A Short Story of Civilization

It’s no secret we like civilization games at NSKN. You could say that it’s a company thing, but I’ve liked them ever since I played Through the Ages, and it was some time before NSKN Games was actually established. This love, a love probably also shared by every other board gamer alive, is bringing me today to talk about civilization games that were able to do two things: present a new take on civ games and amuse us enough to remain in our collections.

Before I talk about newer games, let me first pay my due to the two most important and formative civilization board games – at least in my opinion. The first one is (obviously) Civilization (later upgraded to Advanced Civilization) designed by Francis Tresham. It’s a game a too young to remember in its original incarnation, but its second edition still sits on my shelf – and I do play it on a semi-regular basis.

The second civilization game that seems a cornerstone of not only civ games, but board games in general is Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. It was one of my first heavier Euro games (yes, I do believe TTA is a Euro game as well as a civ game), and one of the most fascinating experiences in my personal history of gaming. It’s also the civilization game I personally love to go back most often.

Image Source: BoardGameGeek

Through the Ages is a game I wanted to mention also for another reason. Although the game is not new by any stretch of imagination, it was quite innovative for its time, and in a way has never been successfully imitated by another game. Some innovative elements from TTA surfaced in other games, but only two years ago a game with a truly similar approach to civilization games emerged. Nations (if you’re a fan of civ games you probably already knew which game I was referring to) with its strong design and depth managed to find its way onto many gaming tables – but failed (in my opinion at least) as a civ game, remaining “only” a rock solid Euro.

Over the years we’ve had some novel approach to civilization games – as well as some games that would simply take the rather obvious, but still quite entertaining route when it came to game design choices. While extremely fun, FFG’s Sid Meier’s Civilization follows a rather safe path, not really trying to re-define the genre, but solidify it and create a kind of a template many other civ games would be compared to. It also certainly fared much better than the previous Sid Meier’s Civilization which, over the years, has almost universally attracted scorn from its players.

Image Source: BoardGameGeek

It seems that the way to innovate civ games lies in making them shorter. While no less than impressive, Francis Tresham’s design takes six to eight hours to play properly, and with both of its expansions, the FFG Civilization may take a good few (five or six) hours to complete. Building a game that would have this civilization feel without actually taking a whole afternoon (and/or evening) is something many have dipped their toes in. 

This is how we got the spectacular 7 Wonders, which reduced a whole civ game to a few decks of cards, a bunch of player boards and a pile of tokens. This is also where Golden Ages probably came from, this time not doing away with the map component, but still managing to squeeze the civ feel into a much smaller frame – and a smaller footprint.

Image Source: BoardGameGeek

And speaking of 7 Wonders, we’ve also tried out hand at a civilization game that consists mainly of cards and player boards – for that reason many people would instantaneously compare our Progress: Evolution of Technology to Antoine Bauza’s phenomenal design (which only made us blush a little), and will try again in the not so distant future, this time with a completely different design (a light sprinkle of deckbuilding, anyone?).

Innovating in civilization games is no easy task, as it’s very easy to misplace those precious few elements that make a civ game what it is: the sense of building something grand, and the feeling of great progression, of one thing evolving from another. That is why I personally never found Nations appealing as a civ game, that is why Innovation never really spoke to me. And that is why when come around to making another civ game, we’ll not forget its basic building blocks while trying to innovate.

Just to wrap it all up: are there any smaller civilization games you love? Perhaps you know of some undiscovered little gems we should definitely check out? And before you say anything: yes, we’ve Olympos, Historia, Uruk and Uruk II. We like them.

__________________

FIND OUT MORE NSKN official website | Facebook  | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: @NSKNGames

Our Essen Hotness

From a publisher’s perspective, a convention or a trade show is exciting, but also somewhat stressful. It’s both about preparing everything in advance, as well as performing at peak efficiency for an extended period of time, to make sure that our games and – more importantly – the people who visit us, get all the enthusiasm and the positivity they deserve. And with Spiel 2014 starting in merely a blink of an eye, we can’t but get more and more excited with what awaits us in Essen.

Spiel is a celebration of games and gaming, and as passionate gamers we would lie if we said that only Progress or Versailles excites us. There is a fair amount of gaming goodness we will be more than happy to get our hands on, not just to see “what the competition has to offer”, but to simply have fun with when the dust finally settles.

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

It seems that the game that equivocally excites all of us is Hyperborea by Andrea Chiarvesio and Pierluca Zizzi. It’s no secret we always had a soft spot for civilization and empire building games, so this one made us all interested from the first day it became a visible blip on our gaming radars. With good looking area control action and an immensely interesting pool building mechanism, Hyperborea looks like a game that will put a pretty cool twist on the “dudes on the map” genre, while showing off some clever Eurogame moves, asymmetrical player powers and some truly awesome art. Simply put: we cannot wait to see it in action.

And speaking about civilization building games: we will definitely be checking out Historia and Omega Centauri. The former seems to be sporting some really innovative approach towards civilization gaming in general, while the latter looks a little more straight up – but as a solid 4X game in space has a pretty good chance of making the creators of Exodus: Proxima Centauri quite excited about placing it on their Essen loot pile.

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

There is also a lot of excitement about The Battle of Five Armies, as some of the NSKN folks are great fans of War of the Ring, while others (myself included) are fatally drawn to everything having anything to do with the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. And with some reviews already up, as well as having the exact same set of designers (Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello) as the legendary WotR, the culminating battle of The Hobbit in a board game format really looks like something we might want to have on our shelves.

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

No Spiel would be complete without a new game by Uwe Rosenberg, and, more recently, without an offering from Stefan Feld and Antoine Bauza. And although we are slightly disappointed that Fields of Arle is a two player game only, we will definitely want to check it out, as well as take a good look at both Aquasphere and La Isla. And personally, I really can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Samurai Spirit.

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

To tell the truth, the list could really go on. We want to try out Nations: The DiceGame, visit the Z-Man booth to see how Battle at Kemble’s Cascade makes an early video game go completely analogue, get a fix (in form of a new board) of the fabulous Concordia or witness with our very own eyes, how Phil Eklund and Philipp Klarmann managed to make a negotiation game for not only three or two players players, but also for one (some of us even want to visit actual Greeenland but that is a completely different story). We will delve in the Essen gaming hotness, but…

At the end of the day, we will be most excited to see everyone who deems our humble abodes welcoming enough to visit us, stay awhile and play our games or just say hello. We will be – and in fact we already are – most excited to see our old friends and make some new ones. Because, believe it or not, gaming is much more about the people than the games. So, as much as we are happy to be presenting, selling, playing, demoing and experiencing games, we will also be happy to share this experience with others. 

And, in a way, that is what our personal Essen Hotness is all about.

__________________

FIND OUT MORE NSKN official website | Facebook  | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: @NSKNGames