkeep.
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.1. If the Active Region has no Fault Line:
Reduce City AV by 1 in the Active Region.
Reduce Tribes by 1 in the Active Region.
Create a Fault Line in the Active Region, if a Fault
Line does not exist already.
2.2.1. If the Active Region has a Fault Line:
Reduce City AV by 3 in the Active Region.
Reduce Tribes by 4 in the Active Region.
Decimate all Wonders in the Active Region
Create a Fault Line in up to two Neighboring Regions
of your choice that do not have Fault Lines.
2.2.2. Draw the next Event card. Using the symbols
shown on the ORIGINAL Event card to the far right of
the Earthquake event, add up the values in the symbols
on the newly drawn card. The total value that this
creates determines Population Loss (see the “Q and A”
section later on in this document for an example of the
symbols usage). Decimate Tribes equal to the amount
of Population Loss in any combination of the Active
Region and Neighboring Regions. You may choose to
divide up the Population loss any way you see fit, as
long as you Decimate Tribes up to the described value.
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If you have Engineering, Cities cannot be
Reduced below 1AV. Decimated Cities are
instead reduced to 1AV.
If you have Medicine, Create 2 Tribes in each
Affected Regions that had at least 1 Tribe
Decimated.
EPIDEMIC:
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region. If the Active
Region has no Tribes, disregard the Epidemic Event.
2. Draw the next Event Card. Based on the symbols on
the right side of the Event box of the ORIGINAL
Epidemic Event, add up the values in the same symbols
on the newly drawn card (See the “Q and A” section
later on for an example). Starting with the Active
Region, and working your way through Neighboring
Regions, Decimate Tribes equal to the amount of
Population Loss. Tribes in Regions must be fully
Decimated before moving on to a new Region.
If a series of Regions without Tribes block a Region
with Tribes, those Tribes are safe. You may be able to
cleverly choose your Regions that are affected by
Epidemic to Reduce the population loss.
2.2. If you have Roadbuilding or Equestrian,
Epidemics continue through Regions with no Tribes.
You cannot attempt to spare some Regions from the
Epidemic by cleverly emptying out Regions of Tribes
with the Epidemic, as the Epidemic will simply “jump
over” the empty Region.
You must Reduce as many Tribes as possible until you
have reached the Population Loss value, you have 2
Tribes remaining in your Empire.
3. If you have Medicine, the amount of
Population Loss is divided by 2. You may round
down fractions.
4. If you have Roadbuilding, and you completely
Decimate all Tribes in a Region with a City,
Reduce the City AV by 2.
FAMINE:
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.1. In the Active Region, Decimate Tribes and Farms.
Reduce City AV by 2.
2.2. If you have Irrigation, do not Decimate
Farms. Reduce City AV by 1 instead 2.
FLOOD:
Note: Flood can become a Tsunami if the Active
Region borders the Sea
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.1. If the Active Region Neighbors the Sea, then see
TSUNAMI below.
2.2.1. If the Active Region does not Neighbor the Sea:
Reduce Tribes by 2 in the Active Region.
Decimate Farms in the Active Region.
Reduce City AV by 1 in the Active Region.
Create a Forest in the Active Region.
2.2.2. If you have Irrigation, do not Decimate Farms.
Do not Reduce City AV. You still may Create a Forest
if no Forest is currently in this Region.
TSUNAMI (FLOOD):
1. Draw the next Event Card. Using the symbols shown
on the ORIGINAL Event card to the far right of the
Flood event, add up the values in the symbols on the
newly drawn card. The total value that this creates
determines Damage (see the “Q and A” section later on
in this document for an example of the symbols usage).
2. Each Region Neighboring the Sea (that neighbors
the Active Region) is inflicted with this amount of
Damage, and must have the following elements
Reduced appropriately. Damage is inflicted on Tribes
first, then any remaining Damage after all Tribes are
Reduced is inflicted on City AV. If a City is
Decimated, then remaining damage is inflicted on
Wonders of your choice in the Region, one at a time.
