Clash of Cultures Expansion

Pirates?

Elephants?

The Egyptian "Man God" power?

It's full of crazy awesome stuff already. Autobuy.

I'm more excited about the culture specific stuff now that I know there are a lot of them. Seems like they might sort of lock you into a strategy, so the idea that there would be 5 cultures and I wouldn't have choices kind of bummed me out. It looks like there won't be a "Well, guess I'm taking Rome and have to fight all game!" situation.

Oh hay, cool video explaining the whole expansion:

boardgamegeek.com/video/55059/clash-cult...res-designer-preview

Sweet Baby Baal, this looks fantastic!!! This may put to bed my desire to acquire Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization.

YES, MARCUS! YEEEEEEEESSS!!!!!

I want to like Clash of Cultures more than I do. On the surface this doesn't sound like it will change much for me. I'm one of the weirdos who doesn't understand why "real" civilizations are such an appeal; so you can have Vikings fight Chinese in a fictional landscape? For me the addition of "real" civs instantly adds to the unreal nature of the game (see also: Sid Meier's Civ, which I like DESPITE the real civilizations, not because of them). Beyond that, none of my problems with CoC are things that can be solved by the addition of more military units.

I already know that you and I have pretty different thoughts on CoC re: dominance of military, so I won't go into that.

I tend to prefer non-specific civ stuff, as well. The whole thing was that "The Vikings" in CoC could also just be interpreted as a civ which took all the sea faring and war techs. I'm still excited about the expansion anyway, though, and I get that there is a huge audience for the civ specific stuff.

I like that the new civs give some bonuses to particular strategies. Granted, that's based on the few pictures of the Egyptian civ card, but if they're all like that they look to give some specialization without shoehorning a player into a strategy.

I haven't read the expansion rules yet, but I would think that some sort of civ-drafting or "draw three keep one" type mechanic during setup would let you pick something that's cohesive with how you want to play the game.

I'm pumped, but I have the expansion tied up in an order with other preorder stuff, and I don't really know what the release date on any of the preorder material is. I wish I hadn't done that.

I believe he mentions in the video that it's a "get 2, put 1 back" system.

Dammit, I hate buying expansions...but this one calls to me.

I'm really excited about this, the base game moved into my top 5 after my last few plays this weekend. The mechanics are SO tight.