With a series of games "Civilization" I met Sid Meier in the late 90s, having caught the first part, and even then I fell in love with this turn-based strategy, which makes it possible to control the historical process, changing it in my own way. The beauty of this game is not only in the ability to “change the past” by defeating fascism in the bud or leading the Aztecs to world domination, but also in the “real” chance to touch history, an attempt to resolve the difficulties that faced the leaders of countries in different eras. "Civilization" is a wonderful, albeit, of course, simplified simulation of managing humanity.

Needless to say, the desktop version of "Civilization" has long attracted me? I tried not to look at her, rationalizing my desires and telling myself “Why do you also need a desktop? It's the same game.", weighed all the pros and cons, tried to convince himself that for the same money you can buy something new and no less worthy. But, as they say, you can't escape fate. On a beautiful January day, my good friend gave it to me as a New Year's gift.

Briefly about the main

Desktop "Civilization" models the development of world powers, their cultural and scientific achievements. There was a place for wars, great people and wonders of the world. There are several ways to win, respectively. This is either the capture of the capital of one of the opponents, or cultural / scientific / economic dominance.

The game features six civilizations that have different characteristics and are prone to certain types of victories: Russians, Germans, Romans, Chinese, Americans and Egyptians. So, for example, Russians from the start have an additional army, a bonus to production and the ability to get opponent's technologies by invading his cities, which makes them strong both in military and scientific aspects.

The main game elements are cities, armies and scouts. Cities are profitable: points of production, trade, culture and resources. Production is needed to create units and buildings, including wonders. Trade is responsible for the scientific development of civilization and can also be converted into production. Culture is needed to get cards of cultural events that have a strong impact on the gameplay and great people. Armies conquer enemy cities and fight the natives, while scouts work to provide their native country with the necessary resources and found new cities. By the way, the number of cities in the desktop version is limited to three. Moreover, to establish the third, you will need to study a certain technology. However, rapid colonization is the key to successful economic development.

Perhaps the main difference from the computer version is the greater significance of each move. In the PC version, sometimes you have to click through the moves while waiting. In the desktop version, each turn is a whole historical period, during which a new technology can be discovered, and several buildings are built in cities. This approach makes the game more dynamic, allowing you to immediately observe the consequences of each move.

The rules of the game are not too complicated, but they have many nuances. The quality of the components is at the highest level, however, as always with FFG. The colors are bright and vibrant, and the illustrations are pleasing to the eye.

Technology tree

The technology tree has also been radically redesigned. Instead of the usual horizontal scheme, it is made in the form of a pyramid, where all technologies are divided into levels, from 1st to 5th, and in order to learn the technology of the next level, it is necessary that it "rely" on two technologies of the previous one. This scheme, first of all, is notable for the fact that, unlike the classical sequential scheme, each time it puts the player in front of a choice of what to study next. There are more than thirty technologies in the game, it will not be possible to study everything, so the choice becomes more conscious, and each time sets a new style for the development of civilization, making it unique.

Combat system

The mechanics of battles have been implemented in an unusual way. The colored flags of the players' armies move around the map, and the troops themselves are represented as unit cards in the hands of the participants. And it does not matter where each of the armies available to you is located, the reserve of units will be one for all. The fights themselves take place on the principle of "rock-paper-scissors", where a unit of one type prevails over another. Infantry fights better against cavalry, cavalry easily defeats artillery (or archers), and artillery, in turn, is most effective against infantry. Also in the game there is a special type of troops, which opens in modern times - aviation. Aviation has no bonuses when fighting other types of units, but has the highest strength indicators.
Strength indicators indicate both the attack of units and their amount of health. For example, a strength of 2 means that the warrior will deal 2 damage to the enemy, but he himself will die, having received the same amount. Opponents' attacks are played at the same time, but the "trump card" bonus allows damage to be dealt before the enemy responds. All units in the game can be improved with the development of technology. Ancient spearmen turn into medieval pikemen, shooters of the 17th-19th centuries and modern motorized infantry. Moreover, unlike the computer version, the stages of development can be skipped, immediately moving on to a stronger one.

But not all units of the same type are the same. The same troops can differ in strength parameter by +/- 1 unit. I heard a lot of complaints about this, which boil down to the typical "Your catapult defeated my more advanced gun!". But such accidents have always been in Civilization and, as a rule, reflect such historical realities as solidarity, fortitude, or the skillful command of a commander. Although, as Sid Meier himself says “Realism is something that should not be sacrificed without hesitation if realism hinders playability in a game”.

Randomness and replayability

Randomness in the game is represented not only by the parameters of military units, as described above, but also by cards of cultural events, parameters of great people, and finds in the huts and villages of the natives. The playing field is also formed from random fields that are opened during the game. Territories differ in the presence of certain resources and the presence of indigenous people.
As the culture develops, each player will receive cultural event cards that can bring a certain resource, cancel any of the opponent's actions, or unlock technologies. At certain stages of development, a civilization will receive great people who give significant bonuses, but are determined randomly.

