The If Only List–Civilization

So, we have a winner:

    • Lord of the Rings LCG  4 (12%)
    • Mystery Express  4 (12%)
    • Kingsburg  3 (9%)
    • Race for the Galaxy  5 (15%)
    • Cutthroat Caverns  1 (3%)
    • Shogun  2 (6%)
    • Space Hulk: Death Angel  0 (0%)
    • Arcana  0 (0%)
    • Revolution  0 (0%)
    • Pandemic on the Brink  2 (6%)
    • Sid Meier's Civilisation  8 (24%)
    • Isla Dorada  1 (3%)
    • Alien Frontiers  3 (9%)

This has been our best, most well received poll ever (which is very important, but more on that later.) All of the above games are on my wish list, LOTR LCG is a “buy” for me as soon as they release it, but I’d still be more than happy to receive any of the other games on the list, say, from my Dice Tower Secret Santa.

Firstly I must apologise for ruining Isla Dorada’s chances of winning the poll by misspelling it… oops. However, by a rather massive margin Civilisation is our If Only of the week.

So why then?

Why is the new Fantasy Flight hotness on my If Only list? For those who don’t know the If Only List is a list of games I want, but have not yet bought for one reason or another. (Side note: Of all the If Onlys in the series so far only Tide of Iron remains unpurchased!)

Lets start with why I want this game:

  1. It’s a Civilisation Game. I started my journey into Civ-like computer games back in the late 90’s with a game called 7 Kingdoms. In this game you played one of 7 races and attempted to conquer the other 6 nations. Later I discovered Anno 1503 which I fell in love with. I then played Civ IV for a couple of weeks last year. Not my favourite civilisation building game, but there are a lot of concepts in it that I love. So, the point is, I like Civ games, I like tech trees, building and maintaining cities and conquering my enemies.
  2. It’s Fantasy Flight. If I have a favourite publisher, it would be FFG. I have come to expect a lot from them and I am rarely disappointed. Component quality is always high, game and rules support is excellent and if you have a problem their customer service is superb.
  3. It’s Kevin Wilson. Ok, so that doesn’t actually mean that much to me, but Mr. Wilson is credited with designing some very well regarded games including some I’m really looking forward to playing; Descent, Cosmic Encounter and Android. Also, watching him talk about the game in the promotional video, he just seems a very genuine man who designs games for all the right reasons.
  4. The Components. The game looks lovely (although I don’t like the way the terrain stops at the edges of a square.), I really love the dial within a dial component, already I want to steal it and port it into my own designs.
  5. It has Tech Trees. Ok, so it’s a tech pyramid, but it’s still a pretty elegant way of dealing with advancing technology. I’ve always enjoyed Tech Trees in games, all my home brewed games had one, the most extensive being in Risk: World Conquest, a complex ruleset on a Risk map with 168 territories. It never saw the light of day, unsurprisingly.

So with all this goodness in the box, why am I not rushing out to buy a copy the moment the boat comes in?

  1. Well, it’s not the price point which I think is pretty reasonable, it’s also not the size, or the number of players.
  2. Civilisation, like Tide of Iron and Dust, falls foul of the lack of opponents rule. Civilization is a complex game, or it least it has an air of complexity to it that my family would totally fail to grasp. They would look at all the parts and they would just give up. Meanwhile, my friends would love this game. We all grew up on Civ games but getting everyone together is just too much trouble. My closest friends now live in four different cities nearly 300 miles away. I already have Battlestar sitting unplayed in my cupboard, right next to Dust so, for me, right now, Civilization remains a pipe dream, a game I’d love to own and play but realistically I just shouldn’t

The Unboxed Awards

Ok, for the rest of November Unboxed will be poll free, despite the great response to this one. Why, you may ask? It’s because the Unboxed Awards will be coming to the blog in December. In collaboration with various Blogs and Podcasts and Stores I have been working hard to put together a comprehensive list of the best games “played” this year.

These lists will be appearing as polls on Unboxed as well as in various other places, giving you all the final say in which games will take home the coveted titles including Game of the Year.

In the meantime I will be publishing bios from each of the panellist, along with other articles, including their “Let Downs of the Year” and “Best Gaming Experience of the Year.”

So until next week, have fun gaming!

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