Mega Civilization

Unofficial FAQ
9 October 2017 -- Version 3.6

Table of Contents
Credits 1 General Calamity Questions 15
Errata 1 Specific Calamity Questions 18
Rules to Especially Note 3 Civilization Advances 26
Determining Player Order 4 General Questions on Playing 33
Terms & Definitions 5 Running Large Games 34
Questions by Turn Phase 6 Design Questions 38
Movement 7 Changes from Advanced Civilization 43
Token Conflicts 9 Optional Rules 45
City Attacks 10

Credits:
This FAQ has been put together primarily from Forum posts on BoardGameGeek.com.
Entries have been edited for clarity and consistency of terminology. (Apologies if I have misinter-
preted anyone's intent. Please contact me if you'd like me to remove or reword anything included in
this unofficial FAQ.)
Most of the material below has come from three people who have developed this game: the authors--
John Rodriguez and Flo de Haan--and Gerart de Haan, one of the developers. Thank you for the
great support you continue to provide for this beautiful game!
Some Q&A were drawn from Mark O'Reilly's FAQ dated November 2015, with his permission.
Others bits and pieces--and of course most of the questions--have come from BGG forum members.
Thank you, fellow gaming enthusiasts, for your contributions to our hobby.
There is also an official FAQ available, which of course takes precedence: this FAQ, however, cov-
ers more questions and topics than are covered there.
The section on the comparison of Mega Civilization to the predecessor game, Advanced Civiliza-
tion, was generated by Paul Schulzetenberg and is included with his permission. The forum thread is
found at https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1445413/rule-differences-advanced-civilization.
Questions clearly answered in version 1.1 of the rulebook are highlighted in gray.
Entries marked with an asterisk have been added or modified since the previous version of this FAQ.

Errata:
Civilization Advances
On the Engineering card, the holder's attacked cities should be replaced by 7 tokens, not 6. And it
applies both against attacks from Barbarians and in attacks against Pirate cities.
The Fundamentalism card should give a 10 discount for religion (yellow) and a 5 discount for arts
(blue).
The Library card is unclear: suggest changing "any" to "one" where the card reads ". . . cost of
***any*** other Civilization Advance that you . . ."
The Mathematics card should give a discount of 20 for both arts (blue) and science (green), and a
discount of 10 for the other three categories (red civics, yellow religion, orange crafts).
 p. 2
The Mythology card should give a 10 discount for religion (yellow) and a 5 discount for arts (blue).
The Politics card should give a 5 discount for religion (yellow), not for science (green).
The Politics card has an error: the user of the special ability moves the treasury tokens to his own
stock. The treasury of the victim is unaffected. (This was an editing error.) Suggested fix: delete the
text between the asterisks: "... Pay treasury tokens equal to the number of units annexed ***to the
unit's owners***. ..." Change "Pay" to "Discard".

Rulebook
Page 12:
First paragraph should read . . .
When playing West (9 or ***10*** players):

Second paragraph should read . . .

When playing East (9 or ***11*** players):

Page 16:
Last line of text should read . . .
Map-board 15 players (***7*** players West - ***8*** players East).

Page 18:
Western Map
Some of the population limit circles were not properly colored to indicate ownership.
Lemnos (east of the Hellas starting area) should belong to Minoa.
Boeotia (south of the Hellas starting area) should belong to Hellas.
Argos (south of Athens) should belong to Minoa.
Ebusus (southeast of the Iberia starting area) should belong to Iberia.

Page 20:
The first paragraph defines "turn" as a full "game turn". The second paragraph, however, uses the phrase
"turn" three times. But in each case, where this second paragraph says "turn," it doesn't mean "game
turn"; it means "that player's place in proper execution order".

Page 35:
Famine
Note: the victims themselves choose the precise units to lose.

Page 37:
Regression
Suffering from Regression doesn't prevent a player from advancing on the AST at the end of the turn.

Pages 38-43:
Agriculture
Agriculture by itself does not permit you to keep a population token in the same area with a city.

Cultural Ascendancy
First italicized bullet: "Special Effects" should be "Special Abilities".

Diplomacy
First italicized bullet: "Special Effects" should be "Special Abilities".
 p. 3
Engineering
When holding this card, any city of yours that is attacked (by a player who does not himself hold Engi-
neering) should be replaced by 7 tokens, not 6.

Fundamentalism
The credits shown for this card are incorrect: see the errata above.

Library
You may only apply this one-time discount to one other Civilization Advance.

Mathematics
The credits shown for this card are incorrect: see the errata above.

Monarchy
Add: "[-] TYRANNY: Beneficiary annexes 5 more unit points."

Mysticism
Insert a green "[+]" in front of SUPERSTITION.

Mythology
The credits shown for this card are incorrect: see the errata above.

Politics
Change "to" to "from" in line 6 of the Special Ability. One of the credits is wrong: see the errata above.

Sculpture
Insert a green "[+]" in front of TYRANNY.

Theocracy
In line 3, change "a city" to "the city".

Rules to Especially Note

Pay particular attention to chapter 4, "Setting up the Game": it is important to get the right set of
Commodity & Calamity cards, and to shuffle them according to the prescribed process. Just follow
the instructions precisely as written. Also note:
o There are symbols at the top of each card showing either a blue or an orange star. For a game
of low player count you only need the blue ones. The orange ones are only used for higher
player counts.
o Then make a division for playing either East (E) of West (W)--(either side supports 5-9 play-
ers).
o Then, each card says exactly for which number of players it is to be used with, just to the
right of the blue or orange star.
This card setup appears to encourage early east-west trading, ensures players aren't all trying to col-
lect the same commodities in the beginning, and limits disproportionate luck during early draws.

On page 9, where is says "players start [by] placing their succession marker in the arrow on the
left"--that is exactly what is meant: you cover the arrow with your marker; you don't place your
marker in the space toward which the arrow points.
 p. 4
For first-time players, it might be beneficial to show them the maps on pages 18-19, so that they can
see approximately what their "usual" territory is.

In 18-player games, all east-block civilizations are even numbered; all west-block, odd numbered.
Additionally, the artwork on the tokens for the west-block civilizations is drawn in black; the
artwork for the east-block, in white.
o Assyria and Egypt, although located on the western mapboard, are sometimes East-block civ-
ilizations, depending on the number of players:
Assyria is Eastern when there are 12 to 16 players.
Egypt is Eastern when there are 13 or 14 players.
o Sometimes all of the nations in play are considered to be either east block or west block, but
that is only when just a single block is in play, and during play this difference doesn't matter.

Determining Player Order

AST-ranking, AST-order, and AST-position:

Page 9 defines these three AST phrases. Yet I find these phrases easy to mix up, so whenever I teach
the game I use two other phrases instead--"Civ #" and "AST Progress".
o Civ # is what I call the number ("1" through "18") that is assigned to each Civilization.
By default, whenever there is a tie, the Civilization with the smallest Civ # goes first.
o AST Progress, contrarily, is an ordering which gives precedence to the Civilization whose
AST marker has advanced the farthest to the right on the AST table.

No matter how you refer to these terms, the important thing to remember is that "AST-position"
(which I call "AST Progress") only applies in three cases:
o When determining the order for using the Special Abilities of Civilization Advances (p. 28).
o When determining the order in which Civilization Advances are purchased (p. 28).
o As the first tie-breaker at the end of the game (p. 31).
In all other cases where the rulebook mentions anything like "AST-order", it means that the Civiliza-
tion with the smallest "Civ #" is selected first.

Another possible point of confusion is the use of the word "highest", which as a word can mean ei-
ther "largest in value" or "closest to the top". Whenever Mega Civilization uses the word, it general-
ly means the latter.
o For instance, in the second column of page 24, the rules say "the player with the highest AST-
ranking order draws first." What this means is that "the player whose AST marker is nearest
to the top of the AST chart draws first." (E.g., it means that the player with the smallest Civi-
lization number draws first.)
The example on the top of page 25 explains what is meant by "highest AST-ranking order,"
as does the figure on page 9. (It may help, on page 25, to pencil in the Civ # for Hellas,
which is 15, and the Civ # for Egypt, which is 17.)
o Likewise on page 38, for Advanced Military, when it says "the player with the lowest AST-
ranking order may wait for players with a higher order", it means that "the player with the
largest Civ # may wait for players with smaller Civ #'s to resolve their conflicts first."

Editor suggests you use whatever terminology most helps you keep these important concepts straight.
 p. 5
Q1: I've always interpreted "AST Order" to mean that the lower number in a tie will get the better effect
--i.e., it will move last, it will be the beneficiary, etc. I've checked the rules and they don't actually say
how to resolve AST order (whether lower numbers win ties or higher numbers win ties).

A1: The player with the smallest Civ # is the player who "has to go first"/"gets to go first"/"wins the tie".

Sometimes this is beneficial for the player with the smallest Civ #:
When drawing your trade cards before other players with the same number of cities (especially as it
regards to getting stuck with Water cards). This is also true when buying additional trade cards.
When being chosen as the beneficiary from among tied players.
When winning the game as the result of the final tie breaker.

Sometimes this is detrimental for the player with the smallest Civ #:
When having a small stock of population tokens during population expansion and having to choose
which areas to place them in. Other players who are likewise limited get to see your choices before
placing their own population tokens.
When having to move first among players with the same number of population tokens on the map.
When having Advanced Military, but not being able to delay your conflicts with other players who
also hold Advanced Military.
When having to resolve attacks upon your own cities before resolving your attacks upon enemy
cities.
When having to build your cities first, and to decide where to use Urbanism and Architecture.
When having to be first in choosing which cities to reduce due to insufficient city support.
When having to resolve all of your minor calamities before other players do.
When having to select and take damage from a given calamity before other players do.
When having to resolve your same-named major calamity before the other one is resolved.

Editor's remark: There is an expanded SoP in the Files section of BGG, the last column of which clearly
specifies which civilization moves first during each phase and sub-phase, using clear terms like "Small-
est Civ #" and "Farthest AST".

Definitions:
City Equivalents
It takes 6 population tokens to build a city (or 12 population tokens, if there's no city site in the area,
what's known as a "wilderness" city).
In a city attack, a city is replaced by 6 population tokens, whether or not it was built on a city site. (If
either player holds the Engineering Civilization Advance, this could be changed by +/- 1.)
In all other cases--including calamities--a city counts as 5 unit points.

When you're reducing a city, it counts as 5 unit points. However, since you replace the city with the
population limit of the area, the amount by which it is reduced below "5" counts as damage taken.
Example: a city in an area that supports 2 population tokens is being reduced due to a calamity.
You take the city off the board (5 unit points) and replace it with 2 population tokens (2 unit
points gained). The value of the action towards fulfilling the calamity is 5 - 2, for a total of 3 unit
points. (If the player holds Agriculture, he would replace this city with 3 population tokens, and
this city reduction would then count as 2 unit points toward fulfilling the calamity.)
 p. 6
A city is always worth 5 unit points.
When a city is reduced, it is replaced by the number of tokens that the space can support.
When a city is destroyed, it is removed entirely.
When a city is attacked by enough tokens (usually 7) it is replaced by 6 population tokens (assuming
neither player has Engineering) and token conflict is then resolved normally.

When a special ability says "units", it means cities as well as population tokens. A population token is
worth 1 unit, whereas a city is worth 5 units. Ships do not count as units.

For further information, see page 33, the yellow box at the left entitled: "Definitions: Unit points, Dam-
age, Reduce, Destroy, Annex, Assign, Coastal."

Q1: What does "damage" mean? I couldn't find it in the rulebook. Is "taking one damage" the same as
pulling one population token off the game board?
A1: Taking damage means losing units (population tokens or cities) from the map. If you reduce a city
(worth 5 unit points) and replace it with 3 tokens (worth 3 unit points), you have taken 2 damage.

Q2: Can I ever voluntarily reduce or destroy my own cities?

A2: No. You can only take damage to population tokens and cities as part of the established mechanics
of the game, as when taking damage from a calamity, or having to reduce cities to meet your city sup-
port requirement (but never more than is needed). It is legal, however, to move population tokens in with
cities or to overcrowd them into areas where they'll be lost during the surplus population step.

Losing Tokens
- Sacrificing a token is something you voluntary do in order to build a ship somewhere.
- Destroying a token is something you must do as a result of, for instance, a calamity.

Miscellaneous
From the Official FAQ: Areas are considered coastal areas only if a path can be traced from them over
water to an open sea area. In northern Parthia, the area of Western Sogdiana is therefore not a coastal
area, and Ustiurt is only a coastal area if map panels 2 and 3 are both in play.

Rule Questions by Turn Phase:

Taxes
Q1: If the beneficiary of a tax revolt has insufficient cities in stock, what happens to the additional re-
volting cities?
A1: The beneficiary of a tax revolt is the player having the most cities in stock. If this beneficiary runs
out of cities before he can annex all of the victim's cities, this means that the victim of the tax revolt is
losing more than one city, which is very rare. Even in this hypothetical case, the beneficiary would have
seven cities on the board, and no other player would have less than seven cities on the board, which is
even more rare--virtually impossible. We intentionally left this explanation out of the rulebook because
it would've made the rules unnecessarily complicated. But should this situation ever occur in a real
game, a new beneficiary should be chosen after the first city is annexed, and this new beneficiary would
annex the remaining cities. (If no legal beneficiary can be selected, the revolting cities that cannot be re-
placed are destroyed instead.)
 p. 7
*Editor: If two or more civilizations are losing cities due to tax revolts in the same turn, the one with the
lowest civilization number loses his cities first. The beneficiary who receives the cities that revolt from
this first civilization is the player who paid all of his taxes and who has the most cities in stock; if there
is a tie, then it is the tying player with the most tokens in stock; any remaining tie is won by the player
with the lowest civilization number. After the defecting cities have been transferred to their new owner,
the next higher-numbered civilization with revolting cities will lose his cities. Before this can happen,
though, a new check is made to find the beneficiary of these cities: it can be the same beneficiary as the
one who received the first set of revolting cities, or it can be a different beneficiary, depending on who
now has the most cities in stock, the most tokens in stock, etc.

Population Expansion
From the Official FAQ: City areas without population tokens in them do not gain any population tokens
during population expansion.

Moving
Q1: During movement, can you empty a space--or do you have to leave at least one token behind?
A1: Areas start empty as the game begins, so indeed areas can be moved out of and left empty. Or in
case of a conflict, areas may become depopulated. This goes as well for the effect of calamities when-
ever a city is destroyed, or if you have to remove tokens for the effect of Epidemic, for example.