1 Tribe = 1 Damage.
1 City AV = 2 Damage.
1 Wonder = 3 Damage.
2.1. If you have Engineering, 1 Wonder = 10
Damage.
2.2. If you have Civil Service, 1 Tribe = 3
Damage, 1 City AV = 5 Damage.
3. If you have Medicine, Create 2 Tribes in each
region affected by the Tsunami.
SANDSTORM:
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.1.1. If the Active Region contains a Desert:
Select two Neighboring Regions. Decimate Farms and
Forests in these Regions.
Create Deserts in the selected Regions.
2.1.2. If you have Irrigation, do not Decimate Farms.
2.2.1. If the Active Region does not contain a Desert:
Decimate Farms and Forests in the Active Region.
Create a Desert in the Active Region.
2.2.2. If you have Irrigation, do not Decimate
Farms.
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SUPERSTITION:
1. Draw the next Event card. Using the symbol shown
on the ORIGINAL Event card to the far right of the
Superstition event, the number in the symbol on the
newly drawn card indicates how many Event cards you
must draw and discard. As normal, if the deck runs out
of cards, do an End of Era check, shuffle all cards,
draw and discard 3, and continue discarding until you
have discarded the correct amount.
1.1. If you have Astronomy, add 2 to the amount
shown in the GREEN SQUARE.
1.2. If you have Meditation, you may, but are
not required to, stop discarding Event cards if
the Event deck has one card left.
2.1.1. If you have Law, Reduce City AV by 1
instead of 2. Machining cancels out this effect
of Law.
2.1.2. If you have Machining, Reduce City AV
by 3 instead of 2. Law cancels out this effect of
Machining.
2.2. If you have Organized Religion, Reduce
Tribes by 2 instead of Decimating them.
3. If you have Slave Labor, Decimate Farms in
Regions that have no Cities.
4. If you have Military, Select a Neighboring
Region with a City. Reduce Neighboring City
AV by 1. Decimate Tribes in selected
Neighboring Region, unless you have Organized
Religion, then reduce Neighboring Tribes by 2.
TRIBAL WAR:
If you have Government, disregard Tribal War,
otherwise follow the steps below.
2.1.1. The amount of Tribes in the Active Region
becomes the base Warring Tribes amount.
VOLCANO:
Note: A Volcano is a specialized Mountain; it provides
Stone as if it was a regular Mountain. A Volcano
should be drawn on the map like a Mountain, except
with smoke rising from the top and maybe some cool
lava flowing from the top peak.
2.1.2. Disregard this Event if the Active Region has no
Tribes.
1. Draw the next Event Card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.2.1. Multiply the base Warring Tribes amount by 2.
2.1. If the Active Region has no Mountains or
Volcanoes:
Create a new Volcano in the Active Region.
Tribes in the Active Region are reduced to 1.
1. Draw the next card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2.2.2. If you have Sense of Community, do not multiply
the Warring Tribes amount by 2.
2.3.1. Select two Neighboring Regions with Tribes (if
possible).
2.3.2. If you have Music, select one Neighboring
Region with Tribes (if possible).
2.4. Reduce Neighboring Tribes by the amount of
Warring Tribes.
2.5.1. Reduce Tribes in Active Region by 3.
2.5.2. If you have Music, Reduce Tribes in the
Active Region by 1.
UPRISING:
1. Draw the next card. The number in the RED
CIRCLE indicates the Active Region.
2. Reduce City AV in Active Region by 2.
Decimate Tribes in the Active Region.
Decimate Farms in Active Region.
Page 20 of 28
2.2. If the Active Region has a Mountain, but no
Volcano:
Re-draw the Mountain as a Volcano.
Reduce City AVs by 2 in the Active Region.
Reduce Tribes to 1 in the Active Region.
Farms and Wonders are Decimated in the Active
Region.
2.3. If the Active Region has a Volcano:
Decimate Cities, Farms, Tribes, Forest and Wonders in
the Active Region.