Also in the game there are two types of resources that can only be obtained from the natives. This is uranium and, oddly enough, spies. Spies, as expected, allow you to sabotage the actions of opponents. And uranium has great potential, but it is extremely rare. With the discovery of the necessary technology, uranium can be used both to double the output of all your cities, and to deliver a nuclear strike that completely destroys a foreign city, buildings, troops, great people and even miracles located in it. So the discovery of uranium can be a fatal accident in every sense of the expression. It is especially funny to threaten opponents with an atomic bomb without having the necessary resource on hand, because the tokens are stored face down and no one can check you.

Results

Making a verdict, I want to note that I liked the game not only as an avid Civilian, who has played more than one hundred hours in the PC version, but also as a lover of board games. And while the experience of the PC version gives a distinct advantage to novice players, there are several significant differences between the desktop and PC versions. The main one is the great dynamics and significance of actions. Each turn of the game provides participants with a difficult choice of sequential solutions, making the process fun and interesting.

The game takes up a lot of space, and the game lasts at least 3-4 hours.

Two add-ons have already been released to the game, adding the possibility of a five-player game, new civilizations, wonders and cultural events, as well as an altered combat system.

After the hot summer of 1991, the first PC game in the Civilization series was released, with Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley at its origins. It belonged to the global level turn-based strategy genre, combining 4X model and elements of wars. Historically, it was this brainchild that influenced the development of games of this genre in the future. During this time, the PC version has gone through six incarnations, the last of which appeared on the screens in 2016.

Over the years, the game has been successfully ported to many platforms, including the desktop one in 2002. In any case, the distinguishing features of all these variations were the following:

• the player himself decides how to develop his civilization;
• the game has such layers as economics, politics, war, research (including the technology tree);
• the map (playing field) consists of tiles.

The desktop version, according to experts, does not contain a complete 4X model, since the elements of “studying” technologies (eXplore) and “destroying” an opponent (eXterminate), in contrast to the “expanding” of one’s possessions (eXpand) and the “exploitation” of resources ( eXploit) are presented in a truncated form: when “destroying”, the capital remains intact, and “research” is reduced to technologies, since the entire map is known at the initial stage of the game. Therefore, a solid 3X (1 + 1 + 0.5 + 0.5) is obtained.

The mentioned technological tree is an internal core and an incentive for development within the game, within which transitions are made to more advanced branches, while expanding the capabilities of the player himself (for example, from the Stone Age to nanotechnology). To some extent, "moving" one's civilization along such a tree is "exploring the non-physical world" by analogy with the discovery of new locations and territories on the game world map. Sometimes it seems that the Civilization series of games has always existed and, despite its sixth current incarnation, it was a diamond at the start even when Klaus Teuber had not even dreamed of (the first game of the series appeared only in 1995). Now more and more "video" games are coming off the screens and being embodied in desktop games, as being with people at the same table has again become considered important and valuable.

This fate did not pass Civilization either, because what else could be the best candidate for its desktop reincarnation?! Despite the fact that games related to the development of civilizations are often quite complex and long in time (for example, the duration of the game in the modern "king of the hill" according to BGG - from Vladimir Khvatil is about four hours), the latest version from FFG promises us something unprecedented: you will get an unforgettable experience from a meaningful, but very concise game, since the game time in it is about two hours.

The board game Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn is a much more streamlined, player-friendly version of the 2002 classic, with the same core principles, but with a vastly simplified game system at its heart. It's a fun and fast game that captures the feeling of expanding your empire in a relatively short time.After you have built the playing field according to the described rules, you will flood it with capitals (city-states), place tokens on their corresponding icons on the field, among which there will be a resource, natural wonders and, of course, the pesky barbarians (their lairs) Each player receives a leader sheet (one of eight available) and, according to the instructions on it, lays out his five action cards (with the symbol “I” on the back) under the personal technology panel of his color.

It is she who will become the heart of the whole game for you. In addition, everyone gets a starter set of tokens, nice plastic figures (cities and wagons), diplomacy cards and a technology disk. The apogee of all preparation is the showdown by laying out three (or four) of the five available cards, which contain winning conditions (two on each of them, but the player is destined to fulfill only one of each). The player's turn is built around the technology bar, which is represented by a series of actions and five cards laid out below it. First, you perform an action on one of them, perform what is indicated on it, and then "recharge" it, moving it to the first slot of the row, and shifting all others to the right. The more right the position is occupied by this or that action, the more powerful it is. After that, the move is transferred to the next player. The key strategy of the game is to understand when to apply actions on the first cells, and when to wait so that the card can have the maximum effect.

It should be noted that each slot corresponds to the difficulty of the terrain (grasslands, hills, forests, deserts and mountains) and is numbered from 1 to 5, which is an indicator of the “strength” of the technology card below it:

• culture - contributes to the expansion of your influence on the surrounding territories, expanding the empire and capturing resources;
• science - allows you to advance the pointer on your disk and thereby upgrade technology cards (from I to IV levels);
• economy - promotes caravans;
• production - allows you to build cities, build Miracles;
• military operations - in charge of strengthening your positions and carrying out attacks.