Q2: When paying for a new ship with 1 population token plus 1 treasury token, may the population
token come from any region--or must it come from the region in which the ship is being built?
A2: Page 22: "To do so, he must pay 2 treasury, or destroy 2 tokens from the area he builds the ship in
or destroy 2 tokens from 2 different areas, 1 of which is the ship area or a combination of 1 token and 1
treasury." So the last option is mentioned in the very same line as the definition of sacrificing two to-
kens: the one token must come from the area in which the ship is built.

Q3: When maintaining a ship that was built on a previous turn and paying that upkeep with 1 population
token, may the population token come from any region--or must it come from the ships current region?
A3: Since it is not specified otherwise in the manual, the 1 token for ship maintenance may come from
anywhere on the board.

Q4: May a player build a ship (paying the appropriate cost), choose not to move that ship, and then pay
the extra maintenance at the end of that players movement (for ships that didnt move)?
A4: Ship maintenance is only paid for ships that were built in a previous turn.

Q5: When paying for a ship, may a player use population tokens that have already moved that turn?
A5: Yes. You're very clever. We only see experienced players do this.

Q6: Why is it clever to pay for ships with tokens that have already moved?
A6: When you pay for a new ship with a token plus a treasury--or when you pay for a new ship with two
tokens--the ship has to be placed in the coastal area from which one of those tokens have come. Also, to-
kens that move by land can't move by sea during the same turn, and vice versa. So say that you have two
tokens in a coastal area and that you wish to move both of them by sea. If you build a boat by taking
away one of these tokens, you'll only have one token left to be moved by sea. Moving another token into
the area by land doesn't help fill the boat either, since having moved by land the new arrival can no long-
er move by sea. The way around this is to move a third token into the coastal area first, then to remove
this third token to help pay for the ship, and then you'll be free to move the original two tokens by sea.
 p. 8
Ship clarification:
At the beginning of the Movement phase:
Pay nothing, no matter how many ships you have on the board.

During the Movement phase:

If a ship built in a previous turn has yet to move this turn, you can remove it at any point this turn.
Pay 1 treasury or population token to move a ship that was on the map at the beginning of this turn.
Pay 2 treasury/population tokens to build a new ship, and then move it. (Movement is optional.)

At the end of the Movement phase:

Pay 1 treasury/population token for every on-map ship that you built during a previous turn. If any of
these ships didn't move during this turn, in lieu of paying the 1 treasury/population token, you can
remove it.

Editor: You may not pay to build or maintain a given ship token and then elect to remove it during the
same game turn (except to remove it as a casualty during a Token Conflict/City Attack via Naval War-
fare). Nor may a given ship token be built more than once during a given turn.

(If you've played Civilization or Advanced Civilization, the cost for building and maintaining ships is ex-
actly the same. Allowing you to pay this cost during the movement phase instead of earlier in the turn
removes one of the biggest stalling points of those earlier games, where seafaring civilizations used to
have to plan out all of their movement ahead of time, to figure out where they would be needing their
boats. This change also makes the "Military" Civilization Advance slightly stronger, especially in com-
bination with Naval Warfare, as moving last is even better when your ships aren't already committed to
specific areas on the board.)

Q7: How do you "build" a ship?

A7: To build a new ship, you simply pay the cost and place the ship in an area. That area has to be in a
coastal area containing 1 or more of your population tokens. And if you paid for the ship with 1 or 2 on-
map tokens, then the ship has to go in a coastal area from which you took at least one of the tokens. (It is
legal to place the ship in a coastal area that has only one population token and to also take that popula-
tion token as partial payment for that new ship.)

Q8: Can a population token move on more than one ship during a single turn?
A8: No. Each token gets to move one time only--whether by land or by sea. You cannot use a "chain of
ships" to move a previously sea-transported token again.

Q9: Where areas touch at only a single point, does that count as being adjacent? E.g., are Chalcis and
Athens adjacent to each other (by sea)? Are Eretria and Boeotia?
A9: No; no; no.

From the Official FAQ: You are allowed to move population tokens into areas containing your own
cities. Should no token conflict ensue, these population tokens will be removed during the check for
Surplus Population later in the turn (except for one population token, if you hold Public Works).
 p. 9
Token Conflicts
Q1: Let's see if I have this right:
A has one token, B has three tokens, the population limit is four: No conflict results.
A has one token, B has three tokens, the population limit is two: A removes a token. (Now only one
player remains, B, with three tokens.)
A has two tokens, B has three tokens, the population limit is four: A removes a token. (Now we're at
or below the population limit, one for A, three for B.)
A has two tokens, B has three tokens, the population limit is three: A removes a token, then B re-
moves a token. (Now we're at or below the population limit, one for A, two for B.)
A has two tokens, B has two tokens, the population limit is three: A and B each remove a token si-
multaneously. (Now we're at or below the population limit, one for A, one for B.)

A1: All are correct.

Q2: Is token conflict resolved during a player's movement phase, or do all players finish movement be-
fore any token conflicts are resolved?

(The rulebook mentions the token conflict phase as being separate from the movement phase, but two
things in the movement-phase description makes it sound as if token conflicts may be resolved immedi-
ately: The paragraph on token conflicts says, "As soon as a player enters an area that also contains 1 or
more tokens belonging to other player(s), exceeding the population limit, a 'conflict situation' occurs."
And the portion of the rules dealing with defending a city seems to only make sense if you resolve city
attacks during the movement phase rather than after it.)

A2: All players must complete their movement before any conflicts are resolved. The sections in the
movement phase rules are only there to make it clear to new players what will happen after the move-
ment phase ends.

A "conflict situation" means that a conflict will occur in that area during the token conflict phase, but not
until then.

The bit about defending a city only comes into play when the player who owns the city moves after the
attacker moves, and thereby gains an opportunity to move more defending population tokens into the
area before any conflict is resolved. (True, you can also defend a city by moving tokens into your city
before it is attacked, to make it more expensive for an opponent to sack it. But if that city isn't attacked,
those tokens will be lost.)

From the Official FAQ: A token conflict that occurs in an area with a city ends when only a single play-
er has population tokens left. If these population tokens belong to an opponent of the city, a City Attack
will then occur per the usual rules.

Editor: Ordinarily the outcome of token conflicts is deterministic, so token conflicts can be resolved si-
multaneously. The only exception to this is when some of the involved players hold Naval Warfare or
Advanced Military, as players may wish to know what others are doing before selecting losses from
ships or from population tokens in neighboring areas. In these cases, it's good to know what the nitty-
gritty rule is:
(1) First, all token conflicts involving players without Advanced Military and without Naval War-
fare, and token conflicts involving players with Naval Warfare but with no ships present in the
conflict area, are resolved simultaneously. (There are no choices to be made in these conflicts.)
 p. 10
(2) Next, resolve those token conflicts that involve players holding Naval Warfare, but not any token
conflicts that involve players holding Advanced Military. (It's rare that any player will insist on
this being a separate step.)
a. From among these token conflicts, any player having a larger civilization number who is
holding Naval Warfare may delay the resolution of his token conflicts until after the reso-
lution of those token conflicts involving Naval Warfare players with smaller civilization
numbers.
(3) Finally, resolve those token conflicts in which any of the involved players hold Advanced Mili-
tary.
a. From among these token conflicts, any player having a larger civilization number who is
holding Advanced Military may delay the resolution of his token conflicts until after the
resolution of those token conflicts involving Advanced Military players with smaller civi-
lization numbers.

City Attacks
Q1: Assume player A moves 7 Tokens into an area with player B's city. If player B then moves 1 Token
into the area to defend the city, that act will be useless.
Reasoning: Rule 4a says "When a city under attack is defended by tokens ... a conflict between
the tokens is resolved first." So it'll be resolved as A's 7 Tokens against B's 1 Token. So B's 1
Token is removed first. And at that point the Token-on-Token conflict ends, and the city attack
will be resolved as A's 7 Tokens against B's 6 (city) Tokens. Is this correct?
A1: Yes, it's correct. Player B needs to move in at least 2 tokens to have any effect (either that, or have
Metalworking, Advanced Military, or Naval Warfare).

Q2: The Egyptian player has a city in Alexandria (population limit 4) and 1 population token (via Public
Works). The Minoan player moves 7 tokens in to attack. The Egyptian player moves in 4 tokens (for a
total of 5 tokens present). Neither player has Engineering, nor any other conflict-related Civilization Ad-
vances. Movement ends. Egypt has a city and 5 tokens; Minoa has 7 tokens. What happens?
A2: In this case, a regular token conflict occurs first. Since population tokens cannot normally exist in
an area containing a city, the token conflict will only end when only one player has tokens remaining (or
when no tokens are left at all). A check is then made to determine whether there are sufficient tokens re-
maining to make a successful city attack. If so, the rules for a city attack will then apply.
In your example, the token conflict ends with 0 tokens for Egypt and 3 tokens for Minoa (as
Egypt, having fewer tokens, starts the sequence of token removal). Since 3 tokens are insuffi-
cient to successfully attack a city, the remaining tokens from Minoa will be destroyed (later on).

Q3: On page 22 of the rulebook, the final paragraph says If a player attacks a city and the defending
player still has to commence his movement phase, the defender can move tokens into the area to defend
the city. What is the reason for stating this? Does it mean that a player cannot move his own tokens
into an area containing one of his cities unless that city is under attack?
A3: The reason for this clause is simply this: we are merely explaining how a player can defend his city.

Q4: On page 23 of the rulebook, the section on resolution of a successful city attack states, Only if a
defender has insufficient tokens to replace his cities by and he is attacking another city in the same turn,
he may wait for this to be resolved first. He may do this once. Why is there a limit of only "once"?
A4: This one-time limit prevents an endless loop of multiple players postponing city attacks; this one-
time limit therefore speeds up the process. (This one-time exception should also provide the player with
all the tokens he needs to make change for the attacks on his own cities.)
 p. 11
Q5: The rulebook states that a successful city attack permits the attacker to draw a commodity card from
the defender's hand (and permits him to gain up to 3 treasury tokens). So . . .
Q5(a) What defines "a successful city attack"? Is it merely getting to the point in the process where the
defending city is replaced with tokens? [E.g., does how the ensuing conflict plays out--due to Advances
such as Advanced Military, Engineering, Metalworking, or Naval Warfare--have any bearing on the col-
lecting of the spoils?]
A5(a): A "successful city attack" is an attack in which the city token is removed and replaced by popula-
tion tokens. An unsuccessful city attack is an attack by an insufficient number of population tokens in
the first place, or an attack in which the city is defended by enough population tokens such that the at-
tacking population tokens that are still present after the "defense-token conflict" are insufficient to re-
quire the city to be replaced by population tokens. E.g., an unsuccessful city attack is an attack which
leaves the city token on the map.
Q5(b) Barbarians never get to draw a card from a defender's hand, correct?
A5(b): No. Neither do they gain treasury. That is written in the rules at page 36: "No trade cards are
drawn and no pillage occurs as a result of successful city attacks."

Building Cities
If you build a city, you must remove all of the population tokens from the area, and replace them
with a city marker.
o Only if you hold Public Works and have built a city with (at least) X+1 tokens will you leave
a surplus token there (where X is the required number of tokens), irrespective of whether
some of those population tokens came through Architecture or Urbanism.
When you want to build a city using Architecture, and another player still has a token in the area
(such as in an area that has population limit of 4), the other "unlucky" player loses his token there. It
is destroyed.
When you want to use Urbanism and Architecture, the same thing may happen in areas with lower
population limits, but the capabilities of both Civilization Advances are both applied. (see p. 43)
In the rare instance where two players want to use these abilities at the same time in an area that has
a population limit of 4, and both players have two tokens there, the player with the highest AST-
order (the smallest Civilization #) builds his city first, destroying the other player's tokens. (So the
unlucky player has no tokens left to build a city with.)

Population Limits
Q1: In several places, The First Game manual mentions that after a city is built in an area, that area's
population limit becomes "0". This is not mentioned in the main rules manual, however. Is it so? Does it
mean that no one can have tokens in city areas after you check population surplus? (Of course Civiliza-
tion Advancements like Agriculture will influence that.) I just find it odd that the main manual doesn't
mention this. (I wouldn't have caught that rule if not for reading the tutorial manual with more attention
a second time, after having reading the main rules manual.)

A1: The First Game is written purely for people who don't want to read the main rules manual, who
have never played the game, and who want to understand the sequence of play. It differs from the full
game. We intentionally left that mention of 'population limit 0' out of the full rules manual because it's
not an official rule. Even Agriculture doesn't influence this. We put that mention in The First Game only
so that people could understand what happens. After all of the demonstration games I have led, I can tell
you that 50% of the people ask me right after building a city one or both of these questions:
Do I get population in a city area during population expansion?
Can I keep population in the city area after I have built a city?
 p. 12
I took this into account when writing The First Game manual.

Now for the official rule:

An area that contains a city cannot also contain tokens during the check for surplus population.
(Agriculture has no effect on this rule.)
Only Public Works allows you to keep exactly 1 token in a city area during the check for surplus
population.
If you hold both Public Works and Agriculture, this limit does not increase: it is still 1 token.

Dealing Trade Cards

Q1: What is the point of the water card? Is it there just to clog up your hand? I assume you can trade it
off as one of the cards you are "lying" about, correct? If you go over the hand limit of 8 cards, I assume
you just discard the water card(s) first.

A1: It's all there in the rules:

You get a water card when a stack runs out while you are drawing a trade card from that stack. (In
previous versions of the game, you got nothing.)
You can trade a water card just as you can trade any other commodity. But unlike calamities, you
can mention the water card in a trade offer. (For example: "I'm offering a gold and a water for a tex-
tiles and a fish.")
You may use a water card for Theocracy, but a water card doesn't work for Corruption.
Note that, in addition to using a water card for Theocracy or as a third card in a trade, you can also use it
as one of the two cards that you honestly specify.

Q2: Is there an easy way to figure out at a glance who has the most cities when it comes to drawing trade
cards? I realize that one could just count them, but I'm curious if there is a simpler process people gener-
ally use? (I was thinking of using the numbered cards "1" through "9" that came with the game, and us-
ing the spare population tokens to denote the number of each civilization's cities.)