Create a Desert in the Active Region.
In all Neighboring Regions, Reduce Tribes by 2.
2.3.1 If you have Engineering, Cities cannot be
Reduced below 1AV. Decimated Cities are
instead reduced to 1AV.
3. If you have Medicine, Create 1 Tribe in each
Region that was affected by the Volcano.
VISITATION:
1. If you are a Trading Partner with the visiting
Empire, go immediately to TRADE (see below).
2.1. If you have Diplomacy, you can attempt to
make this Empire a Trading Partner.
2.2. Decimate any amount of Tribes and Gold
to create a Diplomatic Offer. And 1 point to
your offer for each 1 Gold or 1 Tribe you
Decimate.
2.3. Draw the next Event card. If your
Diplomatic Offer is greater than or equal to the
value of the RED CIRCLE, then you have
created a Trading Partner with the visiting
Empire. Make a note of this on your pad of
paper. Trading Partners are permanent for the
rest of the game.
2.4. If you have created a trading Partner, go
immediately to TRADE (see below).
3.1. If you are not a Trading Partner with this Empire,
place this Event card off to the side and draw the next
Event card and see if this card has a HANDSHAKE
icon in the upper right corner.
3.2. If you have Philosophy, you may draw a
second Event card in an attempt to draw a
HANDSHAKE symbol.
4. If you reveal a HANDSHAKE icon, then the visiting
Empire is TRADING with you (see TRADE above).
However, they are not becoming permanent Trading
Partners; they are just being nice this round.
5. If you are not Trading, then the Empire that is
visiting you has come to pillage your Empire!! Draw
the next Event Card. The RED SQUARE indicates the
Active Region. If the Active Region does not neighbor
the Sea or Frontier, then there is no Attack, and the
Event is over.
Otherwise, draw the next Event card. Based on the
symbols on the right side of the Event box of the
original Visitation Event, add up the values in the same
symbols on the newly drawn card (See the “Q and A”
section later on for an example). This becomes the
strength of the Attacking Force. See ATTACK above.
TRADE (VISITATION):
1. Draw the next Event card. Increase the amount of
Gold you currently have by the value in the RED
CIRCLE.
2. If you have Shipping, and the card that you
have just drawn to indicate your Gold income
also has a HANDSHAKE, draw another Event
card. Increase the amount of Gold in your
common stock by the value in the GREEN
SQUARE on this newly drawn card.
3. If you have Culture of Thievery, you MAY try
and steal more Gold from the Visiting Empire,
by the following means:
3.1. Draw the top card from the Event Deck. If
the Event card has 1, 2, or 3 Gold Nuggets,
keep track of how many Nuggets you have.
Your collected Nuggets become your “Stash.”
3.1.1. If this first Thievery attempt shows no
Nuggets, then you must stop and Trade as
Normal. Otherwise, proceed as directed below.
3.2. You may now stop Thieving, and collect all
of your Nuggets from your Stash by adding
your Nuggets to your common Gold stock. Or
you may attempt to “dig deeper” and draw
another Event card.
As long as you can continue to draw Event
cards with Nuggets, you can continue adding
them to your Stash. However, if you draw an
Event card that has no Nuggets, you lose half
of your Nuggets collected in your Stash (round
down), and this Visitation becomes ugly!
3.3.1. Draw the next Event Card. The RED SQUARE
indicates the Active Region.
3.3.2. Draw the next Event card. Add up the values in
the GREEN SQUARE and BLUE HEX symbols on the
newly drawn card (See the “Q and A” section later on
for an example). This becomes the strength of the
Attacking Force. See ATTACK above.
3.4. At any point, you may stop drawing Event
cards, and collect your Gold; at this point,
your attempt at Thievery also comes to an end.
3.5. End of Era checks must still be made as
you draw out the last card from the deck. As
usual, if you pass the End of Era check,
reshuffle all of the Event cards, and draw and
discard the top three cards before continuing.
