This blog post very nearly didn’t happen because I was about to start a game of Civilization V. I own a copy of the original Avalon Hill board game and have played every iteration of the computer game to death. Now, Fantasy Flight has put out a new Board Game. It doesn’t have much to do with the original board game. Instead, it attempts to recreate the feel of the most recent computer game.
When seen laid out like this, the game looks intimidating as hell. 5+ different types of cards, 7+ types of tokens, incongruous maps, two dials, and in the middle of it all, some monopoly-looking covered wagon pieces, make this game seem like a collection of spare parts from other games.
In a sense, it is a collection of smaller games, which allows the whole to be a pleasant and playable experience. There are four possible ways to win the game, and each way has it’s own mechanic or mini-game. These mini-games interact in ways that, while clunky, still work and are true enough to the experience of the computer games to provide a similar feel. Since each of these mini-games is built on simple mechanics, no part of the game is difficult to learn. If you can get over the initial intimidation factor, the game is actually pretty easy to wrap your head around.
The real nuance to the game is being able to pay attention to several different things at once. By the mid-game, it starts to feel like you’re spinning plates, especially if one of your opponents gets you on the back foot. There are lots of things that interact and victory will likely go to the player that can manage these interactions the best.
So far, I’ve played two complete games, each of which took about 3 hours. However, I wasn’t bored at any point. There is always plenty to pay attention to, and the game phases are set up in such a way that you never have to wait long before you get to do something again. In a lot of ways, this game moves faster than D&D, which is odd to say about a game that conceptually spans human civilization from agriculture to space-flight.