A2: This is what I do:

I make a grid on a piece of paper.
From top to bottom, I put the civilizations in play, in AST order.
From left to right, I put the turn number (starting with turn number 5).
During the Trade Card Acquisition phase, I ask every player--in AST order--to tell me their city
count. I write this in the chart under the current turn.
We have 1 player dealing the trade cards (most of the time it was me during testing). First I deal all
'3 cities' (if occurring) in AST order. Then I deal all '4 cities' in AST order. etc.
You can also use a spare AST-marker and create your own chart form 0 to 9 cities. Whatever you like.

Editor's remark: there are some City Census tracks available in the files section of BGG. Another ap-
proach is to place spare Civilization-Number markers in front of the stack which that civilization will be
drawing from.

Q3: How do you pass out Trade cards?--the rules don't really tell you how to do it.

A3: The example at the bottom of page 24 demonstrates the process. If a player has 4 cities, he gets 1
card from stack 1, 1 card from stack 2, 1 card from stack 3, and 1 card from stack 4. If he has 2 cities, he
gets 1 card from stack 1 and 1 card from stack 2.
 p. 13
You deal out all of the trade cards for one player, then you deal out the trade cards for the next player,
etc., starting with the player with the fewest cities and using civ # to break ties.

Buying Trade Cards

Q1: When you buy trade cards, you may only do so using treasury tokens--not your trade cards, right?
A1: Correct. When purchasing additional trade cards, you may only use treasury tokens. And the Treas-
ury doubling which the Civilization Advance "Mining" provides doesn't count either.

Q2: May players without any cities purchase trade cards during the purchase phase?
A2: Yes. (Though in practice it is very unlikely that this will ever occur.)

Q3: When purchasing trade cards, may a player purchase a card, look at it, then decide whether or not to
purchase another card from the same stack? What about from a different stack?
A3: Yes. Page 25 says: "each player may choose to purchase any number of additional trade cards, one
by one, and/or pass." As long as he can afford it, a player may purchase any number of trade cards in a
row, one by one, and look at them--just as they may look at the regular drawn cards. The order of stacks
he chooses from does not matter.

Q4: "By default players can only purchase a trade card from stack 9 for 15 treasury tokens...." So can a
player purchase cards other than 9th-stack cards?
A4: No. Or at least not without a Civilization Advance that expressly permits a player to do so. And
those particular Civilization Advances also list how much a player must pay to exercise his new ability
to purchase cards from those other stacks.

From the Official FAQ: If a player attempts to buy a card from an empty stack, he pays full price and
receives a water card. Players are not allowed to count the number of cards in the city stacks: they are
only allowed to know whether or not a stack is empty.

See also Q1 under "Wonder of the World".

Trading
Q1: Why do you disallow trades that specify a calamity as one of the two "guaranteed" cards?

A1: We think it's wrong to specify a possible calamity during a trading negotiation. In addition to that,
we discourage the tactic where a player collects calamities in order to get rid of, say, Civil War or Tyr-
anny, which are two important balancers in the game.

As you'll notice, some groups of players have their own personal preferences for how to conduct the
trading part of the game. That's okay--everyone can use their own house rules.

For Mega Civilization, however, we have set the rules, which we have tested thoroughly. We tried many
options during testing. If you want a quick way to do as many trades as possible with 18 players, in a 10
minute time window, our option proved to be the best way to do that. Whenever you prefer something
else, or wish to your own personal house-rules, please do so.
 p. 14
But the rules are clear:
At least 3 cards per trade
The first 2 cards mentioned must be the truth; the third card may be any card.
You may mention the third card, but it has no influence on the first two cards mentioned, and the
third card mentioned does not necessarily have to be the truth.
You can mention water, but you cannot mention calamities.
You can promise--but you cannot guarantee--a calamity-free offer.

Examples:
If you offer 3 gold, you can give (a) 3 gold, (b) 2 gold and a commodity, or (c) 2 gold and a calami-
ty.
If you offer 2 gold and a bone, you can give (a) 3 gold, (b) 2 gold and a commodity (maybe a bone),
or (c) 2 gold and a calamity.
If you offer 1 bone and 2 gold, you can give (a) 1 bone and 2 gold, (b) 1 bone, 1 gold, and any other
commodity, or (c) 1 bone, 1 gold, and a calamity.

Q2: What is the formula for determining the value of sets of commodity cards?
A2: The value of a commodity set is equal to the number of identical cards you have collected, squared,
and this is multiplied by the stack number from which those commodity cards have come.
Example: if you have three Oil commodity cards, they will be worth (3# x 3#) x 4stack = 36 points.

Q3: Is there any suggestions for making the Trading phase go more smoothly?
A3: We always have the trading partners place their guaranteed cards face-up on the table, and their ad-
ditional cards facedown before swapping--this prevents misunderstandings.

Editor's Suggestion: With five Calamities--Treachery, Barbarians, Epidemic, Iconoclasm & Heresy, and
Piracy--the Beneficiary is the player who trades you this card (unless you draw the card yourself, or un-
less the player who traded you the card is undeterminable). As such, you may want to mark these five
calamity cards so players can make a mental note of having traded them during the trading phase. (If
you sleeve your trade cards, a small dot--created by taking a hole punch to some yellow Post-It notes--
works well. If you don't sleeve your cards, you can write a "T" on the face of the card with an indelible
marker.) Note too that it may be necessary to remember whether you are trading the West or the East
version of these Calamities, as the receiving player might end up with both versions of them and then
have to randomly discard one of them, perhaps yours.

Q4: Are eastern civilizations allowed to trade with western civilizations?

A4: Yes. (In fact players will have to do so if they want to collect full sets of those commodities that are
split between the different decks.)

Q5: Are you allowed to make more than one trade per turn?
A5: Yes, of course. Trade with several people, and even trade several times with the same person. Pass
those calamities around. It's Hot Potato reinvented!

From the Official FAQ: Water cards can be traded just like any other commodity.
 p. 15
Calamities:
General
Q1: During Calamity Selection, if a player has three major calamities and one minor calamity (with no
duplicates), does the player randomly discard one of the three major calamities, thus ending with two
major calamities and one minor calamity? Or does the player randomly discard one of the four calami-
ties, and potentially end with just two major calamities and no minor calamity?

A1: The player has to take all of his calamities and remove one at random, and then check to see if he
meets the prescribed limits or if he has to repeat the process. It is clearly explained in the example on the
top of page 27.

Here is a clear process that can be followed every time a player has a fistful of calamities:
(1) For every pair of duplicates you have, randomly discard 1 of the duplicates.
(2) If you still have more than 3 calamities, randomly discard enough until you have only 3 left.
(3) Check the remaining 3 calamities: if all 3 are major calamities, randomly discard 1 of them.

Q2a: Can a player be the beneficiary of a TRADEABLE calamity if that player is also the victim of a
calamity of the same name?
A2a: Yes.

Q2b: Can a player be the beneficiary of a NON-TRADEABLE calamity if that player is also the victim of
a calamity of the same name?
A2b: No, because the beneficiary is chosen from the same block.

Q3: With secondary calamity effects--like with those that occur in Famine or Flood or Epidemic--where
you could have many players taking damage at the same time, who removes their damage first?

A3: To speed things up, secondary victims are generally selected simultaneously. When choosing which
precise tokens to remove, however, a player may insist on waiting for other players to go first. In this
case, AST-order breaks ties as usual--e.g., the smallest Civilization # has to remove his tokens first.

Players may also insist--if it matters to them--on resolving same-name calamities in strict AST order.
For instance, they may insist that the Epidemic calamity held by the player with the lower civ # be en-
tirely resolved before the other Epidemic calamity is begun.

Most of the time, however, order doesn't make any difference to anyone. So in practice what we do
when resolving, say, Epidemic, is the following . . .
a) First the primary victim chooses the secondary victims.
b) Then all of the victims select their own units for damage simultaneously, as this speeds up the
resolution.
c) If insisted upon, players may indeed insist on waiting for their turn. Since no order is clearly
specified in the rules, what we say in the manual is: "Unless clearly specified, AST-order breaks
ties." That rule is binding even in this case. In fact even the primary victim may wait for a sec-
ondary victim to remove units first, if that secondary victim has a smaller civ #.
 p. 16
Q4: How do you apply the answer in Q3 when both calamities of the same name occur in the same turn?

A4: It's best to discuss a couple special cases before getting to the general rule:
When resolving two Cyclones during the same turn, and when the primary victim of the second Cy-
clone could possibly be affected by the first Cyclone to the extent of canceling the second Cyclone
altogether (or of changing which open-sea area would be adjacent to the most cities of the second
primary victim), that is when you would resort to the detailed sequence of resolving the first Cyclone
in toto before addressing the second Cyclone. (For related information, see the answer to Q1 under
the "Cyclone" heading a little farther on in this FAQ.)
With Iconoclasm & Heresy and with Piracy, since primary victims can't be chosen as secondary vic-
tims, there's no possible overlap between the assigned damage, so the calamities can be safely re-
solved simultaneously.
o With Piracy, however, there's a rare situation where resolution order matters: imagine
Minoa (#1) and Egypt (#17) both hold Piracy, and imagine Egypt drew his Piracy card
himself and never traded it, and also imagine Celt has 1 fewer city than Minoa. In this
case the Piracy calamities should be resolved in AST order, for depending on who is cho-
sen as secondary victims for the first Piracy calamity, either Minoa or Celt or another civ-
ilization could end up as the beneficiary for the second Piracy calamity and thereby
would get to choose which precise cities Egypt will lose when resolving its Piracy.
So in most cases, should players request a stricter resolution order, the primary victims of any dou-
bly-occurring calamities can safely select their secondary victims simultaneously, and then all vic-
tims from both calamities can resolve their damage in AST-order (smallest Civ # first).

Q5: I'm a little bit confused about the rules regarding beneficiaries. On page 20 the rules state that "the
player with the most cities in stock" is the beneficiary. Yet on page 34 (at the moment of calamity reso-
lution), the beneficiary is defined as "the last player who traded the calamity." And some pages later,
where the calamities are explained in detail, sometimes the rules specify who the beneficiary is--and
sometimes they don't. Who is the beneficiary for "Epidemic", or "Iconoclasm and Heresy", or "Piracy"?

A5:
With five of the (Tradable) Calamities--Treachery, Barbarians, Epidemic, Iconoclasm & Heresy, and
Piracy--the Beneficiary is the player who traded you the card unless (a) you drew the Calamity card
yourself, or (b) the player who traded you the Calamity card is undeterminable. In these cases the
player with the fewest number of cities on the map (per the next bullet) becomes the beneficiary.
In all other cases, the Beneficiary is the player with the fewest number of cities on the map (if tied,
then the player with the fewest number of tokens on the map; if still tied, then the player with the
smallest civilization #). See also Q8 below.
With Non-Tradable Calamities, the Beneficiary and the Secondary Victims have to come from your
own block of the map--east or west. (E.g., the Beneficiary is the player on your block of the map
who has the fewest cities, etc.)
With Tradable Calamities--such as Epidemic, Iconoclasm & Heresy, and Piracy--the Beneficiary and
the Secondary Victims are not restricted to your block of the map.
Many Calamities, even though they often hurt other players, don't have Secondary Victims, not as
such: Flood, for instance, and Volcano/Earthquake, and Cyclone. The only Calamities with Second-
ary Victims are Famine, Epidemic, Iconoclasm & Heresy, and Piracy.
Some Calamities never have a Beneficiary: these calamities are Volcano/Earthquake, Famine, Slave
Revolt, Flood, Superstition, Cyclone, Civil Disorder, Corruption, and Regression.
A player cannot be more than one of the following for each distinct calamity card: the primary vic-
tim, the beneficiary, or the secondary victim--in that order of priority.
 p. 17
Examples:
If MINOA trades the western Treachery to EGYPT, and gets the eastern Treachery from ROME,
then there are two victims: EGYPT and MINOA. When resolving these two same-named calam-
ities, you go in order of civ #, so first MINOA loses a city to ROME, then EGYPT loses a city to
MINOA. In this case MINOA is both a primary victim and a beneficiary.
(Barbarian Hordes works in a similar way.)

If MINOA gets the eastern EPIDEMIC from ROME and trades the western EPIDEMIC to
EGYPT, then there are two primary victims: EGYPT and MINOA. MINOA, having the lower
civ #, picks its secondary victims--but not EGYPT (also a primary victim) or ROME (a benefici-
ary)--and in this case chooses ASSYRIA and INDUS. Now EGYPT picks its secondary victims:
he can choose anyone except MINOA (also a primary victim), ROME (a beneficiary), ASSYRIA
(already chosen as a secondary victim) and INDUS (already chosen as a secondary victim).
(Iconoclasm & Heresy, and Piracy work in a similar way.)

Q6: If Rome (#11) trades a treachery to Minoa (#1), and Egypt (#17) trades a treachery to Rome (#11),
is Minoa's Treachery card fully completed before Rome's Treachery card? [E.g., could the city that Mi-
noa loses to Rome possibly end up as an Egyptian city?]

A6: Yes, in this case the Treachery calamities are resolved sequentially, by the civ # of the primary vic-
tims, so that the city taken from Minoa by the first Treachery calamity could possibly be taken a second
time during the execution of the second Treachery calamity (although of course Egypt need not select
the same city from Rome that Rome selected from Minoa).

Q7: If two players (say Minoa and Rome) draw Treachery and neither trades their Treachery calamity
away, then the beneficiary to Treachery is the player with the fewest cities. Assume Celt and Assyria are
both tied for the fewest cities, but that Celt has fewer population tokens on the map--does Celt get both
cities, or will Celt get one of Minoa's cities and then Assyria get one of Rome's cities?

A7: Again these two Treachery calamities are resolved sequentially by the civilization # of the two play-
ers holding these calamities. The beneficiary in this case is indeed the player with the most cities in
stock. But in this case it is still possible that a single player can be the beneficiary of both calamities.
(The rules don't specifically prevent this.) Yet it is impossible for either of the primary victims to be the
beneficiary for both calamities.

So in this example, we first resolve Minoa's treachery: Celt is the beneficiary and receives a city from
Minoa. After Celt gains one of Minoa's cities, Assyria is now the player with the most cities in stock. So
when we resolve Rome's treachery, Assyria will be the beneficiary.

(Note that it is also possible that Minoa will have the fewest cities in stock, fewer even than Assyria, and
could thus become the beneficiary for Rome's Treachery.)