Page 21 of 28
HINTS:
If you are having trouble getting started….
The first few rounds should merely be spent on getting Tribes in every Region. Tribes are you major currency in the
game, and one of the few constants in the game is that the maximum amount of Tribes you can get on a turn is 8 (one for
each Region). Trying to maintain at least 1 Tribe in every Region is a key to the game.
Your first City to build will most likely be the toughest, and should go into a Region that has started with a Mountain and
a Forest. You will most likely have to do the following over the course of one or two turns: Spend 2 Tribes to convert the
Forest into a Farm, and then spend 4 Tribes to build your City.
A slightly more expensive route, but with more flexibility if you can accomplish it, is to spend two Tribes in any Region
to convert a Forest into a Farm, and then make sure you have at least 6 Tribes in a Region with a Mountain to build your
City. Spend 4 Tribes to build your City, and then use that City, and an additional 2 Tribes in that Region, to acquire
Cartage as your first Advance. It is during Upkeep that you need to perform the check to see if you have enough Farms to
support your Cities, and Cartage allows you to use any 1 Farm in the Empire to support any 1 City, as opposed to having
the Farm BE in the Region of your City.
Fishing can obtained much like Cartage above. But it’s an even more expensive route, as your Region will need 10 Tribes
(4 for the City, 6 for the Fishing Advance) in it. The Region will need to have a Forest and neighbor the Sea. However,
risking this early and pulling it off can reap great rewards later, as any City later built in a Region that neighbors the Sea
supports itself.
Suggested early Advances are Agriculture, Masonry, Cartage. Followed closely by Engineering.
Generally, Eras 1,2, and 3 will be spent just getting your Empire up and running with enough strong Cities and Advances
to keep it going. Eras 4, 5, and 6 will be spent trying to get an income stream of Gold while maintaining your Empire.
Eras 7 and 8 will be spent trying to get some Wonders built.
Page 22 of 28
Q and A:
Due to an Event, my Total AV has dropped below the amount of Advances I currently have? Do I have to discard them to
match my Total AV?
No. However, you cannot acquire any new Advances until your Total AV is higher than your current amount of
Advances.
Can my City acquire more than one Advance?
Yes. However, any particular City can only acquire 1 Advance PER ROUND, regardless of how high it’s City AV is.
I had Architecture, and then I acquired Metal Working. With Architecture, my City AVs could go up to 4; now with Metal
Working, my City AVs max out at 3. What gives?
Your maximum City AV rating is not based on the most recently purchased Advance. It is based on the Advance that has
the highest AV rating, regardless of when it was acquired. So in the case above, your maximum City AV is still 4.
How do I figure out the Attacking Force from Bandits or an Attacking Visitation, or the Population Loss from an
Epidemic?
These three Events have variable “attacking forces” that increase as the game gets longer. Let’s
assume that you have drawn card number 3 as your Event.
For the sake of this example, let’s say that you are currently in Era 2, and you are, indeed, being
attacked by Bandits.
The Bandit Event for Era 2 shows a Blue Hex and a Green Square. Now you need to draw the
next card to determine the Bandit’s Attacking Force. You draw card 16 (as shown below), and
add up the values in Blue Hex and Green Square on card 16. This results in the value of 12,
which becomes the Bandit’s Attacking Force.
Epidemics work the same way. In card three, the Era 3 Event is an Epidemic. Note that it has
one of each of the three symbols. If you draw card 16 to determine the Epidemic’s Population
Loss, you would add up the values on card 16 in each of the symbols, and get a Population Loss of 20.
Visitations that turn into Attacks work the same way, however, since Visitations can require multiple card draws before an
Attack occurs, you will need to make a note of what symbols you will have to use (if an Attack
indeed occurs). Or you could keep the Event card that triggered the Visitation off to the side
before the Event is resolved. In any case, the Attacking Force is determined in the same
manner.