The technology bar is a truly elegant system (its "analog" can be found in the game), and becomes essentially a small personal puzzle within the big game, in which cards are maneuvered through the slots in order to strengthen and elevate your empire. When all the players have completed their actions, advance the event disc, which is related to the appearance of (new) and promotion of barbarians, as well as the replenishment of "mature" cities (it is such that each adjacent hex contains a friendly control token or is water) with trade tokens.

The game continues in this way until one of its participants is the first to complete one goal from each victory condition card (if several players claim this, the one with the most Wonders of the World and the number of friendly sectors on the field wins). I would like to say right away that having fulfilled one of the conditions on the map, he marks it with a control token, and even if he loses this later, the fact of the accomplished achievement will still be taken into account. As the game progresses, your empire will expand, your level of technological development will grow, fend off barbarian attacks and conquer their territories, build cities, and send your caravans across the map to get resources and additional trade or diplomacy tokens.

It is very entertaining to watch when several players with nuclear capabilities look at each other warily, realizing that the first one to show aggression will provoke a retaliatory strike and be destroyed. Do not be sad if the first games go through with a creak, and you yourself will forget about it when you taste all the nuances and feel how everything interacts with everything, and the game itself will become a regular guest on your table. The game scales beautifully: although you will experience the maximum emotions from the party in full (four), believe me, the duel will also be intense, especially if you do not avoid direct confrontation.

It is not difficult to understand how this creation works, it is much more difficult to play it well, using all the wealth of potential hidden under the lid of this box. Yes, certainly, and this desktop version of Civilization lags behind its original, the omission of some elements of which is a necessity, but in the end it turned out to be a well-balanced compromise. The FFG company will most likely please us with the appearance of an add-on (or maybe not one), as it was with and , due to which, perhaps, at least the number of possible players will increase to 5-6, and the conditions for winning will also be diversified.

The game strikes a pretty good balance between the player's choice of aggression and the loss of sustained peaceful diplomatic support. Splintery barbarians will keep interfering with your plans when you have already planned everything and prepared to do something else. The tech tree could be a little better, but it's a long way from being bad. For some, Miracles will seem powerful enough, but this is a matter of taste, because everyone is aimed at a different game, which is why there are no perfect games at all.

Game set:

• Rules of the game;
• 44 plastic figures;
• 8 tablets of leaders;
• 16 fragments of the playing field;
• 1 event disk;
• 4 technology counters;
• 4 action lines;
• 2 six-sided dice;
• 80 action cards;
• 16 maps of city-states;
• 16 diplomacy cards;
• 24 maps of wonders of the world;
• 5 victory cards;
• 240 tokens.

It is possible to buy the board game Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn with delivery or pickup at the Banzgames store by placing an order through the website or by contacting us by contact phone.

America, China, Egypt, Germany, Rome and Russia - these are the six civilizations that have entered the warpath with each other for the title of the most highly developed. Each of them has its own advantages: be it a wonder of the world or a huge army, a great hero or a powerful fortress. And each of them strives to get ahead of the rest in culture, economy, technology or war. But the crown of victory will go to only one - the one who first reaches the top in one of these four areas of development. What are you willing to bet on?

Who does not go forward, he falls down

You are the ruler of a small but ambitious country. And thank the gods that kilometers of unexplored territories separate you from your enemies, since the current situation needs to be clearly changed for the better. Of course, if you want to win.

The game consists of several rounds, each of which is divided into 5 phases, in which players take turns performing planned actions. They lay cities and build wonders, collect taxes from merchants and negotiate with neighboring powers, build armies and open universities, send scouts to new lands or go to war.

The future of your civilization depends on how correctly you set goals and what steps you take to achieve them. Opponents, of course, tend to anticipate your actions and put sticks in your wheels as efficiently as possible. However, you do the same thing - in the clash of minds lies all the fun of a good strategy game.

Who will fall in love with Civilization at first sight

• Strategies fan. Game mechanics will immediately arouse intense interest, and possible difficulties will only provoke you even more. An argument in favor of the tabletop: diplomacy in the company of real people becomes much more sophisticated, and therefore much more interesting. The game lasts at least 3 hours, but in good company this time will fly by.
• Board game collector. How do you not have Civilization at home yet? No comments.
• The owner of the previous version of the game. At the very least, you'll want to play it. Details below.

How different is the new edition from the old one?

If you think that the new edition of Civilization is the same game, only in a new design, then you are greatly mistaken. Not just pictures have changed, the game mechanics have also undergone significant changes. Players who have already tested the new Civilization are unanimous that it has become more like its prototype - a computer game. Look at the composition - a lot will immediately become clear.