But now you say: "Wait--isn't that illegal?" But you must realize that these are not the same calamity,
even though they have the same name--Treachery and Treachery. As the rules say (in the orange box on
page 33), for each new calamity, a new beneficiary is defined again (if appropriate).

Returning to our example, the beneficiary for the first Treachery calamity is determined, and that calam-
ity is executed before we get to the next calamity. So in this case, Celt--on receiving one of Minoa's cit-
ies--would no longer be the beneficiary for the second Treachery calamity. Assyria, therefore, would re-
ceive one of Rome's cities.
 p. 18
Q8: In selecting a beneficiary, what if the primary victim is the player with the most cities in stock?

A8: As you resolve each calamity card, when determining the beneficiary, you automatically exclude
the primary victim from consideration. If the primary victim happens to have the most cities in stock,
then the beneficiary for this calamity card is the player with the second-most cities in stock. (p. 33)

Q9: During Calamity Selection, are calamities discarded face down or face up? (I.e., do the other players
get to see which calamities have been discarded?)

A9: This isn't specified. It's up to the group to decide how they wish to do it.

Editor's suggestion: If you're interested in keeping the game moving, discard them face down.

Editor's suggestion: If calamity resolution is causing confusion for your group, you can get some one-
inch wooden blocks and paint them different colors to toss out to the appropriate players as you're re-
solving each calamity. Make 2 "black blocks of death" for the primary victims, 6 "gray blocks of groan-
ing" for the secondary victims, and 2 "green blocks of glee" for the beneficiaries/traders.

From the Official FAQ: Unless a Civilization Advance explicitly states that "you may choose to" prevent
the effects of a calamity, then all of the prevention effects of all of your owned Civilization Advances will
apply for you. There is no choice.

Minor Calamities
Q1: City in Flames: If you have no cities, then you lose no treasury tokens, correct?
A1: You may prevent the effect of City in Flames by paying 10 treasury tokens, but this is optional. If
you don't have at least 10 treasury tokens, then the calamity is resolved as normal and your tokens are
unaffected. And if you have no cities to lose, you lose no treasury tokens at all. See page 33, 'to pay
treasury': "If the player cannot comply, he cannot use this ability."

Q2: Banditry: If you have no commodity cards, then you don't lose any treasury tokens, correct?
A2: Just as it is with City in Flames, it is with Banditry: prevention is optional. But note that it's impos-
sible to have zero cards as a victim of Banditry. The minimum cards for a trade is 3, and all Minor Ca-
lamities are resolved before Major Calamities are (e.g., before Corruption, Iconoclasm + Theocracy).

Q3: Tempest: In the rulebook, this minor calamity reads as, "Take 2 damage in coastal areas and lose 5
treasury tokens." Does this mean that the player must take 2 damage in every coastal area?
A3: No. It's two unit points of damage total--either with the two points both coming from the same
coastal area, or with one unit point coming from two different coastal areas. (The wording could indeed
be clearer.)

From the Official FAQ: If a victim of Tempest has no units in coastal areas, or a victim of Coastal Mi-
gration has no cities in coastal areas, they still will lose 5 treasury tokens.
 p. 19
Barbarian Hordes
Q1: What happens when moving barbarian hordes if . . .
(a) there are excess barbarian tokens in an area, and
(b) there are no adjacent areas containing the victims units, but
(c) there are areas with victims units that could be reached if the barbarians moved
through areas with no units,
through areas with other barbarian units, or
through areas with other players units?
The Mega Civilization rule seems to be that the excess barbarians would be eliminated. (Advanced Civi-
lization allowed barbarians to move through the other areas.) What is the correct implementation of this
in Mega Civilization?
A1: It's clearly explained in the rules on page 36. The barbarians must choose an adjacent area contain-
ing the victim's unit(s). If no legal area can be chosen, the barbarians in excess of the population limit
are destroyed. An empty area, or an area containing only barbarians, is not a legal area for the barbarians
to move either into or through.

Q2: The rules state that barbarian hordes may not enter a region containing a city unless the attack will
be successful. Does this prevent the barbarian hordes from entering a region with a city and a "Public
Works" token if the barbarians could defeat the token but not successfully attack the city?
A2: In this case the city attack will be unsuccessful, and thus this area may not be entered by the
barbarian hordes.

Q3: What happens if, when it comes time to resolve the Barbarian Hordes, the primary victim no longer
has any cities on the mapboard?
A3: If there are no cities, all 15 barbarians are destroyed because there are no legal targets.

Q4: The italicized text following the Barbarian Hordes description contains the following: "If there are 2
Barbarian Hordes in a single turn a player may suffer damage from both calamities." Is this attempting
to provide an exception to the "discard duplicate calamities" rule?
A4: This merely pointing out that a primary victim of the Barbarian Hordes might also have population
tokens in an area with an opponent's tokens, an opponent who might be the primary victim of the other
Barbarian Hordes. If this happens, it's possible that either player could suffer damage from both Barbar-
ian Hordes calamities.

See also the first example in Q5 under Calamities: General.

From the Official FAQ: Neither Cultural Ascendancy nor Diplomacy prevent a player from being at-
tacked by Barbarians. Also, the effects of Engineering will help players being attacked by Barbarians
(as will Metalworking, Naval Warfare, and Advanced Military). If the trader moves the Barbarians into
an area containing population tokens belonging to both the primary victim and another player, all of
those tokens will take part in the resulting conflict. The Barbarians can even attack a population token
in a "0" population limit area: the attack proceeds as usual except that, when it is over, all of the Bar-
barian tokens will then move out of the area (assuming there is any attackable area adjacent to it).

Civil War
Q1: When selecting units in a Civil War, what takes priority--selecting units that are adjacent to each
other, or selecting units that the Beneficiary can annex?
A1: The priority is that the units that will be annexed are all adjacent to each other. No account is taken
of the beneficiary--he doesn't have to be adjacent to any of the units.
 p. 20
Q2: When selecting units in a Civil War (or for Tyranny), what is the correct way to deal with a situa-
tion where there is no way to get the correct number of units from entire areas? (The rule states that all
the victims units in the areas must be selected.)

For example, if the victim of a civil war has 38 unit points on the board (say in 4 cities and 18 tokens),
then the beneficiary would get 3 unit points, which would have to be 3 tokens. But if the victims tokens
were spread over nine areas, with 2 tokens in each area, it would not be possible for the beneficiary to
annex exactly 3 tokens without leaving 1 of the victims tokens in 1 of the selected areas.

A2: The rules say you have to select complete areas, and that these areas must be adjacent to each other.
Example: Say that the beneficiary must annex 15 unit points (which in most cases is easily done
by selecting three adjacent cities). If taking three cities is the only way to annex 15 unit points, then the
beneficiary must choose that option, even if he'd rather annex population tokens instead. But if there is
no option to select exactly 15 unit points, we are directed to page 34: "On those occasions where a play-
er can only comply if he exceeds the amount required, he must do so."

Q3: Reading through the clarifications and the rules on Tyranny and Civil War, it appears that when re-
solving these calamities there are three differing priorities (matching the annexed unit types to the bene-
ficiary's stock, choosing adjacent areas, and selecting the exact number of unit points). But whenever
there are multiple priorities, it helps to know how these priorities rank up against each other. From what
I can infer, these three priorities should be applied in the following order of decreasing importance:

(1) The beneficiary must be able to annex the specific units that are chosen (e.g., he must have the cor-
responding number of cities in stock, and the corresponding number of population tokens in stock).

Example: If, say, there are 17 unit points to be annexed, and the beneficiary has only 19 unit
points in his stock, then the number of population tokens selected must be less than or equal to the
number of population tokens that the beneficiary has in stock, and likewise for the cities.

If the beneficiary has fewer unit points in stock (say, 14 unit points) than the number of unit
points that need to be annexed (in our case, 17), then the specific areas selected must have the right
numbers of cities and tokens so that all of the beneficiary's units in stock can be placed on the map (the
difference to be made up in Pirates and Barbarians).

(2) The areas selected must be adjacent, whether by land or by water.

(3) The units selected must sum to the exact amount of unit points required (with only whole areas being
selected).

If the exact amount of unit points can be selected from adjacent areas, then this must be done.
But if the choice is between choosing adjacent areas, or going over in units points, then taking them
from adjacent areas is given the higher priority and the victim will have to lose additional unit points.

Is this understanding correct? [Based on the answer given below (provided in answer to a related ques-
tion), it appears that--in order of decreasing priority--the priorities should be (2), (3), and then (1).]

A3: First let's deal with definitions. These are written in the manual, but it's no problem to sum these up
here again if this makes things clearer . . .
 p. 21
Definitions
- Area: one 'territory' that has a name and a population limit. A coastal area also has a water-part. Inland
lakes and seas are not considered water-parts here. (For example 'Nis', on panel 3 of the map.)
- Adjacent: sharing a border
- Adjacent by land: sharing a land border
- Adjacent by water: sharing a water border
- Adjacent (undefined 'by water' or 'by land'): sharing a border
- Adjacent over open sea: this never happens.
- Units: cities and/or tokens. A token is worth 1 unit point. A city is worth 5 unit points.
- X Damage: you must remove units worth X unit points. You are allowed to remove a city for 5, and
place tokens back, but the newly added tokens are subtracted from the '5 points' counted for this city.

Civil War / Tyranny

The beneficiary annexes units belonging to the victim. First the number of units to be annexed is deter-
mined. In the case of Civil War, the victim chooses which areas are annexed. In the case of Tyranny, the
beneficiary chooses the areas. (The victim himself cannot be selected as the beneficiary.)

Civil War
The victim selects X unit points in areas adjacent to each other. He may choose cities and/or population
tokens, whatever he likes--but he must surrender all of his units in each area that is chosen. Only if there
is no option to choose exactly X units may he choose areas that exceed X units. He may not choose areas
that are not adjacent to each other simply to avoid this exception. He also may not choose less than all of
his units in a given area in order to exactly meet the "X units" requirement.

There may be a situation in which there is only one way for the victim to select exactly X units of dam-
age, but it's a solution which the victim hates, due to the way in which it carves up his territory. If this
happens, it's too bad: the victim has no choice but to select it.

The beneficiary annexes the selected units. If he has too few population tokens or cities in stock, then he
annexes whatever he wants, as he desires. The remainder of the selected units are replaced by Barbarians
or Pirates (matching city for city, and token for token).

Tyranny
The same applies here, but this time the Beneficiary selects the areas. Most of the time he'll find an op-
tion that best fits his situation. Also, since the Beneficiary is the player having the most cities in stock
(with population tokens in stock being the tiebreaker), it's very likely he'll have sufficient units available.
In those rare occasions where he cannot find any way to select exactly X units--regardless of the number
of units he has in stock, and regardless of the exact division of population tokens and cities he has in
stock--he may then select areas that exceed X unit points. The victim will definitely step in here to en-
sure that there really isn't some way to comply with annexing exactly X units. If there is a way, the Ben-
eficiary must choose that option: he may not select areas that aren't adjacent simply to avoid this excep-
tion. He may not like the division, or he may not be able to replace all selected units this way, but he has
no choice. In this second case, the remainder of selected units are replaced by Barbarians or Pirates
(swapping city for city and token for token).
 p. 22
Q4: We played a 5-player game today where we ran into the situation where a player with 42 points of
units was affected by civil war. As he would have lost 30 points to the beneficiary (he held Drama -
hence the group was only 30 not 35). Now as the player was only 9 years old, we ruled it was too harsh
to force him to continue playing with only 12 points - so we used the original version of the Advanced
Civilization rules, granting 12 points to the beneficiary and 30 to the 9-year-old player. Seems civil war
as it is can be pretty harsh: is this intended, or did we play something wrong?

A4: If he had had 42 points of units, he would have lost only 7 points of units (42-35=7). Holding
Drama, he would have lost only 2 points of units (42-40=2). The rules say, "Select all but 35 of your unit
points. ... The beneficiary annexes all selected units." It's perhaps not clearly worded, but the idea is that
the victim keeps 35 unit points and loses everything beyond that. (And that the units to be lost must
come from adjacent areas.)

Q5: Some Civil War Advice:

A5: "Adjacent" doesn't mean "not gerrymandered". It just means that each new area selected has to be
adjacent to a previously selected area. So a chain seems perfectly legit, so long as each area is adjacent
to another area previously selected.

The "fun" part (so to speak) of Civil Wars is finding ways to minimize its impact on your civilization.

When resolving calamities, there are two conflicting priorities in play. First, you must resolve the calam-
ity as completely as possible, inflicting ("on paper", at least) the damage required by the calamity. But
within the limitations of that priority and the rules for the calamity in question (and general calamity
rules), *you* get to choose the areas affected, and it's legal to do so in such a way as to minimize the
overall impact to your civilization.

Things you are allowed to do when resolving Civil War:

* Make the area ceded to the beneficiary as easy as possible for you to reconquer.
* Choose an area far from your core that you care less about.
* Choose an area that turns your beneficiary into a meat shield between you and an aggressive opponent.
* Minimize the benefit to your opponent. (Example 1: your opponent has just enough population to sup-
port his existing cities, and you owe 15 unit points. You select three (adjacent) cities to give him, and he
ends up having to reduce 1-2 cities due to lack of support. Example 2: you have Agriculture but your
beneficiary doesn't. Giving up a series of 1-agriculture areas with 2 of your population in each of them
will satisfy the calamity, then he'll lose half of them to starvation.)

There are also things you can do *before* resolving Civil War to soften the blow. For example, volun-
teering to be a secondary victim of Famine means that you will reduce the number of unit points you
give to the beneficiary by the Famine damage (thus simplifying the your task of taking those areas
back). If you know that a particular player got Treachery and nobody wants to trade with him, you can
offer to eat his Treachery card in exchange for a particularly good trade deal (with no net damage to you,
since the losses from Treachery replace losses from Civil War). And so on.

Cyclone
Clarification:
By default, the primary victim of a Cyclone must select and reduce 3 cities and all secondary victims
must select and reduce 2 cities (that are directly adjacent to the same open sea area).
 p. 23
Victims holding Masonry reduce 1 less selected city. This means that . . .
Primary victims holding Masonry must select 3 cities and then reduce only 2 of them.
Secondary victims holding Masonry must select 2 cities and then reduce only 1 of them.

A primary victim with only 2 cities directly adjacent to the Cyclone open sea area cannot select more
than 2 cities. In this case, Masonry--which says "Reduce 1 less of your selected cities"--would prevent
the reduction of 1 city. The same applies to a secondary victim who holds Masonry and has only 1 city
exposed to the Cyclone: his single city is protected.