So, in the case of the card 3 Era 5 Visitation, note that there are 3 Green Squares. If this
Visitation turns into an Attack, and you drew card 16, you would add up the value in the Green
Square 3 times, coming up with 18 for the value of the Attacking Force.
I have some other questions regarding Epidemics…
Epidemics seem to give player the most trouble. Here are some further explanations:
Epidemics do not “fan out” from the starting Active Region. They should be considered as if
they are an Attacking Force, moving from one Neighboring Region to another in a chain.
The Neighboring Region that an Epidemic moves into needs to have Tribes. If the Epidemic has any Population Loss
remaining, and it is in a Region where there are no Neighboring Regions with Tribes, then the Epidemic ends. In this
way, you can possibly create “fire break” Regions with no Tribes to reduce the effects of an Epidemic. However, if you
have Roadbuilding or Equestrian, this won’t work, as your Tribes have “become a bit too mobile” for the fire-break
method to work.
Attacks from Bandits and Visitations work this way now, too.
If an Event Creates and Mountain or Volcano in a Region with a Desert, can I remove the Desert?
No. Decimation of resource icons ONLY occurs when you are told to do so. In the example above, the Region would
simply have a Desert and a Mountain now, with the Mountain providing +1 Tribal support, and the Desert providing none.
The same thing happens if you build a Farm in a Region wit a Desert; the Desert does not go away, it simply means you
have built a Farm in the Region that also includes a Desert.
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Can I get rid of the Black Market and the Culture of Thievery whenever I want to if I have Law or Civil Service?
No. the only times you can elect to get rid of the Black Market and Culture of Thievery is the exact time when you acquire
either Law or Civil Service.
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NOTES (in a generally haphazard, non-edited fashion):
Inspirations:
Initially, I was conceptualizing on working on a solitaire Pirate game, since most people were harping that there has never been a really
good pirate game. But then, I read this blog post:
http://tajmahalfred.blogspot.com/2006/07/unknown-civ-true-to-my-word-i-printed.html
…Which dealt with a solitaire Civ game that included a lot of dice rolling, and the mention that it would be a good game to play while
waiting for a plane. Which got me thinking, could I take some of the concepts I had been thinking of, and apply that to a Civ game that
you could play while ON an airplane? This would remove the dice rolling entirely, as chasing dice around under people’s legs on a plane
doesn’t sound like much fun.
I hadn’t gotten around to conceptualizing the Pirate game too far; it was going to use multi-use cards (pretty much how the Event cards
work in this game), but things hadn’t gelled much beyond this. Generally, playing through a whole deck of Event cards would end a
Season; and the next Season would start with tougher attributes through the next play of the deck (ala the Eras). A Ship Approach would
flip the next card over to see what kind of flag it was flying, Pirate, English, French, or Spanish -- deals you made with the various
countries in various ports would determine if these were friendly encounters or battles (pretty much like how Privateering worked in the
good ‘ole days). You can see this aspect in it’s current from with the Diplomacy Advance and how it affect Visitations.
Other gamey reference material includes:
Civilization – The Expansion project: http://67.66.187.69/civproject/home.html
Advanced Civilization (the daddy of all Civ games): http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/177
CivFanatics: http://www.civfanatics.com
Culture and Conquest: http://www.angelfire.com/games2/warpspawn/Culture.html
Helpful others:
This is a list of people who have helped playtest, and/or offered sage advice and direction. In no particular order:
Brendan Mayhugh
Seth Jaffee
Matt Worden
“Monkian”
Sebastian Kalucza
James Fung
About Tribes:
Tribes in the game are handled somewhat strangely at first glance, since it appears that you are killing off people in order to buy your
Technological Advances. While one can make an argument about “killing off” people to develop something dangerous like Engineering,
and those lost lives have helped create a better way of doing things, how does that explain something less concrete, and more
philosophical, like Organized Religion, or Art?