Interesting contents of this big box

• Move Marker- given to the first player in the phase of the current round;
• 4 reference sheets for each player;
• 6 markers cultural level- one per civilization;
• 6 sheets of civilizations, which indicate the special capabilities of peoples;
• 12 disks of trade and economy, which are attached to the sheets of civilization with special rods;
• 20 map sections: 6 homelands for each civilization and 14 no man's lands that make up the main field of play;
• 12 markers cities for four players: each is assigned a capital and 2 simple cities;
• 33 plastic chips: 25 figures armies(one additional for Russia) and 8 - Scouts;
• 12 double-sided markers disasters- Deforestation and Drought.
• 12 markers miracles: ancient, medieval and modern;
• 30 markers huts and villages that can be conquered;
• 49 double-sided markers buildings: "harbor", "phratorium", "workshop/mine", "library/university", "barn/aqueduct", "market/bank", "temple/cathedral", "barracks/academy".
• 18 markers great people;
• 28 markers military technology;
• 55 battle cards: "artillery", "infantry", "cavalry", "aviation" and "combat bonuses";
• 209 tokens: 90 - culture, 28 - wounds, 75 - coins and 16 - resources;
• 224 cards: 4 memo cards, 15 government cards, 144 technology cards, 47 cultural events cards, 12 wonder cards and 1 spaceflight card.

Board game

Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game

13+Minimum age 2–4Number of players 180–240 min. Game time

The product is out of stock.

Unfortunately, the game has been discontinued. Instead, we expect the appearance of the game Sid.Meier's Civilization. A new dawn.

World history in one evening. Create and glorify your civilization through the ages by choosing one of the following paths: by achieving a military victory; having accumulated the most impressive capital; reaching the peak of cultural development or surpassing rivals in scientific development.

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Game description

Video review of the board game Sid Meier's Civilization from Igroveda!

If you liked the game Sid Meier's Civilization, we recommend:

Reviews and comments (495 )

Feedback | Olga, Minsk | 11/19/2018

Thanks a lot. The rules state that technology cards are opened at the same time. And the arguments can be serious.

Feedback | Olga, Minsk | 11/18/2018

Hello, I have a question if two players research the fifth level technology at the same time. who gets the victory? Thank you

Answer from the store Igroved: Olga, hello. Victory is awarded to the player in accordance with the order of moves in this round. Those. despite the fact that the exploration phase occurs at the same time, in this situation, the one who moved earlier wins.

Feedback | Olga, Minsk | 10/30/2018

Hello, tell me please. When buying a wonder, should the marker be placed on the map in such a way that it replaces all the signs on the occupied square, or is the wonder marker shaped so that the signs on the map can also be used? Thank you!

Answer from the store Igroved: Hello Olga! The Wonder marker completely replaces all the marks on the occupied square.

Feedback | Sergey, Samara | 02.03.2018

Hello! Please tell me if the defense bonus (+4) from building walls around the city works if the attacker has the steam engine technology (opens tanks), or this technology only affects the turn order in the battle (in this case, the defender will go first) ?

Answer from the store Igroved: Hello Sergey! If the ICE (internal combustion engine) technology is meant, then the bonus from building walls is not taken into account, since the walls are destroyed before the start of the battle (due to the property of the technology).

Feedback | Yuri, Korolev | 02.02.2018

There has been no answer from the Game Expert for a long time to the previous questions, I will try to help: 1. Coins are not mined from a great person, bank or mine, but only controlled, i. if a bank, a great person, or a mine is located on the outskirts of the city, then the number of coins on the economy disk increases by one. A scout can control someone else's bank, great person, or mine, but as soon as he leaves there, the value on the economy disk decreases. Tokens (round pieces) of coins are not mined, but are used only as markers for the technologies "Pottery, Printing Press, Code of Laws, Democracy", as well as for the wonder of the world "Panama Canal". When the technology condition is met, a coin token is placed on the technology card and the indicator on the trade disk is increased at the same time. This is done in order not to violate the limit of 4 coins on the above technologies. By the way, these coins can be used as combat trophies. 2. Scouts not located on the outskirts of your cities are actually the outskirts of one of the cities and have the opportunity to both collect trade (during the trade phase) and bring hammers, or resources (silk, incense, grain, iron). or culture (in the city phase). One scout can only be attached to one city (which is determined by the rules in the start phase, but for the convenience of the game, everything is determined in the city phase). 3. Resource-intensive technologies can only be used once per turn (a turn consists of five phases), but two similar technologies can be used in one turn. For example, "Animal Husbandry", which gives three additional hammers for one "Grain" resource, and "Construction", which gives five additional hammers for one "Grain" resource. You cannot use the "Build" technology twice in a turn.

Answer from the store Igroved: Yuri, thank you for your help with the answers! We laid out the game to find them, and got carried away :)

Feedback | lukminas | 01/11/2018

One more question, the old technology can only be used once, but is it like, once per turn or with another city can it be used again?

Answer from the store Igroved: Hello! Resource-intensive technologies can only be used once per turn, but two similar technologies can be used in the same turn. For example, "Animal Husbandry", which gives three additional hammers for one "Grain" resource, and "Construction", which gives five additional hammers for one "Grain" resource. You cannot use the "Build" technology twice in a turn.