Q1: We played Mega Civilization for the first time yesterday. During the game, the player holding the
Cyclone calamity did not have any coastal cities. How should we have treated this situation?

A1: The answer to this question is not clearly specified in the rules. (It was accidentally dropped during
the editing process, but it has certainly been included in our playtesting.)

Nevertheless I will explain the rule, and make a note to myself that this explanation is missing from the
rulebook. It may seem that the answer should be a simple yes or no, but the answer holds consequences
for other rules, so a simple yes or no will not do.

We have always handled this issue in the same way that we have handled it for Civil War (when the pri-
mary victim has insufficient unit points to take any damage). This is the rule: if you cannot be the pri-
mary victim, the calamity is not resolved. This goes also for Iconoclasm & Heresy, and for Piracy. The
wording should probably be something like this . . .

Cyclone
At the moment of resolving this calamity*, if the primary victim has no coastal cities directly adjacent to
any open sea areas--before considering any prevention effects--then there is no Cyclone. The calamity is
not resolved. (Note that while Masonry and Calendar may prevent the primary victim from taking any
damage from a Cyclone, his having either or both of them does not prevent the Cyclone from occurring,
nor does it cancel the Cyclone for any secondary victims.)

Iconoclasm & Heresy

At the moment of resolving this calamity*, if the primary victim has no cities at all--before taking into
account any prevention effects--then there is no Iconoclasm & Heresy calamity. In this case the calamity
itself has been canceled. (Note that if a player uses his Theocracy ability to prevent himself from taking
any damage from Iconoclasm & Heresy, this prevents the effect for him--but it does not cancel the ca-
lamity for any secondary victims.)

Piracy
At the moment of resolving this calamity*, if the primary victim has no coastal cities at all, then no Pira-
cy occurs. In this case the calamity is prevented. (Note that Naval Warfare may reduce the damage taken
by the primary victim, even reduce it to zero, but this does not cancel the calamity from happening to the
secondary victims.)

* - This is checked only at the moment of actually resolving the calamity, so these calamities will still
count as full calamities during the calamity selection phase.
 p. 24
In any case, if during the calamity resolution phase there are two copies of a calamity revealed (by dif-
ferent players), the canceling of one of them does not cancel the other. For instance, the primary victim
of the second Cyclone (that is, the primary victim who has the larger civ #) may have taken enough sec-
ondary damage from the first Cyclone to reduce him to zero coastal cities, and thereby cancel the second
Cyclone for everyone. As you can see, in cases like this, the order of calamity resolution matters.

See also Q4 under "Calamities : General".

Famine
Q1: With Famine, can the "5 damage assigned to 3 players of your choice" be assigned to the benefici-
ary? (E.g., to the player with the lowest current City count.)
A1: There is no beneficiary in Famine, so the 5 damage can be assigned to any opponent.

Flood
Q1: If you have no units on a flood plain, you have to take 5 damage from coastal areas. I suppose this
means that you have to take 5 damage in each coastal area?
A1: No, you only have to take 5 damage in total, from any coastal area(s) of your choice.

Iconoclasm & Heresy

See "Cyclone" Q1.
See the second example in Q5 under Calamities : General.

Piracy
See "Cyclone" Q1.
See the second example in Q5 under Calamities : General.

Treachery
See the first example in Q5 under Calamities : General.
See Q6 and Q7 under Calamities : General.

Tyranny
See "Civil War", Q2 and Q3.

Volcano & Earthquake

Q1: Is this Calamity canceled if the primary victim has no areas with volcanos and he only has one city
and it isn't adjacent to any opponent cities?
A1: The Earthquake will still occur: the primary victim's sole city in this case will be destroyed (or re-
duced, if he holds Engineering).
 p. 25
Special Abilities
Q1: Can you annex an area using Monotheism, and then destroy units adjacent to only these new units,
using Fundamentalism?
A1: Yes.

Removing Surplus Population Late in the Turn

Q1: The rulebook states: "In those rare occasions that there is a conflict situation at this point, it is re-
solved as if it were a conflict, following the exact same rules as phase 4. Each player must then check
for and remove any surplus population and consequently do a check for city support and, if needed, re-
duce any cities following the same rules as in phase 5b and 5c."

If no conflict situations have arisen, all players must still check for surplus population and city support at
this point, correct? (For instance, to account for changes that may have happened as a result of Calami-
ties, such as annexing cities, etc.)

A1: This rule should be read as follows:

If a token conflict occurs, it is resolved as in phase 4, and then a normal check for surplus population
and city support is done.
If no token conflicts occur, there is still a normal check for surplus population and city support.

Q2: How can token conflicts and city attacks possibly occur at this point in the turn?
A2: If Civil War or Tyranny occurs to a primary victim who holds Public Works and/or Agriculture, it's
possible that just some of the tokens or just the city in an area will get annexed while other tokens or the
city will remain (or that some will get annexed while others will become barbarians or pirate cities). In
this case, population limits might then be exceeded. If so, a token conflict or city attack would result
(and would be resolved after all Special Abilities are taken). See also Q5 under Civil War/Tyranny.

Buying Civilization Advances

Q1: When purchasing Civilization Advances, does a player purchase all of them at once, or does he pur-
chase them one by one?

Example: I have 192 trade points from 8 "Fish" commodity cards. I have no colored Civilization Ad-
vances credits. I want to buy 3 Civilization Advances, each of which cost 60 trade points. Do I . . .
(1) Buy all three at once, and lose 12 credits as "no change is returned" (192 - 180 = 12), or
(2) Trade in 5 "Fish" trade cards for 75 credits in order to purchase the first Civilization Ad-
vance, at which point I lose 15 points as "no change is returned". I'm then left with 3 "Fish"
trade cards (worth 48 points), with which I cannot afford to buy another card worth 60.

A1: The correct answer is (1).

Q2: The rules are silent on the issue of spending extra treasury tokens on Civilization Advances. The
rules do say that you can't get change back from Civilization Advances purchases. But can you spend
more than is necessary?
For example, take a player who has a gob of treasury tokens and who wants to spend them dur-
ing the Civilization Advances purchase phase. (Why would he want to do that? So that he can replenish
his Stock before next turn, in order to avoid a tax revolt or in order to permit more population
expansion.) But imagine that the player doesn't need to spend any treasury tokens in order to afford the
single Civilization Advance he wishes to buy. Can he pay more than is required?
 p. 26
A2:
You can't spend more treasury tokens than what is needed to pay for your new Civilization Advanc-
es.
When paying with a combination of commodity cards and treasury tokens, you first count the value
of the commodity cards, then you use only enough treasury tokens to make up the missing points.
You cannot spend any treasury tokens if you do not buy at least one Civilization Advance.
You don't get refunds in treasury tokens if you pay more than the exact price by using only commod-
ity cards.

There is an exception with Mining, where your treasury tokens count for two. Actually the card says that
"your treasury tokens are worth two when purchasing Civilization Advances", so it's not even optional.
In this case, when you buy a Civilization Advance by spending treasury tokens (perhaps in addition to
spending commodity cards) and you exceed the purchase cost of that Civilization Advance due to the
fact that Mining makes your treasury tokens count for two, you are allowed to overspend--but only by
one 1 point.

Q3: Just to be clear: I can choose to use whichever commodity card set(s) I wish to use when paying for
Civilization Advances--I can keep the Gold and spend the Sugar, or keep the Sugar and spend the Gold,
wholly at my whim, regardless of the total value of either set, correct? E.g., I can even vastly overpay
with commodity cards if I wish to for some reason (such as to hold onto a lower-value commodity set,
but one for which I believe the remaining matches will surface during next turn, etc.), right?
A3: Yes.

Q4: How does purchasing Civilization Advances work with large playing groups?
A4: When playing with a large group, we suggest you layout all of the Civilization Advances in two
separate areas, to reduce the queues. Remember, there are now 51 stacks of Civilization Advances.

Civilization Advances:
Advanced Military
Q1: If you have Advanced Military and Naval Warfare both, can you to take ships from neighboring
areas as casualties?
A1: No.

From the Updated Rulebook: When any involved players hold Advanced Military, make a new check for
token majority after every round of token removal. Among several players who all hold Advanced Mili-
tary, the one with the largest civilization number may delay his conflicts until after players with smaller
civilization numbers resolve theirs. If a player with Advanced Military unsuccessfully attacks a city, the
tokens he destroys must all come from the area with the city, not from any adjacent areas. No one may
ever voluntarily reduce a neighboring city in order to give him more tokens to remove during a conflict.

Agriculture
Q1: Does Agriculture allow you to build a city in an area with an original population limit of 0, as it
raises that population limit for you from 0 to 1?
A1: No, a 0-area can never have a city. This is actually mentioned in the manual.
Page 22: "Wilderness cities can never be built in areas with a population limit of '0', regardless
of holding any civilization advances."
Page38: "Agriculture does not allow you to build a city in an area with population limit '0'."
 p. 27
From the Official FAQ: Agriculture doesn't allow players to keep a population token in with a city (only
Public Works does that). And having both Public Works and Agriculture doesn't allow you to keep more
than one population token in with any given city.

From the Updated Rulebook: When reducing a city, if you hold Agriculture, you place two population
tokens in areas with a printed population limit of "1", and three population tokens in areas with a "2".

Architecture
From the Official FAQ: Architecture can be used when building a wilderness city. In that case, up to 6
of the 12 required tokens can come from your treasury.

See also the "Building Cities" entry farther above.

Calendar & Masonry

From the Official FAQ: Neither the effects of Calendar nor of Masonry, although they may insulate a
primary or secondary victim from all harm, will ever cause a Cyclone to be cancelled in its entirety.

From the Updated Rulebook: You select your required number of vulnerable cities first, then you in-
crease the number of selected cities due to Trade Empire (if possible). Then, out of those selected cities,
you reduce the number of selected cities due to Calendar and Masonry. (With Cyclones, you don't simp-
ly let the Civilization Advances "cancel" each other out.)

Coinage & Monarchy

From the Updated Rulebook: You select a single tax rate that applies to all of your cities--different cities
may not pay different tax rates. You may choose a higher tax rate even if that will result in a tax revolt.

Cultural Ascendancy
Q1: Is attacking a city regarded as "causing a conflict"? The rules on page 22 imply the answer is "no"
because the rules define "causing a conflict" as between tokens, whereas "attacking a city" is between a
city and tokens. But the rules for Cultural Ascendancy imply the opposite, that "attacking a city" is re-
garded as "causing a conflict". Which way is correct?
A1: Causing a conflict is moving a token into an area containing an enemy city or token(s). (p. 22)

Q2: Does Cultural Ascendancy prevent token conflicts from arising during population expansion?
A2: No. If two players each have one token in the same "2" population-limit area, a token conflict will
be created during population expansion even if one or both of the players holds Cultural Ascendancy.

Q3: "The Default City Support rate is increased by 1". Is that during Slave Revolt, or all of the time?
A3: If you are the victim of Slave Revolt AND you have Cultural Ascendancy, during the resolution of
Slave Revolt, your city support rate is increased by 2. So that means, your city support rate becomes 5 as
long as the Slave Revolt lasts. Which means that you must have 5 tokens on the board for each of your
cities. And then reduce cities to comply. After resolution, for you, the rate goes back to 3 again.

From the Updated Rulebook: Population expansion, annexation, moving ships into an area without dis-
embarking, and Special Abilities never constitute "causing a conflict", and are thus permitted in areas
occupied by players holding Cultural Ascendancy or Diplomacy.
 p. 28
Democracy
From the Updated Rulebook: You may select a higher tax rate (if you have a Civilization Advance that
permits you to do so) even if this would otherwise result in a tax revolt. And even if you do so, you may
still become the beneficiary of another player's tax revolt during this turn.

Diaspora
Q1: The Diaspora "Special Ability" overrides another player's Cultural Ascendancy, right? E.g., Diaspo-
ra would permit the owner to create a new conflict situation in an area solely populated by another play-
er who holds Cultural Ascendancy, correct?
A1: The tokens for Diaspora may not be placed in excess of the population limit, so no token conflict
can occur as a result of placing tokens. (They may be placed up to one in excess of the printed popula-
tion limit if you hold Agriculture and the only units present are yours. Similarly with Public Works.)

Q2: There is no combination of Civilization Advances that would permit Diaspora's "Special Ability" to
place tokens in an area with an opponent's (unreduced) city, correct? E.g., Public Works, Agriculture,
Engineering, etc.
A2: Placing tokens for Diaspora in an area containing an enemy city is not allowed.

Diplomacy
See the entry for Cultural Ascendancy above for how to handle population growth, ship movement, an-
nexation, and Special Abilities in areas with cities belonging to players who hold Diplomacy.

Engineering
From the Official FAQ: Barbarians need an additional token to attack the cities of players who hold
Engineering, and players who hold Engineering may attack Pirate cities with one fewer token.

Metalworking
Q1: I have a question about why metalworking is good to have: precisely how does it change a conflict?
What kind of benefit do I get from having it? Is it so that if I, as Babylon (with metalworking), move
one token into an area with a population limit of 1, and Persia (without metalworking) does the same,
that Persia will remove his single token first and that I will get to keep my single token in the area be-
cause I'm at the allowed population limit? Or do I need to remove my single token as well, because it's a
one-for-one thing?

A1: Token conflict ends when the population limit is met, or only a single player remains in the area.

In the situation you described, tokens of two different players occupy a 1-population-limit area. Normal-
ly both tokens would be destroyed during token conflict. But if one of the players holds Metalworking,
the other player's token is destroyed first, at which point the conflict in that area ends immediately.

If both players have, for example, 3 tokens each in the same 1-population-limit area, both players would
remove a token alternately until the above rule is met.

It is explained at page 23 of the rulebook. (And by the way, if both players hold Metalworking, the two
advances cancel each other out, and thus the conflict is resolved in the normal manner. If a third player
has tokens present who doesn't hold Metalworking, his tokens will always be removed first each round.)
 p. 29
Military
From the Updated Rulebook: If two players hold Military, their mutual order is defined by the Census.

Monarchy
Q1. Is it just an editing error that the description of Monarchy in the rulebook doesn't mention any effect
that Monarchy has on Tyranny? (Both the Monarchy card, and the text in the rulebook describing Tyran-
ny, state that if the victim holds Monarchy that the Beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional units.)
A1. This is an editing error--a line has fallen off in the rulebook. The wording on the card is correct.