Obviously, all games require some amount of abstraction; it turns out that in this game, the “currency” of your purchasing power is in
Tribes and Gold. This was done to make the bookkeeping as simple as possible, as assigning your Tribe to go off and producing various
things, which THEN are used to purchase things, became quite a bit of headache. Welcome to a more simplified abstraction! Actually,
while doing something like “this tribes makes 1 unit of stone, which goes into my supply to help purchase XXX” might be easier to wrap
your head around as far as abstractions go, it’s still a far cry from reality, where most tech advance concept are almost purely thought
creation. Do you really need 3 wood, 4 gold, and 5 stone to make “mathematics?” in real life? Not really, but in terms of game
mechanics, it useful because it’s consistent with all the other purchases.
Anyway, if it make you feel better, Tribes can be thought of working this way in this game; the Tribes that currently exist on you map are
bored, unassigned Tribes, waiting for their muse, or their overlord, or whatever, to tell them what to do. When you Decimate some Tribes
to create a City, they aren’t being killed off in the pursuit of advancement; they have simply been assigned to work in the City, and
upkeep it. Decimating a Tribe for an Advance simply means that those people now are dedicated to that Advance, and spreading the
knowledge throughout the Empire, and refining the concepts to better suit their world. Decimated Tribes aren’t dead, they simply have a
purpose now.
Of course, Tribes that are Decimated due to Attacks, or Events, are surely lost souls.
About Advances (and me):
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In a lot of respect, game design is an artform, but unlike some type of physical thing or image to behold, game design is really an artform
of rules and thoughts. And like any other work of art, a lot of the creator’s person beliefs and feeling of how the world works become the
foundation for the abstractions of the rules.
And seemingly, nothing is worse than that than in a Civ game.
While a lot of the historical science has been done that can help explain why some civilizations die, while others thrive, there’s a lot of
personal beliefs that the personal designer winds up sticking in his game.
For example, things like Agriculture and Engineering are pretty easy lower level Advances to use. It’s pretty well known that the concept
of Agriculture is a major proponent for moving people from a nomadic tribe into something more solid; controlling your food source
instead of constantly chasing it around with the season is really the only way you can develop a permanent home. And you need the basic
understanding of how physics work, and physical structure can be built and maintained for those small huts to turn into load bearing
homes that can support a wide range of seasons.
But things like Religion are tougher. Can a civilization survive, and even grow and thrive without Religion, or some man-made logical
creation of why things work when you don’t know why? I would argue that they can. And some argue that more people have been killed
for the sake of belief in Religion than for any other cause, so in that case, religion is actually detrimental in some regards. But yet, every
group of man that exists carries some mythologies with them, for good or for bad.
My original thought was to leave Religion out of the mix all together for this reason; that I don’t believe that religion is truly an Advance
at all. It’s a side effect of undeveloped sciences in most cases. However, it does become important enough, as I thought about it more, in
terms of developing a moral code amongst the people. And moral codes develop into laws. Which, while not tangible in the sense that
you can hold a hammer through Engineering, having everyone working “on the same page” morally is a strong Advance.
And what about the Art branch. There is very little in the Art branch that affects the game rules themselves (well, at least the later Arts).
But Art is a clear indication of progress in a Civilization, with not much detriment, well, except for the possibility it keeps us away from
doing other, more important things.
In order to increase the importance of the later Arts, I started tying them to Wonders. And later, after realizing that Civil War was WAY
too harsh, I started using the Art track as a way to soften Civil War. Which is somewhat painful in a lot of ways.
I think most of the ways that the Advances, in relationship to the Events and actions, thematically work make sense. However, I can’t
logically create a situation in my head where Art could possibly slow down the affects of a Civil War; but from a game stand point I think
it is the right thing to do, in that it fixes two problems.
Of course, the opposite always happens. Sometimes, the game dictates to you what it needs.
One of the more interesting aspects of Civ games is trying to create your empire using different methods of madness, through different
Advances. Since you need a lot of Gold to build those cool Wonders, I need multiple paths to get Gold. Originally, only Expeditions and
Trade gave away Gold. As the Advance Trees were built, it then seemed like madness to do anything else but the Government Tree. So
now, I had to look for ways to get Gold from some other directions. Patronage, Ministry, and Shipping came about this way.