Feedback | lukminas, Kaunas | 01/10/2018

Hello, can scouts bring one-time coins to the treasury from their own or someone else's city limit with a building, great people while they are standing on them? And the second question is whether scouts can give other resources in the city phase if they have already worked in the trade phase

Answer from the store Igroved: Hello!
1. From a great person, a bank or a mine, coins are not mined, but only controlled, i.e. if a bank, a great person, or a mine is located on the outskirts of the city, then the number of coins on the economy disk increases by one. A scout can control someone else's bank, great person, or mine, but as soon as he leaves there, the value on the economy disk decreases. Coin tokens are not mined, but only used as markers for the Pottery, Printing Press, Code of Laws, Democracy, and the Panama Canal wonder of the world. When the technology condition is met, a coin token is placed on the technology card and the indicator on the trade disk is increased at the same time. This is done in order not to violate the limit of 4 coins on the above technologies. By the way, these coins can be used as combat trophies.
2. Scouts not located on the outskirts of cities are actually the outskirts of one of the cities and have the opportunity to both collect trade (during the trade phase) and bring hammers, or resources (silk, incense, grain, iron), or culture (during the city phase) . One scout can only be attached to one city. Feedback | Yakov, Novosibirsk | 12.09.2017

Dear Game Expert, please advise:

1) Russians have a special property - the connection limit (PS) increased by 1. Does this special property last throughout the game, or does it "collapse" after the invention of appropriate technologies that increase PS? For example, playing as Russians, initially PS = 3, we open the technology "Masonry" - PS remains equal to 3 or increases to 4?

2) a similar question, but about the peculiarity of the Spaniards - +1 to marching speed. Playing as the Spaniards, after unlocking Riding (or other similar technologies) will it remain at 3 or will it be 4 ?

3) Does Great Man Louis Pasteur increase the connection limit for the rest of the game?
Those. for example, it was PS = 4, they took Pasteur, it became 5, they discovered biology - then PS is already 6? (5 is written on the Biology card) That is, according to Russian rules, it is possible to build on water, which is one of the five types of landscape, but not according to foreign ones. Where is the mistake?

Answer from the store Igroved: Hello Yuri. We believe that you should be guided by the original English rules, you cannot build a Miracle on the water.

“Ziva” means a lot to me. There are 2 games in my life that mercilessly ate my free time - this is Civilization Sid Meier and all sorts of football managers like Total Club Manager , FIFA Manager And Football Manager .

In 2006, as a student, I bought myself a fourth part of a computer game Sid Meier's Civilization right before the start of the exams, and it was my most fun passing the exams, because at first I read books on subjects until 11 o’clock, and then I started Tsiva “for an hour” and every hour I told myself that this is the last time I look like and I’ll go to bed . As a result, I went to bed at 5 o'clock in the morning, and at 7 o'clock I got up and stomped on the exam at the university. After successfully passing the session, I stuck to this terribly annoying, but wildly cool strategy all summer long. Yes, and then for a long time I bought all the new Civs with dopas, until the 6th part came out, which I still waved my hand at and didn’t buy =)

All erudite desktop players know that the computer Ziva has grown out of the desktop one. And after some time, Sid Meier's new Civilization in a desktop format was decided to be released by FFG. It happened in 2010. I doubted very much about buying this desktop, because. all my friends said that the base is cool, but there are holes in places, so the plugs really need additions. And only by putting everything together the game will look really cool. For 8 years, I have not decided to buy this game, and now it's probably too late to do it, because. its hard to get.

But in 2017 a new version of the game called Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn . Russian publishing house hobby world published this game in Russian, and they call the game . This time I decided not to think about the question of whether I should mess with this game, and at the first opportunity I grabbed it in my hands.

Today I will tell you about whether Sid Meier's new desktop Ziva is worth your attention.

Filling the box

I'm always interested in digging into a FFG box. They love to release bigboxes and delight geeks with a sea of ​​tokens, tablets, cards and minks. True, in recent years this publisher has become a little greedy, so their boxes are lighter than they were before. It seems to me, A new dawn - this is just such a modern version from FFG.

Inside the box you will find discs and counters that have become familiar to FFG, leader boards, fragments of the playing field, 4 packs of action cards for each player, cards of diplomacy, cities, wonders of the world, minks of cities, capitals and caravans, as well as a whole bunch of different small tokens and 2 D6 dice.

I don't know exactly where the game was printed, but judging by the multi-colored circles on the ziplocks, everything was printed in China, where all the original FFG games come from. The quality of the components is very good. Linen cards. There is nothing to complain about - I put 5+.

How to bring down tanks with archers?

And before I start telling you what to do in this strategy game, I recommend that you turn off all your knowledge about computer Ziva, as well as about the 2010 board game. New Ziva is really something new.

The game takes place in the terrain that the players collect together during the preparation of the game. Each player receives a leader board, with which he will have to complete 3 goals leading to victory. Once a player completes 3 out of 6 possible goals, they immediately win the game.

The playing field is assembled from different small fragments. Each player will have 3 of these fragments. Having laid out in turn all parts of the field on the table, you will get one large piece of the one and only land, divided into hexes. One cell (hex) corresponds to one of the six types of terrain - plains, hills, forests, deserts, mountains, and water. A hex with an asterisk indicates the location for the capital of one of the players from which to start conquering the world.