Monotheism
Q1: May a player use Monotheism in a region which contains tokens from multiple players, even if
some (but not all) of the players with tokens in that region are immune to Monotheism?
A1: The units belonging to the immune players will not be affected, but you can still choose that region.

From the Updated Rulebook: If you have insufficient units in stock to annex all of the (vulnerable) units
in an area to start with, you cannot select that area. To annex an area from a player who holds Public
Works or Agriculture, you must pay to annex any extra token that is also present and you must also have
an extra token available to replace it even if you don't hold these civilization advances (in which case
this extra token will be removed during the surplus population phase).

Monument & Written Record

From the Updated Rulebook: You choose your additional credits the moment you purchase these Civili-
zation Advances. You may not change your mind later on.

Naval Warfare
Q1: When you lose a token conflict and have no tokens in the area, do any of your ships in the same area
get removed?
A1: No, not unless you removed it yourself as a casualty using Naval Warfare. (Or unless you launched
an unsuccessful city assault in that area.)

From the Official FAQ: Ships, by themselves, never cause a conflict situation, nor is moving ships into
an area ever considered to be causing a conflict (unless you disembark population tokens there). Nor
does an enemy population token moving into an area occupied solely by your own ships cause a conflict
situation. And ships never count toward any player's token majority.

From the Updated Rulebook: When Naval Warfare and ships are involved, token majorities have to be
refigured after every round of token removal. When attacking a city, ships do not count toward the mini-
mum-required seven population tokens. However, if you hold Naval Warfare and your city attack is un-
successful, all of your ships in that area are destroyed as well.

Politics
Q1: When you give a player treasury tokens equal to the number of units you annex, do those treasury
tokens (which I understand are flipped-over units from your supply) physically move to your opponent's
board, thus permanently reducing your supply and permanently increasing theirs?
 p. 30
A1: Every player has exactly 55 tokens at all times. Your tokens are never placed into an opponent's
supply or treasury. When paying to annex units with Politics, you move X tokens from your treasury to
your stock; the treasury and stock of the opponent are not affected. (Note the errata for the Politics card,
as listed at the top of this FAQ.)

Q2: The Politics card says "Pay treasury tokens equal to the number of units." Does this mean that when
you annex an area with a city that you pay just one treasury token?
A2: No: for a city you pay 5 treasury tokens.

See the Updated Rulebook comments above for Monotheism.

Provincial Empire
From the Updated Rulebook: Victims may choose whether to give their commodity cards face up or face
down. When a player receives these commodity cards, he chooses whether or not to reveal them.

Public Works
Q1: Is the purpose of the Public Works advance to allow an area with a city to create 1 population token
per turn (assuming it has a population token on it)? As I understand it, having a single population token
in an area with a city wouldn't (by itself) prevent 7 enemy population tokens from taking that city, since
the city attack would begin with removing the 1 population token, and then there would still be 7 attack-
ing population tokens left to attack the city.

A1: The main purpose of Public Works is to provide additional space for your population tokens so that
you can meet the requirements for city support. When aiming to build an 8th or 9th city, you'll find that
the space around your home ground on the mapboard is tight, especially since your existing cities occu-
py precious areas that used to host your population tokens earlier in the game. Being able to leave a few
population tokens on your city areas provides extra capacity, as well as more flexible movement through
your city areas (moving one population token into such areas on one side, and moving one token out on
a different side), which otherwise is not possible without the "Roadbuilding" Civilization Advance. Fur-
thermore, Public Works is one of the cheaper 200+ cards that provides protection against the effect of
your neighbor's evil Provincial Empire.

From the Official FAQ: If a player with Public Works has a population token in with one of his cities,
then during population expansion another population token will be placed there. (No growth happens in
a city if it is alone in an area.)

From the Updated Rulebook: If your city is annexed or destroyed, so too is any additional population to-
ken. When holding Public Works and building a city, if you have excess tokens present, you will leave
one of them in the area with the new city. When you hold Public Works and must reduce a city, any pre-
viously present token also counts toward the new population limit.

See also "Building Cities" earlier in this FAQ.

 p. 31
Roadbuilding
From the Updated Rulebook: Entering an area with an enemy city is considered entering into a conflict
situation, even if only a single token is entering that area. If a population token enters a conflict situa-
tion after moving the first of two steps, it must end its movement there. With Roadbuilding, it is also per-
missible to let the second of two steps of movement end in a conflict situation. But even with Roadbuild-
ing, a population token may not move into a new area either before or after embarking on a ship.

From the Official FAQ: With Roadbuilding, a player can move through an area with a city only if that
city is his city and only if there are no enemy population tokens present.

Theocracy
Q1. Does Theocracy require discarding two commodity cards per city? Or does discarding two com-
modity cards save all of a player's cities?
A1. The key is in the last two words used in describing this attribute: "...for you." It protects the reduc-
tion for you, but does not cancel the calamity for the secondary victims. See page 43: "to prevent a city
reduction effect for you." Somewhere in the editing process, this error must have slipped in. The rule-
book should read, "to prevent the city reduction effect for you", just as it is written on the card.

From the Official FAQ: Secondary victims of Iconoclasm and Hersey can also use Theocracy to prevent
city reduction. And Water cards will suffice to pay the price, as they are commodities like any other.

Trade Routes
From the Updated Rulebook: You cannot gain less than exactly twice the face value of a discarded com-
modity card. If you have insufficient tokens in stock, you may not discard that commodity card.

Universal Doctrine
Q1: When using Universal Doctrine, may a player annex barbarian tokens from multiple regions (e.g. 3
tokens from one region, and 2 tokens from another region)? Also, can a player annex less than all of the
tokens in a region (e.g. annex three of the four barbarian tokens in a region if the player only had three
tokens in stock)?
A1. Yes, you can annex from multiple areas (for that is indeed the only way to annex 5 Barbarian tokens
in a single turn, as there will never be more than 4 Barbarian tokens in a given area). And yes, the 5 Bar-
barian tokens can come from anywhere, even if not all of the tokens in an area are annexed.

Urbanism
See the Building Cities entry above.

Wonder of the World

Q1: When using Wonder of the World, does a player draw the extra trade card during phase 6a "Draw-
ing Trade Cards", or during phase 6b "Additional Purchases"?
A1: During the "Additional Purchases" phase. It is considered purchasing a card for 0 treasury tokens.

Q2: If you have nine cities, does Wonder of the World grant you any additional trade card?
A2: No it doesn't. Not even a Water card.
 p. 32
Reshuffling Trade Cards
Q1: I am curious as to why the authors didn't mention the common variant of shuffling the non-tradable
major calamity into the bottom 3 cards of the deck? I have seen this played online and wanted to hear if
there was a specific reason why they didn't include this?

A1: We just wanted to set a standard. What people will vary, they will vary:
If you like to shuffle your Non-Tradable Calamities, please do so.
If you like to take a red marker to mark the backs of your Non-Tradable Calamities, please do so.
If you want to count cards, please do so.
And allow other player groups to just play the game as it is written in the rules--the way we think is the
best way to do it, and which we tested thoroughly.

Please, make your own rules: it's your game. Test them, and find out what you prefer. Have fun!

Q2: When do you reshuffle the trade cards?

A2: Basically any time after step 12--Civilization Advances Acquisition, and before step 6--Trade Cards
Acquisition during the next turn. (I usually do it during Movement as there's usually a little bit of down-
time then!)

Q3: If only calamity card(s) of a given trade card value is/are resolved in a turn and NO trade cards of
that value were redeemed in the same turn, the calamities are NOT added to the bottom of the respective
trade card deck UNTIL a turn where at least ONE trade card of that value is tendered... correct or incor-
rect?
A3: Incorrect. You add calamities back to the stack even if no trade cards of the same value were turned
in. If there were ONLY Calamity cards in a discard pile you add the "tradeable" calamities (shuffled if
more than 1) to the bottom of the trade cards and then the "non-tradeable" on the bottom of those.

AST Advancement
Q1: What purpose does the Turn marker serve?

A1: Where for most situations there is no use, we intentionally added the turn marker. Players could ig-
nore this as they wish, just like any group would use their own rules for any game. Feel free to leave the
turn marker in the box as you like.

However, there are some uses for it:

First players may want to know what's the 'perfect progression' on the AST. The leader may re-
member he just froze on the AST once, but after a few hours, some players that have stayed on the AST
for a few turns may want to see how many turns they have fallen back, or how many turns the leader is
away from perfect progression. Especially in games with a large number of players where some players
might not keep track of all players at the other end of the board.

Secondly, players may want to set a fixed number of turns to player instead of playing a scenario
(short game or first game) or instead of setting a time limit. It is also great for explaining the rules, like
using the first game scenario.
 p. 33
In the third place, we've seen a lot of games with experienced players, especially those with a
low player count, where a lot of additional turns are played, just because players keep attacking the lead-
er. (I love those games.) This might happen once you're more experienced in MegaCiv. When it does,
you'll want to know the number of turns actually played. I've seen a game of 21 turns, and that wasn't
because the players were inexperienced. They were all playing really tough. Using the Expert AST you
fall back one space when having 0 cities. I've even seen players holding on to Gold cards so that regres-
sion falls more often. Ouch.

Q2: Where are the requirements listed for being able to advance on the AST board?
A2: They are printed right on the AST board itself, up at the top.

General Questions on Play

Player Elimination
Q1: Can players be eliminated from the game early?
A1: It's technically possible for a player to have no units on the board, although it's extremely unlikely,
and is probably the result of players foregoing self-interest simply to accomplish that. But even if you
have no units on the board, you'll soon get some cities and units back on the board at the end of the turn
due to calamities. So in Mega Civilization, you are never truly eliminated.

Handling Mistakes
Q1: How do you handle inadvertent mistakes?

A1: This happens all of the time--players forgetting to use options that they have. Generally, it's up to
game masters and the group to decide how to deal with these.

Personally--as with any other game I play--I handle it like this:

Forgotten options (thus optional) are just a case of "too bad". It was you who missed out, and it's too
late to change it now.
Other forgotten actions, those that are not optional, should be made anyway--if, that is, it's reasona-
bly possible to adjust the actions that ensued thereafter. If not, well, the group can usually find an
equitable solution.
Following this process will solve most of the situations that can arise in any game.

Now when it comes to Mega Civilization . . .

Drawing a card and gaining treasury for a successful city attack are typically optional. If a player
forgets to do so, I'm sorry, but we have moved on and it's too late now.
o Whenever one of my cities is successfully attacked, I never offer my hand of cards to the at-
tacker. He should remember this option for himself and ask. When the resolution of the city
attack is over, and the game master announces that it's now the city construction phase, and
the attacker still hasn't asked, well then I'm a lucky guy!
Actual credits and discounts for Civilization Advances are not optional. These are printed directly on
the cards. (Players may choose not to collect the actual credits tokens at all--but these credits still
apply.) But if forgotten, players are certainly permitted to collect these tokens later on.
When it comes to using credit bonuses for buying the higher Civilization Advances cards, and play-
ers simply forget to use them, I treat this in the same way as I treat the optional situations mentioned
above. As trade cards are turned in, and discard piles are re-shuffled and reloaded under the stacks,
then time's up--you can't take any forgotten bonuses. (Note, this isn't meant to be a "workaround" for
spending more treasury tokens than are needed: credit bonuses are not intentionally optional.)
 p. 34
Advice for Running an 18-player Game
[excerpted from Flo de Haan]
We rarely use 18 chairs when playing with 18 people. We use 10-12 chairs. You just need to re-define
what playing a board game means. It's not a sit-down game at all. Sure, take a chair whenever you like!
But stand up, walk around, talk to people, negotiate, take a look at other people's board situation as
much as possible. And whenever you do sit down . . . why must that be at the table? You need time to
relax during a 12-hour game. Give me the actual board on a table that is only slightly bigger.

[excerpted from biffta]

I have not run mega Civ (yet), but I have run up to 8 player games of Advanced Civ on 3 occasions now
at a local school. I would invite as many as you can for the "experience", but be prepared that there will
most likely be a few that change their mind just prior to the event. Hence attempt for a full player count.

Please stress to all players that no matter how well they play, just as in history, catastrophic things will
happen to their Civilization. They can mitigate their losses through calculated Civilization Advances.

We stop for an hour and make the meal part of the event at a nearby pub (it's next door!).

Keep tables at the back of players chairs for drinks to be placed - no drinks at all on the gaming table!
Does an inconsiderate gamer want to pay you 140 for ruining your game? Much easier to apply this
rule up front. (I do it for all my games). After eating greasy food, make sure players wash their hands to
save ruining game chits etc. You could read out a gaming etiquette prior to game start or list it in email
correspondence .

As each race expands, adopt the policy of them turning over the moved chits to the base side to show
which chits have moved. Only when a player has stopped movement should they flip back over their
chits.

It's good to insist all players stand up and move away from the tables to trade and have a 5 minute timer.
No trades can be made after the first beep!

I would just get to the venue an hour prior to game start to set up tables and advancement cards. Let the
players set up their mats once they pick their races. I have seen games where each player has a name tag,
with 18 players this should help a lot!

[excerpted from ScoutDad]

I run a game of MegaCiv every 3 to 4 months at our FLGS. Next Saturday will be game #8. So far, each
event has been between 11 and 16 players - eventually, we'll get the full 18!

Some tips I've learned:

We begin promoting one as soon as the last one is complete.

We use email to previous players, Facebook, and the game stores message board. Since the game store is
only open from 9 to 9 - I do not allow walk-ups. Everyone must confirm their intent to play within 2
days of the event.

We start no later than 9:30 a.m. Players select any open empire of their choice as they arrive...
 p. 35
Anyone not in the store by 9:30 - doesn't play. It sucks - but it's already a long game, without delays.

I have a set of pin-on name badges for the players (since many times, some of them do not know each
other in advance. The east empires have a red background... the west a blue background. The empire
name and symbol is then printed on a separate removable tag with room for the players name.

We try to keep the action as simultaneous as possible.

Trade phases were 10 minutes in the first game and have been whittled down to 6 minutes now... not
much happens beyond the first 5 minutes, so why delay?

We take a meal break around 3 p.m. (usually an hour, but if everyone is ready sooner - we start sooner).

The game runs from 9:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. At 8, we finish the turn we are currently playing and then
determine the victor. This gives us time to put everything away before the store closes. Our first game
ended around turn 15... every game since then has been played to completion.

