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.
I recommend the original Civilization game, first published in 1980. This is my favorite boardgame at home. It plays best with a full seven players, has trading, simple straightforward conflict (not combat just a mechanic of removing one token from each player in order until the number equals the sustainable population for that region0, and a mechanic to reign in players that get too far ahead.(calamities). Biggest con is a game can take six to ten hours.
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