What else is on the field? Spawn locations for barbarians who randomly run around the map and smash other people's cities and caravans, resource tokens, places for city-states and several natural wonders lost in the mountains.

The core game engine is unique (never seen it anywhere before). Absolutely everything that happens in the game is responsible for a series of actions, consisting of only 5 cards. The cards are laid out below the terrain ruler in a strict order, which can be found on the leader board. On your turn, you just need to take one of the cards of the row, do everything that is written on this card, move the selected card to the beginning of the row, moving the cards with lower numbers to the right. This is one of the simplest and coolest mechanics I've ever seen in a board game! Just choose a card - follow its text - move it to the beginning of the row.

What can be the nuances of this? The farther a card is in the row, the more effectively it can be played. For example, if you take a card from the fifth position (mountains), then this means that you will control any terrain from plains to mountains (except water). And if you take a card from the first position (plains), then the effect of the card will be significantly weakened by the possibilities.

Let's take a closer look at the starting action cards, which I will use as an example to explain the effectiveness of playing a card in a particular position in a row. Each action card is responsible for a specific type of action. culture allows you to place control tokens on the cells adjacent to the city, annexing a new territory and capturing valuable resources (the higher the card number, the more difficult hexes can be captured). The science increases the value of the player's technology counter; upon reaching certain levels, you can get new action cards that are laid out instead of the old ones (new technology cards are cooler than the old ones); the higher the card number, the more technology points the player receives. Economy allows you to move caravan minks to city-states and cities of other players, while earning valuable trade tokens and receiving diplomacy cards (the higher the card number, the more difficult terrain the caravan can pass). By using crafts build new cities or wonders of the world that provide valuable bonuses (the higher the card number, the more points the player can spend on a new wonder of the world). War either strengthens the player's control tokens, or allows attacking barbarians, city-states, or foreign control tokens (the higher the card number, the greater the player's combat strength indicator).

Now I will talk a little about the goals. In total, there are 5 goal cards in the game, but any 3 are chosen for the game. Each card has 2 goals, one of which must be completed. As a rule, goals require the possession of two wonders of the world of the same category, control of a certain number of tokens, the destruction of several city-states, the placement of control tokens in hard-to-reach places, etc. Each player decides for himself what goals he is better off fulfilling. By completing one goal from each card, the player wins.

What other game nuances are there? Resources and natural wonders allow the player to score more points, which are needed to acquire the wonders of the world. Built wonders of the world give players useful bonuses, but they can be reclaimed by occupying a cell with a built wonder of the world. Periodically, you need to attack the barbarians, because they walk uncontrollably around the map and can destroy your tokens, caravans, and even cities. Trade tokens that can be earned in the game enhance the properties of action cards (you can get more movement points, more activated tokens, more combat power, etc.), but each action card can have no more than three such tokens (after activation, the tokens are discarded ). Fragments of the field are double-sided, so players always have many options for assembling the playing field.

The rules are really very simple, so let's quickly move on to the impressions.

Is this the same Civilization? Yes, Civilization! But not the same

Why did I ask you to forget about all those Civilizations of Sid Meier that you knew before? Because A new dawn is also a civilization game, but not quite Sid Meier (or not at all). From any games from FFG (and from Ziva itself) you always expect epic, full load of brains and the widest development options. But it was precisely this that those boarders who saw minuses in the previous Ziva most often cursed. They swore at a large number of nuances, at the duration of the game, at the need to purchase add-ons. All comments were taken into account - and it turned out A new dawn , she is a new game-civilization, following newfangled trends.

When I unpacked the game and saw that there was only one rule booklet in the box, I was very surprised, because. at FFG the norm is 2 rulebooks - one contains the rules, and the other contains explanations of the rules and new rules that were not written about in the first rulebook. And all you do is scroll through these two books back and forth, but you really want to start playing right away and without errors. I was delighted with the rules of the new Tsiva, because. their volume is not very large and they are perfectly absorbed after one reading. Of course, it doesn't hurt to read the rules again, because. something may escape attention, but the main thing is that the understanding of how to play this board game comes immediately.

The game is made up of many different components, but don't be fooled by that. having played half of the first game, you will immediately understand what is important in new dawn - this is the mechanics of drawing action cards, and there are only 5 of them. Imagine that 5 buttons are responsible for all human life. He pressed the button - he ate, he pressed another - he slept. The same thing is happening in the new Ziva. I chose a card - fought. He took another - expanded his zone of control. A ruler with card numbering gives a special coolness to this process. This thin and seemingly inconspicuous strip of cardboard gives each action card a new price. There is a big difference where the card lies - at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the row.

A simple example: you need to move the caravan to the city you are interested in. Going straight ahead costs 4 movement points. But you have to go through the mountains, and the action card that allows you to move caravans allows you to go through the forests at most, which means you have to go around, and this is already 7 points of movement, instead of 4. Therefore, it is advisable to wait until the desired action card reaches the extreme right position .