We have copied and laminated the AST and census track onto tabloid sized paper and use an easel and
magnetic dry-erase board to track census and AST progression. This helps as we can stand it at one end
of the table and everyone can see.

We also divide critical roles among the more experienced player. I usually run the Sequence of Play.

Someone else will track the AST / Census on the magnetic board. A third player runs the kitchen timer
used for the trades and confirms the total of credits spent towards advances. A fourth player handles the
calamities... order of play... primary and secondaries... effects... etc. A fifth player (and 6th if using both
sets of trade cards) is responsible for handled discarded trade cards, calamities, and re-shuffling - as well
as distribution cards in correct order.

[excerpted from GreenDayFan333]

Tips after running this game many times:

The box comes with cards marked 1-18, deal these out to players and they pick civs in that order. If you
have newbies, say 6 of them, shuffle the 1-6 cards separately and give those to them and then deal
everyone else the other cards. Generally civs near the edges of the board are easier to play than ones in
the middle, but not guaranteed!

Sort the trade discards yourself back into the holders. If you delegate, make sure the person doing it
knows what they are doing. (People think they know how to do it but then it turns out they don't and
East has been having a much easier time than West.)

Remind people that this is not a war game. I mean, fighting is fun and border skirmishes will happen,
but full on wars will just take both civs down.

Emphasize the importance of trading. They shouldn't be too scared to get calamities: they happen. If you
don't trade, you aren't going to do well regardless.

Keep the game moving! I went to a game organized by someone else and no-one seemed to be stepping
up to GM. The beginning was painfully slow. I ended up taking over.
 p. 36
Make sure the first time people buy advances they understand how it works. I saw someone once who
had collected a set of Golds and wasn't discarding them after buying something! Also people get
confused with the discount system.

We ordered a cardboard display stand thing for our advances, takes up way less table space - if this isn't
an issue then don't worry, but it really helps in our flat!

Have a few print outs of the rules around. We also printed out some of the cheat sheets for the advances
and gave them to people so they weren't having to go and read all the cards every time. There are some
good ones here on BGG.

[excerpted from mintylish]

I've played twice now, once with 16 players and once with 18. Both were among my favorite gaming
experiences ever, so I highly recommend going for max number of players if you can!

*Tables: in addition to the main game table, you'll want a minimum of three more tables in the room if
at all possible. First, one table for the Advances, well spread out according to their trees, to facilitate
shopping. Second, a table for the Trade Cards (designate two of the most experienced players to manage
these, one for East and one for West). Last, at least one table for drinks, snacks, personal items, etc.

*Stamina: Make sure that everyone realizes that they will be standing for a large portion of the game.
For the trading rounds everyone will stand and walk around in order to be able to interact with all the
other players. But even for other phases of the game, if you have a larger number of players, it will not
be possible for everyone to sit around the board simultaneously, there's just not enough space. Plus as
large as the board is, it can be difficult to see and move from a sitting position, especially for civiliza-
tions toward the middle of the board.

*Meals: Several above have mentioned one meal break of an hour. In both my games we took two meal
breaks, and I highly recommend this. As noted above you'll be standing much of the day and this re-
quires energy. In my last game we took a half hour lunch break where everyone was on their own (it was
in Manhattan so there were lots of options close by), though I think it probably ended up being closer to
45 minutes. Then later we ordered pizza and everyone got slices as they had free time (far away from the
table), we didn't really take a set break. This worked very well for us.

*Simultaneous actions: Movement should be done simultaneously as much as possible to speed things
up. Within regions players may need to go in order due to possible conflict or even just because of phys-
ical space limitations, but otherwise simultaneous movement is necessary to keep from taking too long.
In my last game we found that taking care of the Minor Calamities simultaneously also helped, since
theyre not interactive. Buying Advances should definitely be simultaneous. Its probably a good idea to
have a GM for both East and West to move things along (possibly the same people doing the cards).

*Accessories: Name tags have been mentioned. In both my games we used a magnetic white board and
magnetic tags for each civilization, and I highly recommend this. The tags should have a spot for mark-
ing current census and can be arranged in turn order. Then when each Civ completes their movement,
they move their tag to from the left to the right side of the board so that everyone can always see the turn
order and who has and has not moved. One other thing that was used in one of my games was little
boxes for storing player pieces and credit chits. Not at all necessary and didnt effect gameplay per se,
but makes it much less likely that anything will get lost. Small flat square jewelry boxes work great.
Also not necessary but quite useful, a rack for the Trade Cards.
 p. 37
[excerpted from cfarrell]
MegaCiv can get done in 12 hours with 12-18 players, but you have to be *really* serious about it.

You need one traffic cop per board (East/West if you have 12+ players). These need to be an experi-
enced Civ player who can be assertive. This person needs to be looking at the Census and ensuring that
everyone who can be moving (because they have no dependency on players ahead of them in census or-
der) is moving now. This person also needs to be aggressive about informing people about their move-
ment options (i.e., Egypt is next up after Nubia, and can start moving, just keep an eye on that border).

The most recent rev of the rules (1.1) has added some verbiage about movement that I consider extreme-
ly unwise, and I highly recommend ignoring. Basically it says you have a turn to move, you can move
sooner if you want, but if you do, your move becomes final and you can't change it once someone who
nominally should have moved before you finally gets around to taking their turn. This is a big incentive
for disruptive, anti-social behavior and punishes people for trying to do the right thing to keep the game
moving. When I play, players always reserve the right to modify their move until their official turn
comes up, and we work within that constraint to keep the game moving as quickly as possible by having
a knowledgeable player manage the flow of that phase. It's a pain, but doing the phase properly is impor-
tant. It also can be the biggest single time sink.

Purchasing Civ cards is actually a big drain on time now too, since it can be pretty complicated. It's also
error-prone. I think you need a rule similar to: each player must audit and verify the Civ advance pur-
chases of the player on his or her right (consistency in who you audit is helpful). People also need to be
aware that buying Civ cards needs to be done in a reasonably timely manner.

In general, people need to be impressed on how important it is to keep the gaming moving at a reasona-
ble pace. This isn't so much about pressuring people to move at a speed they aren't comfortable with, but
just about awareness, and about everyone feeling they'd are empowered to gently (and in a friendly man-
ner) chide people who are locked up and slowing things down.

Especially with 12+ people who don't have extensive experience with the game, getting through in 12
hours is a challenge but it can be done if you can retain some discipline.

Editor suggests asking players to keep all population tokens that are in stock or in treasury in neat 5-
high stacks, as this greatly speeds the taking of the Census and the determination of Beneficiaries, to say
nothing of speeding the purchase of Advances and whatever other pre-planning players might wish to
do.

Card Sleeves
Small cards: 43.5 x 67.5 mm [840 cards].
Large cards: 75 x 105 mm [729 cards].

Quotes from various people on BGG regarding the Small Cards:

"Swan PanAsia sleeves--45mm x 70mm--fit very well. But because the new trade cards are just a tiny bit
bigger in size than the old ones were (perfect sleeved with FGU yellow), they will not fit in the card
holders anymore when sleeved."
 p. 38
"I sleeved all the small trade cards yesterday using the Mayday Mini Chimera sleeves and they fit per-
fectly! There is no overlap at the top. The sleeved Mayday cards do not fit in the holders unless you push
them down (in which case you would have problems grabbing a card)."

"I sleeved mine with 17 packs of Fantasy Flight Games Mini European Board Game Sleeves (44mm x
68mm). These work great."

Quotes from various people on BGG regarding the Large Cards:

"The large (Civilization Advances) cards seem to be 75 x 105 mm and don't match anything on the May-
day Games website. I got the Swan PanAsia SWN-529's which are 77 x 128 mm. The width is perfect
and I used a paper cutter to cut the length to the right size. They work great. Right now, I pack them in
batches and use Hugo's Amazing Tape (which they sell on Amazon) to keep them organized."

"SwanPanasia makes a sleeve that's 75 x 110 mm that may be worth trying. It's the closest thing that I
could find to those measurements. We (Mayday Games) distribute for them in North America at
swanpanasiasleeves.com."

Other Suggestions:
Carefully cut the counters from the sprus with a sharp blade--don't punch them out: it doesn't take long
to cut them out and doing so will leave less "spaghetti" dangling from the sides of the counters. Nail
clippers, on the other hand, work great for trimming away the small fuzzy nubs left on the outer four
edges of each of the mapboards: this gives the map a cleaner look.

Where can I buy Mega Civilization?

As of September 2017, www.funagain.com has it in stock in the USA for $250 plus $20 shipping (or
through Amazon, also from Fun Again Games, for $9 shipping).

Design Questions:
Effectiveness of a Military Strategy
We tested military strategies a lot. In theory it is a winning strategy, but something you cannot control is
the backfire. As soon as a player acts aggressively, or seems to be getting too powerful, other players
tend to team up to counterattack him or to prevent him from building cities.

Of course when the power cards add up (Military, Advanced Military, Naval Warfare, etc.) that player
has a big advantage, but other players may purchase the same cards soon, and you get the same arms
race as was happening with Metalworking in (Advanced) Civilization games.

Military is worth nothing as soon as all players hold that card (just like Metalworking), though you al-
ways keep the drawbacks. That is not the case for Advanced Military, where board strategy makes the
difference.

Advanced Military combined with Naval Warfare does a lot--believe me! Expect to make enemies fast.
 p. 39
East vs. West
Q1: We will be playing a 7-player game this weekend and I'm wondering which side of the map to use.
West seems to have the possibility of more interaction later in the game, since all nations are adjacent to
the sea. On the East side this seems to be a bit harder for some nations. So does the game play out simi-
larly, or are there notable differences depending on which side of the map you play on?

A1: When it comes to balance, there is no difference between East and West. I've played many, many
games on either West and East, and on the two combined. There is no major difference between the
results in VP's here.

When it comes to gameplay there is quite some difference. Players that approach the East map as though
it were the West map (based on Advanced Civilization experience) may find it a harder map to play on.

However, Civilization Advances like Advanced Military, Roadbuilding, Fundamentalism, Politics, Pro-
vincial Empire, Urbanism, etc., seem to be made for the Eastern portion of the map. If you want to de-
pend on ships and Astronavigation, you might experience some difficulties there. Players will have to
get used to the dynamics on the eastern mapboard.

Calamities, like Cyclone or Piracy, sometimes are a lot easier on the Eastern players.

It turns out to be harder to reach some civilizations. This can turn out to be an advantage, but also a dis-
advantage to some players. Kushan and Nubia, for example, may not become neighbors in most games.

The better players will find out the best practices. This might take some experience, but what's a game
that's completely thought out after one playing?

Player Count
There is a reason that our game says 5-18 players instead of 3-18 players. The reason is this: we don't
think it's a good idea. We leave it up to anyone to try and find a way to make it work, creating house-
rules (which will happen anyway) but we rejected it for our release. There are many many other games
that can be played by 3-4 players.

The core thing about Mega Civilization is the MEGA: this game is designed for large groups.

The main three reasons for this are . . .

When collecting trade cards, players should at least be able to make a complete set of commodities
every two turns. This is already hard to do when playing with 5 players, so we adjusted the rules
there a bit; but having only 3 to 4 players brings too little wealth into the game each round. You see
if a set consists of 8 or 9 cards, and every turn only 4 cards are drawn, well then. . . . The rules would
have to be adjusted too much if you were to, for example, take out one set of commodities per stack
(leaving you with too many calamities), or if you were to use a different system having smaller com-
modity sets (extra cards).
When there is one weaker player and two stronger ones, the game simply goes on too long to give
the weaker player an enjoyable experience. In a game of at least 5 players, there are more ways for a
player to catch up. The same is true when there is one player who is ahead at the start of the game:
you need additional players to slow this person down.
Some calamities force the victim to give secondary damage to other players. If there aren't enough
secondary players, the calamities become too destructive. Of course you can add additional rules for
use with games having only 3 or 4 players--but read the second bullet again.
 p. 40
For these reasons, we removed the option of playing with 1 to 4 players. Even 5 players is a minimum
number. (Actually we only added the 5-player option to have a little ease-in to the game for new play-
ers.) Personally, apart from what the rules say, I suggest you play with at least 7 players to experience
the game to its full extend.

I'm 100% sure there is no one in the world who has played the game more times than I have. I've been
testing it for years now, with every possible number of players. My personal favorite is 15-18 players--
this number has all options enabled.

Note this really isn't any different than with the earlier versions of the game. If you have always liked
Civilization or Advanced Civilization with 5 players, then you'll be sure to love Mega Civilization with
5 players. (But of course, apart from that, Mega Civilization also brings you many more options and
many more cards.) Personally, I was never a fan of 5-player Civilization or Advanced Civilization. I al-
ways tried to get at least 6-7 players (and preferably 8) but, hey, that's my personal opinion. Maybe it's
just that I like big games.

Our 9-18 player option brings so much more to the game that can never be reached with a smaller group
(where everyone stays seated). And with all of those new cards, the variety of situations that can occur is
just that much more fun with more players, than it is when every player (of these 5) pursues the same
strategy (e.g., Mysticism, Metalworking, Literacy, Monotheism, etc.).

When I get together with just 4 or 5 people, I'd rather play a few different boardgames that are optimized
for 5 players, like the game "1830" for instance.

But as I said, if you want to try to adjust the rules for 3 to 4 players, please do so! I encourage it very
much. And then share your findings here--or wherever you like online--and let other people join in on
the fun. I believe the internet is a great way to crowd-gather play-testing data. However it's always a
matter of taste: get a hundred people together and you'll have a hundred opinions.

Who knows, maybe there's a way to make smaller numbers of players fun, and maybe we'll need to ad-
just the box to say "3-18 players" in some future release. Until that time, though, we don't want to mis-
lead people: we have definitely chosen to start the game at 5 players.

All that being said, Mega Civilization is fully playable with 5 players and it truly starts to shine with 6. It
really isn't any different than the prior versions were. (I'd never recommend Civilization or Advanced
Civilization with only 4 players).

1 VP per City
Q1: Why are cities worth 1 VP at the end of the game?

A1: We tested the game leaving that rule out (e.g., so that you gain 0 VP per city), but it turned out that
for the final turn, no one cared about cities anymore and no one cared for Calamities anymore. That real-
ly sucked. Especially for the Expert AST where you play one additional round. Now, with the 1 VP per
city rule, a player can really get hurt in the final round, which is really great, believe me.

