Uncomfortable Discussion- is Civilization obsolete?

I was rearranging the game shelf today to make room for these ERP games and my aged, time-honored copy of Civilization flopped out onto the floor. I picked it up and looked at Olivier, Taylor and Burton and remembered the good times had with this game, and how it remains one of the most influential and important games ever made. I opened the box and realized that I had not actually done so since...2008?

I flipped through the rulebook, looked at the AST, calamity cards and so forth...and I really got to thinking if I would ever actually play this great game again. Or would I choose something like Clash of Cultures or Mare Nostrum, games with similar concepts directly inspired by it, over the original?

Then I looked at the playtime...up to 12 hours.

I'm really kind of thinking about this critically...why would I elect to play classic Civilization again when I'm much more likely to get folks to play a great three hour session of CofC or even something like Innovation or Through the Ages?

It's not that I don't want to play Civ ever again...because I do. The question is really why would I?

So what do you think, is Civilization a game better respected and remembered fondly than actually played in the modern era?

12 hour game - yes, please.

Civ - sounds good.

12 hours of Civ - not so sure.

Heh, yeah, by today's standards it's really too thin to be a 12 hour game...mechanically, it's not that complicated or detailed. But there's like 16 phases to a turn or something and it just extends the game such that it outstrips its range, so to speak.

I think I'd be down for even a 5-6 hour game of Civ...but with a full table of mostly new players that isn't likely to happen.

Imagine your house snowed in, without Internet and videogames. Your phone only provides voice.

This game's era is gone.

S.

Civ+AdvCiv is one of the greatest games that nobody plays. It's era has passed not because the game hasn't held up, but because there's so many more games out there and those games are easy to find. I've been to gatherings where we've played games for 12 hours, but managing to convince people to play one game for an entire day has been an exceedingly rare event.

It is still great though. It has a special place on my shelf next to Age of Renaissance.

How likely is it that you will be able to play it again? Probably not very. Not only has Civilization's time come and gone as Sag said, but the time in your life where you can play it is on an extended hiatus until your kids move out.

Having said that, I see no reason why that should mean you must trade it away. It's not some huge crate of a box like Twilight Imperium, and I suspect that we won't see a reprint anytime soon just because the market doesn't seem to care about it. It's a rare enough game that if it were me I'd just hold on to it, whether I played it frequently or not. You're allowed to have a couple of games to hold on to just because you want to.

Michael Barnes wrote: Heh, yeah, by today's standards it's really too thin to be a 12 hour game...mechanically, it's not that complicated or detailed. But there's like 16 phases to a turn or something and it just extends the game such that it outstrips its range, so to speak.

I think I'd be down for even a 5-6 hour game of Civ...but with a full table of mostly new players that isn't likely to happen.

A few years ago some friends played a game in about 7 hours. Granted, they are pretty sharp players in general, but I was impressed with some of the play aids from BGG they used that seemed to greatly speed up the decision making process.

But yeah, noobs playing the game - 10-12 hours is probably more realistic.

IIRC, about 2/3 of those phases are simultaneous. That doesn't mean that you're playing it slow, but 16 phases back then would boil down now into Upkeep => Movement => Combat => Build => Trade => Buy => Cleanup. It looks scarier than it is.

At any rate, it isn't any longer than a 6-player TI3 with the expansions that take the Empire (or whatever the 2-point role is, I don't remember) out. I'd play it this weekend, if I could talk some players into it.

That's part of the problem too...talking people into playing it. I have no problem saying "guys, Mare Nostrum" and we're on. But Civilization is usually "ehh...I dunno" And then you're looking at likely playing it, what, once a year? And it's definitely the kind of game that gets WAY better when everyone has experience and knows what they're doing. A once a year learning/relearning game is the worst way, unfortunately, to experience a lot of older games.

Ownership is overrated...it is a pretty darn small box, but I don't really get into that having something just to say I have it thing.

Michael Barnes wrote: Ownership is overrated...it is a pretty darn small box, but I don't really get into that having something just to say I have it thing.

I'm facing the same problem with some of my stuff. I've come to the conclusion that I should sell the games that fall in to that category. Keep the stuff that you play the crap out of out and sell the rest .... and here's the important part: YOU CAN STILL PLAY THEM. Got a hankering for Civ? Set up the date, go buy it again, play it, and then get rid of it again. That's a MUCH better solution than keeping it to languish on the shelf.

Everything is always available for purchase, it's just the higher than normal price that drives us away. But if you are just going to resell it, then why worry? You can chalk the difference up to a "rental fee."

If I play A&A & F:AM once every 2 years then why do I own them? It's not like it's not available at the store, or through a a trade or Craigslist buy. Let someone have their possessions weigh them down.



I'm making a certain number of limited exceptions for joke games/art objects. Die Macher, Cyborg, Federation & Empire. Otherwise ... out it goes. You have to be good AND make it to the table regularly or out you go.