About the Phase Order:
One of the daunting things in this game is to try and simplify it as much as possible, but still keep the flavor of the complexity of an evergrowing Empire happening. Early on, there were many more phases, and the order of things changed in many directions.
The result you are playing now boils down to a few easily understood Actions that follow a nice and easy path, once you get the hang of
the issue that your main currency that you are balancing is Tribes (Gold being just a transformed version of Tribes):
1. Gain Tribes and assign them to what you want to do with them.
2. Draw an Event card to see if a wrench is thrown into your carefully laid plans.
3. Do what you really want to do (if the Wrench didn’t happen).
4. Do some bookkeeping to keep the player honest
As a good example of phase order changes, in early versions, Tribes would go off on Expeditions during phase 1 (Population Growth and
Movement). It sort of made sense there at the time; this is when you move around Tribes. And in the case of Expeditions, you were
moving them off the board for a chance at Gold.
Except, in play, I was always forgetting to send them off on Expeditions at that time. During this phase, everything else you did was
moving Tribes around IN THE HOPES OF assigning them their little duties after the Event. So, I would amass the huge army into a
Frontier Region, with the plan to go off searching for gold, and then not just go off and draw off my Event. AND I KNEW FULL WELL
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I WANTED AN EXPEDITION!! It became very clear that Expeditions, like building Cities, or acquiring Advances, were really all of the
same; something that you Assigned Tribes to do.
About the Event Cards:
The cards were designed from day one to be multi-used. This would help towards the goal in making the game as portable as possible.
However, there’s a few secondary effects of this which were planned as well.
Since it was designed as a solitaire game, I still felt that there needed to be an equivalent of an opponent. While one could think of the
Events as opponents, they really aren’t an opponent in the traditional sense, which is another player playing the same rules as you are.
The Events are merely roadblocks.
In Advanced Civilization, the game was basically a race between players to advance their civilization the fastest. This is really what the
Event cards cards do with the End of Era check. At the end of a deck, is your Civilization really where it should be at this time? Has your
“mystery opponent” far outstripped you in the race? This is a subtle consideration of what the Event deck really does, and how you can
mess with the hourglass that the Event deck is.
As two example Advances that have interesting effects on the race: Diplomacy is good card, not because it only potentially makes bad
Visitations good, but as a side effect, it can slow down the deck draws considerably. Mining, while a cheap Advance to get, and can get
you’re a lot of Gold, also messes around with the hourglass in all sorts of crazy ways. Sure you can get lucky and get rich from it, but it
speeds up the game considerably. Going for the “get quick rich scheme” early on doesn’t help you much if you can’t keep enough Cities
afloat for the upcoming End of Era check.
Originally, the Attacking Forces from Visitations and Bandits was simply 2 times the value of the Blue Hex on the next card. Playtesting
determined that these events were to strong in early Eras, and kind of weak in later ones. So a new, scalable system was implemented
(what you see here, along with the scaling Epidemics, which NOONE ever feared later on). Also, an external tribe (those who come visit)
was removed, in the hopes of making Trading Partners a little more powerful. This required some rejigging of the symbol value, in order
to have some scalability. No big deal. Of course, the whole issue of “getting killed too easy early on” was also fixed a bit by scaling the
amount of Event throughout time a little better.
About the New Advances:
As part of a new update to PocketCiv based on the responses I’ve gotten once PocketCiv became free-roaming in the world, I’ve added a
few late-comer Advances. This was spurred on by a few things.
One, If you do make it to the 8th Era, odds are, you have pretty much maxed out your Advance selections, and with a City being only able
to go through 4AVs (at the time of this writing), with a City in each Region, that means you’ve got 40 open Advance slots. And I think
that the first “open range” version of PocketCiv only had 38 Advances, you had more slots than Advances to choose from. So I have more
slots to fill!
