As most of you know, Morgan hosted this all-day, all-night affair, so that we could all finally play the vaunted, brilliant vanilla Civ. We played with only three tweaks, listed below:

1) The player who is forced to take a red-backed Calamity card receives a card of the same number, if any remain in the stack.

2) The first Civil War Calamity card is discarded without effect.

3) Trading rules are as in Adv Civ (players need only truthfully state two cards that they are trading).

The empires and their rulers were, from easiest to most difficult, Nate as Babylon, John as Egypt, Conrad as Assyria, Dan as Thrace, Morgan as Illyria, and Mike as Crete.

The first half of the game, driven as it is by the energy expanding empires, is by far more exciting than the second half, when the once mighty empires are afflicted by multiple disasters per turn. I roared out from central Iraq and tore into the Levant, while John made sure he created a cirty border with me in Lebanon and then oozed westward to Libya. Conrad and I jostled for position in upper Syria as he expanded into inner Anatolia and Cyprus. Morgan moved west, taking all of Italy, then hopping the pond to Sicily and north Africa, with Dan forcefully colonizing the Balkans and what would be Byzantium. Lastly, Mike quickly hopped the ferry from Crete, taking all of Greece and infiltrating Asia Minor.

What we were all searching for, of course, were fertile provinces in which to expand our populations and up to nine city sites so that we could all expand to our maximum. There was surprisingly little conflict, as I susppose we all knew the calamities were coming in force. True, some of us were reduced to creating "wilderness cities" with twelve units instead of the requisite six, but there was little initial fighting or even starvation. By mid-game, all of us had 7-9 cities and areas for the remainder. The famous trade of commodities was hugely fun and a game in and of itself. The Civ card purchases were keenly observed by one and all, and I did like the fact that there were not enough to go around (though, to be fair, I chose second).

As expressed earlier, the game is hugely enjoyable when the empires are rising, even in the midst of conflict (which was rare). The game is not nearly as enjoyable when all one is doing is managing the disastrous effects of calamities upon one's economy. Now, it's quite possible that the lack of conflict in the Mediterranean helped create the lack of drama, but I found the endgame quite draining. I actually would have preferred to fight off an anti-Natus coalition--there's one in every game--rather than be slammed with three calamities or the effects thereof every turn like clockwork with nothing else to do.

In a related issue, we also found that it was sub-optimal to grow to 8 or 9 cities. Sure, you could bask in the glory of your soon-to-be-earthquak-ed and epidemic-ed empire, and possibly gain the higher trade cards, but you suffered worse effects from calamities and gained fewer trade cards than players with 5-8 cities. This seems totally counter-intuitive to me, though I've heard veteran players rhapsodize about how historical it is for hugely expanded empires to suffer deliterious effects. The point is that the game encourages you to grow your empire--bigger is better--but nowhere does it state, hint, or have players consider that there is a drawback of any kind. Unless we were playing incorrectly--and with mostly vets at the table, I doubt we were--this seems to be an untintended design flaw. Is it corrected or ameliorated in Advanced Civ? I can't wait to find out, but to be safe my future neighbors can have two of my natural city-sites...I won't be needing them. You're welcome in advance.

Lastly, my final gripe is actually player-made. Though the play-time is abnormally long in this day and age, I did not feel the passage of time outside of the game until halfway through, when one of our more alert members noticed that with the Civ cards he had purchased it was impossible for him to win. His very valid point brought forth a lot of discussion and comparisons to Advanced Civ, and the pace of the game drew to a grinding halt as we all settled in for a very long endgame. Now, many players would only delight in more discussion, more debate, and more time spent poring over the map of this utterly brilliant game. But I would have been much happier had we actually accelerated the pace, as the better parts of Tresham's design had largely been savored and digested by that point. In my view, not only are timers and calculators necessary for this game, but it's also important to designate at least one player who can be the (Egyptian) slave-driver and move the game along when analysis paralysis and lecture-circuit digressions strike. And I say this as no stranger to pontificating myself, surprise surprise!

The worst calamity of all, though, was not in the cards, but in ourselves, for we all failed to stop Dan Raspler the Thracian from winning on the AST track. We had all of us taken a hit somewhere along the track for various reasons, save for Dan, though it was not for lack of trying, as Morgan's Illyrians aided by Mike's Cretans hammered Dan ceaselessly throughout the last half of the game. I wonder how it would have gone had we played the game all the way through to the end of the AST track--as I remember we stopped three spaces short--as Mike had a large total of Civ points, but if calamities and Illyrian attacks weren't enough to throttle Thrace, I don't know what else could have.

Bottom line: Civilization is a truly brilliant ur-Euro game (or is that Ur-Euro?) that truly deserves its legendary status as a fantastic experience and also appallingly time-intensive. I have some significant gripes that bring my rating down from 11 to a more calculated 7.5. But, to quote the victorious Thracian himself, with whom I am in full agreement, "now we can all see why everyone has always sought the Holy Grail of gaming, the elusive 'Civ Light'. Many are the claimants, but none have grasped the crown off of Civ's doddering old head."

[I'm cross-posting this on BGG, so do let me know where i've erred factually.]

I've been struck with Eklund fever lately, and Origins has been at the center of my gaming attention for the last month. I've played it three times now, though not yet to completion. I know there was some interest in this game over in Booklyn, so I thought I'd share my take here. My BGG rating comment follows. I rate the game a '10.' For what it's worth, the other games I rate a 10 are Age of Steam, 1860, Wabash Cannonball: Erie Expansion, and American Megafauna. Megafauna will probably have to drop down at some point, but what's the rush?

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Guns, Germs & Steel seems to be one of the most mainstream sources Phil has used in his research for his amazing game on the origin of species, consciousness, and Reader's Digest. The bibliography (yes) features such audacious minds as Ayn Rand and Julian James, the game assumes interbreeding between species helped shape who we are today, and Phil has even included some original research, making animal domestication even more important than Jared Diamond thought it was.

If you don't subscribe to any or all of these philosophies, that is hardly the point. Origins is the most fascinating and pointed expression of a specific idea of history as I've ever seen. Even if you think it's 100% rubbish, the game is awe-inspiring in its ability to say: This is how I think it all went down. Whether viewed as an historical simulation or a fantastic simulation of an insane set of philosophies, its simulation value is enormous.

Luck? Sure, it's an Eklund. Early animal domestications are extremely important, catastrophes can wreak havoc on players' abilities to survive and migrate, and cards--the key to winning the game--will come up in totally random order and will often be assigned arbitrarily. Chance probably has more to do with determining the winner than skill. How important is this? Well, it depends on how you feel about the simulation. Players will absolutely be able to interact with and make significant decisions on behalf of their groups, and they will do this in every era of the game.

The rules are not terribly fussy, but the learning curve is intense. If you don't have someone to teach you, be prepared to make a lot of mistakes your first time out. Careful with the terrain rules! Once you've got them mastered, you're more than halfway home.

Production value is off the charts for an Eklund, featuring not just a mounted board but also over 100 wooden cubes! The design of the cards, in particular, is just wild. This is Gods Must Be Crazy stuff, like the designer had never seen a card game before. Nobody has ever seen cards quite so peculiar as these. They are delightful. The game is bilingual, but in the strangest, most inconsistent way imaginable--sometimes German dominates, sometimes English...it's a mess. The rulebook is a work of art, both for its strangeness and for its endnotes (which are worth the purchase price alone).

A unique and wonderful labor of love, and one of the best games I've ever played.