But here is another important point - if the action card lies in the mountains, this does not mean that only mountains can be used - any terrain that is located to the left of the scale is available to you. Mountains are like a joker who is allowed to do anything.

Therefore, the player in the game is constantly faced with a difficult choice - to use the action now, but less effectively, or to wait and advance it further in order to perform the action with maximum benefit. But sometimes it makes no sense to wait for the card to reach the maximum in the line, if it is beneficial for you to use the action in the desert or even in the forest. When I played this game, some players sometimes forgot about it, playing actions only from the fifth position, although it might be more profitable to use the card that lies to the left.

It's great that action cards can be improved. This is, as it were, the same technology tree from the original Ziva, only it does not work in a chain (that is, slowly but surely), but can suddenly swing to the maximum. The maximum level of cards is the fourth. By moving the arrow on the technology counter, you can first exchange a couple of cards for the second level, then a couple for the third, and a couple for the fourth. It does not matter what level the card was originally. Those. if you can take a level four card, then you can easily exchange it for a level one card. So it turns out that here you are walking around the map with a steel sword, and then suddenly mastering combat aircraft. But this will still happen not at the beginning of the game, but towards the end, so you should not be immediately upset that everything in the game develops very quickly.

Almost any upgrade of one of the types of cards leads to the fact that you become stronger. After playing 4 games, I still haven't chosen the optimal way of technology development for myself. Only towards the end of the game I use caravans less often, because I usually have a lot of trade tokens anyway. Each player decides for himself what he needs to develop faster. Each new level of the card leaves the old skills and adds new ones. You will be able to capture more hexes, increase your combat strength, get more trade or resource tokens, you will be able to get cards of the wonders of the world more easily, etc.

The field is assembled from fragments, so players will have the opportunity to collect a new card each time before the game. This, of course, is a big plus, because. before the game, none of the players knows what he will meet on the map. Maybe near your capital there will be a miracle of nature, or maybe a haven of barbarians or a city-state. Maybe your capital will be in the center of the map, or maybe on its edge.

I would like to talk about the barbarians separately. I really liked how they are implemented. In some areas of the field there are barbarian spawn points, on which the corresponding barbarian tokens appear. A special disk is responsible for the actions of the barbarians, which rotates one space at the beginning of the turn of any player. Based on the position of the arrow on the disk, barbarians can move, respawn at the spawn point, or stand. A special raid direction token and a die are responsible for movement. The player rolls the die and sees which direction the number on the raid token represents. Barbarians can destroy player control tokens, caravans, and even cities while moving. Therefore, if barbarians often spin near you, then you need to make every effort to destroy them (until they appear on the map again after a few moves =)).

In one game, we had a funny situation when one player was very unlucky, because. barbarians constantly hung around him, destroying his control tokens and caravans. And when, as a result, his city was unloaded, the player was so offended by the barbarians that until the end of the game he looked for them on the map and mercilessly killed or built up their spawn points with cities so that they could not be reborn =)

About goal cards. I like the idea of ​​players completing 3 out of a possible 6 goals. But it's worth acknowledging that most goals ask players to control 2 specific types of wonders, and this is somewhat easier to do than anything else. In addition, the wonders of the world give decent bonuses, for which it makes sense to compete. Those. building miracles is very profitable. Personally, I would like to see more objective cards in the game, and ones that interact less with the wonders of the world.

In the wonders of the world, I liked one cool moment. They can be beaten off from each other. When you build a wonder of the world, you take the appropriate token and place it under one of your cities. If another player destroys your city and builds his own city on the ruins, then the wonder of the world is not destroyed, but passes under the control of another player. Therefore, it is not at all necessary to think about how to find points for building a miracle, because you can simply take it from a neighbor =)

By the way, about the conflict. Because all events take place on the same playing field, which scales according to the number of players, then you will always feel that there is not only little free space, but not much either. Those. at the start of the game, you can exist quite peacefully with your neighbors. But towards the end of the game, sometimes you will not have where to turn around. You will want to go to the edge of the map or to the water, there will be a desire to fuck someone else's wonder of the world or something else. I cannot say that war is the need for a new Civilizations FFG. But it is an excellent effective method of development. Among my friends, it is not very common to act aggressively without any specific background. Those. to attack another player, you need to have a good reason, and not just a harmful character =) Therefore, I myself try to delay the attack on another player until the last. For example, in the last game, I was missing one wonder of the world before winning. But it was with a neighbor whose fighting strength was much worse than mine. I understood that I could act aggressively and win in a move. And I can spend 3 or 4 turns and build the necessary miracle myself. I decided to take the long way. But you can actually fight right at the very beginning of the game. The main thing is that it makes sense.

In general, the new Civa strongly supports the logic and thinking in the actions of the players. Your task is not to conquer the whole world or build a rocket and fly it into space, but to complete one of the goals on one goal map and move on to another. If it doesn't make sense for you to attack another player, then don't do it. While two players stupidly mutuzyat each other, the third always wins =) Therefore, the game can be safely called a conflict, but sometimes you can do without war. During the game, by the way, some players enter into alliances with each other, sometimes temporary =) So everything here is like in that very computer game.