Second, PocketCiv is sort of designed to have an open architecture approach, where things can be added fairly easily (of course, when all
the pieces are put together, it can add a lot of complexity). For example, I have plans for an expansion that adds Magic to the world, with
a new type of Tribe called Acolytes that are the currency for that.
Thirdly, I wanted the player to play with buying into different trees early on. Typically, it seems that quite often, in games like this, you
figure out your “one set best order” of purchasing. I wanted the ability to experiment a little bit more. And adding more Advances deeper
into the trees cause this to happen. I think.
Anyway, Mining, which was a late addition to the base set, turned out to be fun, in regards to having a little mini-game within the game.
It became apparent that I wanted to add some more features along those lines. And so, Culture of Thievery and Black Market came about
(it also helps that these potentially can boost your Gold income early on, which is always a chore). These two advances can help you out
early on, but at a price.
Slight change to Attacks:
Originally, Attacking Forces could move through empty Regions t attack regions that have cities and tribes. This has changed now;
Attacking Forces cannot move to a neighboring Region that is empty, and if it is surrounded by empty Regions, then the Attack is over.
There’s a few reason for this. Most notably, it should help out the player at the beginning of the game, when Regions are more likely to be
empty. This doesn’t change the middle and later games for this reason.
Also, it brings the rules a little more in line with the way other traveling Events work (even though the Attacking Force is a little smarter
in that it “looks” for a new target, whereas the player has complete control over an Epidemic).
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Glory:
Probably the biggest change to the game is the way your score is computed. Instead of just one big total score of all your VP at the end of
the game, now you have a running total, known as Glory, which only uses a small subset of Advances you’ve collected at a given time.
So, what’s up with this???
A big part of advancing a Civilization is growing a sense of leisure time for the populace. One way of doing this is the specialization of
duties to various people. Another way is through the use of advancing technologies to make your life easier. It’s fairly easy to reward the
player with technological advances; it’s a little tougher to abstract the concept of leisure time.
Basically, I’ve continued with the idea that Tribes in the Empire are really people who are looking to do things. If you have an Empire
generally devoid of Tribes, great, they are busy off doing things, spreading the good word of whatever Advance you obtained to use them,
but there’s not much free time in your Empire. Conversely, having a ton of Tribes hanging out and loitering means a lot of free time, but
there’s not much work going on in your Empire.
So, by awarding Glory based on how many free Tribes you have, what you are doing is getting rewarded based on how many people there
are to enjoy the fruits of your (and their) labor.
And yes, I am aware of the fact that this most likely increases the likelihood of a late Event really ruining your score. Sometimes, bad
things happen at bad times, I guess.
It should be noted that Wonders are not added up as Glory during the game, but only at the end of the game.
Removal of End of Era for End of Game checks:
This is sort of an experimental kind of thing. I felt bad for people constantly getting bopped out of the game at the end of the first Era
after going through the motions of setting everything up. You are still penalized by not gaining any Glory (for having your Empire is
randomly-generated turmoil), and most likely, if you aren’t meeting these requirements, your Empire is going to have a rough time of it
anyway. But now, officially, you are allowed to continue the game if you get screwed by a mean, end of Era Event, which should make
people happy.
Increased costs of Advances:
I’ve always had a problem with the whole feel of “if you’ve survived the first 3 Eras, you suddenly run away with the game” that the early
version of this game has had. (A special shout out to James Fung for suggesting some changes regarding this issue) Generally, the costs
of the later Advances have been increased to hinder this effect. Additionally, so have the Wonders.
Also, to additionally slow down players later in the game, there is now a cost involved to increase City AV, notably, the reduction of
Tribes. There are Advances to help with this.
Addition of Capitols:
The idea of the Capitol is merely an answer to people who have complained that they have maxed out their complete City AV in their
Empires. Hopefully this satisfies the itch without touching the simplicity of how the regular Cities advance.
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