As a variety, the game can offer different fragments of the playing field, different objective cards and different leader boards. What can I say about the leaders? There are only 8 of them in the game. Leaders differ in the starting layout of action cards and a unique property. Different starting map layouts are needed so that the actions of the players differ from each other from the very start. A unique property allows the player to do things more efficiently. For example, give a bonus against barbarians, move caravans from any of your cities, give a bonus to building wonders of the world, reduce the requirements for building cities and placing control tokens. To be honest, some properties of the leaders seem more interesting to me than others, so before the game I would still draft them, and not hand them out randomly.

I was unspeakably pleased with the duration of the game. Somewhere in about 2 hours the party ends. In this case, players do not have to wait a long time for their turn. Each player plays his action for 1-3 minutes and passes the move to another player. There are practically no sagging in the game, and players most often go on a par. True, if someone lacks the fulfillment of one goal, and someone needs all three, then it will be extremely difficult for the lagging behind to catch up with the leader, so you need to carefully monitor the goals.

Well, now we can move on to the cons. You can start throwing slippers at me, but I will honestly say that I did not find objective, powerful, very critical minuses in the game. All parts played nicely and left a good aftertaste. But there are enough rough edges in Ziva, so I'll tell you about them.

Because Since it was the game's author's job to cut content to make the game shorter and simpler, some elements of a typical civilization game were cut out. For example, in new dawn the conduct of the war is somehow vaguely outlined. No minek for you, or at least troop tokens. You just have control tokens and cities that you seem to be attacking from. All battles are made in your head =) There is no concept of population, there is no complex economy. But if all this was, then we would have a completely different game that could not cope with the tasks assigned to it.

You must have known for a long time that FFG likes to cut the base to release a bunch of add-ons after that. Is there something like this in the new Ziva? To be honest, yes and no. No, because I don't feel like I've taken a stump. The base plays very well. But still, I would add something to it - new leaders, necessarily new fragments of the field, new wonders of the world and much more goal cards that are not tied to wonders. At the same time, if all this is added, the game will not be played in a completely different way, it will simply become a little more diverse. But I would be interested to know what the new author plans to add to the game. So far, she seems a little naked, but nevertheless playable and interesting. Everything that will be added from above will make the game more difficult.

Some leaders are slightly stronger than others in properties.

There is a feeling of a certain dryness of the game. And maybe even a bit of abstraction. It seems to me that because of this, the game may appeal more to old schoolers. Sometimes it seems to me that A new dawn more like board games from the 00s, but it's a feature, not a bug!

The layout is controversial. The field is awesome. I also have no complaints about tokens and spinners. But the action cards are very poorly made. They are completely nondescript and wildly similar to each other. The wonders of the world are drawn terribly, but these are the great wonders of the world after all !!! And how could they be screwed up like that? Tokens of miracles, too, just to have a bow on the side. Something FFG slipped below his level in this game.

Conclusion

I don't have a lot of experience with desktop civilizations, but I know that almost all of them are overloaded with nuances and play for a monstrous 4-5 hours for the new time. If you want to pick up a game that takes a long time to figure out and collect players who are ready to spend the whole evening on a good, but overloaded with nuances, board game, then you can pass by new dawn .

But this game really surprised me. She delivers exactly what she promises. Nobody deceived me that I will get the same Civa of 2010, but which is played in just 2 hours. And no matter what anyone says, yes, A new dawn This is the civilization game! But it is simpler than its competitors.

played A new dawn chic. The action card engine is simply incomparable. I really want to see some other games based on it. Yes, maybe it would be cool if the row consisted of not only 5 cards, but a little more, so that the levels of the cards were not 4, but 5 or 6 ... But this is what the geek in me says. In fact, for a good board game for 2 hours, everything that is in this game is enough.

But I don't feel like playing this Ziva often. I played it once, enjoyed it and put it away for a week or two (or maybe a month). Why is that? Frankly, it's hard to explain. There is nothing directly bombing, except for a number of cards, in the game there seems to be none. But I like that the game does not load me. I somehow walked home after work and thought about what this Tsiva can be compared with. And suddenly I started to associate with clothes. I realized that the new Ziva for me is comfortable jeans. Simple but comfortable clothes that are fun to wear in winter and summer, walk around the city, go to the store, etc. But Cinderella will go to the ball, of course, not in jeans. And you won't walk around in a ball gown every day. I hope you understand my analogy.

You can sew different pockets to our jeans, narrow them or expand them, add some bells and whistles in front and back, which will make them look even cooler. This is what I'm looking forward to in 2019 FFG and from hobby world respectively. You could even say that this will be my most anticipated extra next year.

All in all, Sid Meier's Civilization: New Dawn is an unexpectedly very good and concise game that has simple rules and fast gameplay. Definitely, I leave the game in the collection as the fastest and most relaxed civ that exists in nature.

If you have any questions about the game, I will be happy to answer you in the comments.