Besides that, we wanted the game to always be a close finish. A 0-to-9 point swing in VPs at the end
may very well win or lose you the game. I'm really glad that 1 VP per city is still there. We also tested a
2 VP and even 5 VP per city. One VP is the best option, believe me.
 p. 41
Tuning the Calamities
Let me tell you something about Civil War and Tyranny, because these two calamities were highly de-
bated.

Civil War in Advance Civilization was too confusing to resolve, and it always took the most time. I al-
ways hated Philosophy, which stated that it "modifies a Civil War." I just wanted to know what happens
--is my Civilization Advance good or bad for a given calamity? But Civil War always was the most im-
portant calamity, because of its balancing effect and because it's a non-tradeable calamity.

But we thought stack 4 was too low for it. So we tested putting it in stacks 5 and 6 and 7. It turned out to
be at best in stack 5. Players with only 4 cities should not be hit by a civil war. Also, the "all but 35 unit
points" doesn't do much if you only have (4 x 5 cities) + 15 population tokens, which equals 35 unit
points.

And we needed a second non-tradable calamity to balance the game. It turns out that Tyranny does the
trick. We tested the idea of having it annex "unit points equal to twice the number of cities", but this
turned out to be too complex and sometimes the balancing effect was gone if the primary victim lost
cities during a lower Calamity. So, twice 7 cities = 14 damage.

We also worked towards the step-5 system: all of the calamities should do damage in batches of 5, and
all of the preventions should prevent damage in batches of 5. I believe this made the game a lot better.
Sure, experienced players will now have to get used to it, but you always know what you'll get. Tyranny
therefore went to 15 damage, instead of 14.

(All those different rules for Calamities were so complex that every time you played, you had to look at
the rulebook. The same goes for Epidemic that forced you to keep 1 token in each area. Sweet, yes, and
historical and all that, but it was annoying to explain and to resolve.)

So eventually we made a flat damage for Tyranny: 15 damage that had to be taken over by an opponent.
And we also reflected that onto Civil War: all but 35. And with Civil War we removed the game-delay-
ing rule that the Beneficiary had to select the tokens, and then the victim, etc. We just said "all but 35".

But then strange things occurred with all of those remote islands, so we added the rule that the selected
areas should be connected to each other, and that no areas could be partially selected.

Looking at the original effect of Military, I always found that Military had a real tough drawback for
players who got it. Maybe that was true in reality, but game-wise. . . . Sometimes you have to leave
reality to create a better game. So we said: Military + Civil War = + 5 damage.

And now Military turned out to be a better card. But still not too good. It's just a powerful card, and
there aren't too many red credits in the lower range. Law should be a cheaper card than Military.

For Tyranny we also tested various rules regarding selecting areas. It turned out that the most devastat-
ing effect is the fact that the Beneficiary is selecting the areas, as opposed to Civil War where the victim
is the one choosing. And people seemed to like it. Everyone wants to be the beneficiary of Tyranny. And
these kinds of bonuses are those little pieces of luck in the game that players need. Well actually . . . the
bonus for being the last in line.
 p. 42
If you're nifty, you can try to lose cities during a lower calamity first, and become the Beneficiary of
Tyranny later. Well . . . "becoming the beneficiary" is a totally different story. How we got up to what it
is now, I'll have to describe that later somewhere.

So . . . Civil War and Tyranny--the most important calamities in the game--which you might not have
realized. And just like this. This game is full of all of those kinds of tiny decisions that make this game
so much more advanced than Advanced Civilization.

If you say, "Mega Civilization is basically Advanced Civilization," you're just taking a glance at the box
or at the rules. If you realize what the game includes, you won't be saying this anymore. The best chang-
es are those that you don't see, but while you're thinking "there's nothing wrong here, I like the game, it
is balanced". Well, we came a long way to get there, to be able to say that "the game is balanced."

Other Starting Civilization Choices

Q1: When I'm looking at the boards, it seems like it would be possible to make a few changes to the
recommended setups and still maintain a good balance, specifically as follows:
6p West: Remove Carthage (and African parts of Iberia) and add Celts.
7p East: Remove Kushan & Indus and add Assyria & Egypt.
10p West: Remove Hellas & Minoa to make an 8p East game. Alt, remove Parthia & Persia to make
an 8p West game.
11p East: Remove Dravidia and add Hatti.
12p: Remove Nubia & Parthia; add Iberia & Celts (Egypt & Hatti would become East in this setup).
15p: Remove Indus (or Kushan) and add Celts.
17p: Remove Dravidia and add Celts.

Another posted remarked: From looking at the different player counts, I have the feeling that Rome &
Carthage should always be present in the game together, or neither. Same goes for Assyria/Egypt and for
Maurya/Dravidia.

And another: While we were playing with the CivProject map, our group used a more free-form setup
for picking the Civs.
1. Determine the order in which players will choose civilizations (MegaCiv comes with numbered
cards for this purpose).
2. The first player may choose any of the 18 civilizations.
3. The second player may choose any civilization bordering the first player's choice.
4. From the third player onward, each player may choose any civilization that shares a border with
at least 2 other civilizations that have already been chosen.
5. The western map does not balance well if either Minoa or Hellas are in play without the other. If
either Minoa or Hellas are chosen, the other must be selected by a later player. If no one has
claimed it by the time the final player chooses, that player must take the other part of the pairing.

A1: Some setups are better than others of course. But we tested many and found out our options are the
best in our opinion. Of course you can try a different setup for a certain amount of players. Sometimes
there is more than one good option. We know, for instance, that Minoa and Hellas should always be
together. And eight player games including Celt, but without Iberia weren't the best, so leaving out Celt
was our best option. We also tried a full east setup on a non-9-player east game, but it's better to leave
out Dravidia and Maurya first.
 p. 43
Some of your combos might work. If enough different groups tell us that a specific combination works it
would be good for the community to know they have even more options! It's unlikely we will make
them official unless we have time to test them ourselves but who knows . . .

When it comes to the two 5-player options. I believe the smaller groups (with a smaller table) prefer a
single-panel setup anyway. That is impossible for a 6-player setup.

Differences between Mega Civilization and Advanced Civilization by Paul Schulzetenberg

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1445413/rule-differences-advanced-civilization

Now that the rules are out, I figured I'd make a summary of the changes that I found from the old ver-
sion of Advanced Civilization. I'm sure I missed some, so I'd definitely appreciate people chiming in.

The basics
- The game now supports up to 18 players.
- Victory is calculated differently. Advances grant 1-6 VPs, Cities 1 VP each, and AST position 5 pts
per space, with an additional 5 if you are the only player to end the game.
- There are two more ways to play the game. 'The First Game' is an intro game, and 'The Short Game'
roughly simulates the early game and puts players right into the midgame.

Civilization Advances
- There are 51 advances, compared to 24 in the old game. These are all over the place, giving new abili-
ties for movement, city building, conflict, city maintenance, trade card acquisition, and a lot more.
- Credits are dealt with differently, as there are now credit tokens instead of credits per card. Some cards
still credit specific other advances, though that too looks like it's been simplified.
- There's a special abilities phase which triggers advance effects that take place once per turn (like
Monotheism in the old game).
- Costs have been reworked significantly.

Map
- The map goes all the way to India, and stretches further north as well. The Western Expansion map has
been integrated into the board.
- No players start on the edge of the board anymore. All begin in a starting location in the map interior,
much like Crete in the old game.
- The map is divided into West and East. For games up to 11 players, only one of the two halves is used.
- The spaces that already existed on the board have been geographically tweaked a bit so that there are
more spaces in some places, fewer in others, and borders have been changed.
- There are now spaces with a value of 0. These spaces can never have wilderness cities built on them.
- In general, the board is harsher. There are fewer city sites per player, and areas tend to have lower
numbers.
- The map is divided differently when playing with fewer than the maximum number of players.

Trade cards
- There are two sets of trade cards, blue and orange. 5-11 players, while orange are only used for 12+
player games. In addition, each of the sets has cards that are removed for fewer players. This will pre-
sumably have the effect of there being a more consistent amount of calamities when playing with differ-
ent numbers of players.
 p. 44
- Trade cards are also divided between West and East and are only used if playing with the correspond-
ing half of the board.
- When playing with both halves of the board, civilizations from the Western half draw from the West-
ern decks, and civilizations from the Eastern half draw from the Eastern decks. Each deck has a full set
of one resource, and half of 2-3 others.
- If a pile of trade cards is exhausted when you draw a card, you now get a replacement 0 value Water
card instead, so at least you have something to trade with, even if there's no value.
- The makeup of the trade decks is significantly different. In general, there are larger number of cards in
the sets. Many goods have been added, and others have been removed (e.g. Grain has been replaced with
Wool).
- You can now purchase a level 9 trade card for 15 treasury rather than 18.
- You can keep 9 cards instead of 8 at the end of the turn in 12+ player games.

Calamities
- There is a new type of calamity, called Minor calamities. All of these are new. As the name implies,
they are weaker than the other calamities.
- Players can suffer no more than 3 calamities per turn, only two of which can be major.
- There are multiple copies of some calamities. Players may not be the victim of two of the same kind of
calamity (including as a secondary victim).
- Some of the old calamities have been moved to different decks. Specifically, Civil War goes from 4 to
5, Slave Revolt goes from 4 to 3, Flood goes from 5 to 4, and Superstition goes from 3 to 4.
- There are now non-tradeable calamities for decks 6-9. They generally hurt pretty bad if you don't have
mitigating Advances.
- Some small changes have been made to calamities based on which Civilization Advances a player
holds.
- Civil War and Barbarian Hordes have been streamlined, but ultimately work very similarly.
- There are no support checks, conflict, or surplus population checks during calamity resolution.

Miscellaneous
- There's now a turn marker. I don't see what this is used for -- maybe for calling the game after a certain
number of turns?
- There are now two different ASTs, one for beginners, and one for experts.
- You no longer can join the game late via Civil War.
- Shipbuilding and maintenance is no longer a separate phase, but is handled in the movement phase.
You can now build ships with a token from the board that is not in the space that you want to build the
ship.

The upshot
I haven't played this yet, but it does look like it will be very familiar to players of Advanced Civ. You
still do most of the basic tasks the same way: movement, ships, combat, city building, trade card acquisi-
tion, trading, purchasing advances, etc.

Rules tweaks are pretty minimal, and serve mostly to smooth out some of the rough edges of the old
game. The turn procedure is a little smoother, and the credit system has been simplified immensely.
Civil War's shift to the 5 deck will make it at least one turn later before it shows up, which is good, as it
was decidedly nasty in the old version, especially for a being in the 4 deck. Calamity resolution and
credits are more streamlined, which will eliminate edge cases which would occasionally crop up with
the old rules.
 p. 45
The map may affect things, but it's difficult to tell without a play. The East/West division with 12+ play-
ers will alter trade cards a small bit, but not too drastically. The map in general has more spaces, but also
fewer city spaces per player, which will mean more wilderness cities, and may also lead to a game with
more conflict. I'm undecided yet whether I like or dislike that.

The new calamities may make the game a bit harsher, and will probably serve to pull down the players
with stronger map positions. There's more mitigation options available, but also more advances that ex-
aggerate the effects, so that's probably a wash.

The biggest differences are clearly in the Civilization Advances. Most (all?) of the old favorites are still
around, though some have gotten minor tweaks. There's a ton of new ones, though, with some very
strong effects. It's impossible to say what kind of effect they have on the game without playing.

Strategically, the players who traded well in the old game were the ones who won. A military-focused
strategy accomplished nothing more than taking one or two other players with you to the bottom. It
looks like that may not be the case with the new one. The map looks like it encourages a bit more con-
flict, and several of the new advances have some pretty big benefits for a military strategy, especially
Advanced Military, Diaspora, Naval Warfare, and Provincial Empire.

That said, the trading strategy got some help as well. There are several advances that help players pur-
chase or otherwise obtain more trade cards, turn in larger sets, or otherwise increase economic output.
The cumulative effect seems to be that players are likely to buy more advances, and probably there will
be fewer turns where players can't afford anything as a result.

I don't know how many times I'm going to have occasion to play this game with anything close to the
full complement of players, but I'm excited to give it a try. The support for fewer players seems ade-
quate, so at the very least I can see this getting played as a variant for our regular sessions of Advanced
Civ.

Optional Rules:
Ideas for Streamlining Play and Decreasing Playing Time
Faster Trades
Trade deals may only involve the cards being traded at this moment: while actually trading cards,
no future trades can be agreed to, no alliances offered, no promises offered to exclude someone
from being chosen as a secondary victim, etc.

City Counting
Discourage city counting during actual city construction, when it is done solely to adjust trade
card drawing order (e.g., when it's done with an eye toward affecting how likely different players
are to draw calamities from certain stacks).
Discourage city counting during calamity victim-selection, when it is done to affect future bene-
ficiary possibilities. (Players can of course consider these things ahead of time if they wish to.)

Stack Card Counting

NT Calamities, instead of being placed at the very bottom of their decks, are randomly shuffled
in with the two cards above it.
 p. 46
Secondary Victims
There is no asking players if they hold various Civilization Advances while picking Secondary
Victims. (You'll just have to remember this information, if it's important to you.)

Streamlining the Special Ability Phase

The Special Ability for Trade Routes that permits a player to trade in Commodity cards for twice
the number of Treasury Tokens is executed later in the turn, at the same time as purchasing Civ-
ilization Advances. (This reduces the calculations that are done during the Special Ability
phase.)

Final Turn Rounding Up

To reduce precise last-turn accounting, permit all players to round up a remainder of 0 to 4 treas-
ury tokens to 5 when purchasing Civilization Advances in the final turn.
o If it's possible that this turn is the last turn, you may use this ability at your discretion--
but if the game goes longer, you'll not get to use this ability again during a later turn.

Simultaneous Purchase of Civilization Advances

Everyone purchases Civilization Advances secretly at the same time.
At the end, everyone announces their purchases.

Time Limit Games

Set an ending time before the game begins, maybe 8 or 10 hours later.
Announce an hour or two ahead of the ending time, as the time nears, how many turns there will
be left to play.

Simpler Victory Tie-Breakers

To prevent excessive analysis when purchasing Civilization Advances (and to shorten rule expla-
nations), the tie-breaker procedure is shortened to the following:
o VP Total.
o Right-most AST marker.
o Largest number of 6-VP Civilization Advances.
o Most cities on the map.
o Most tokens on the map.
o Civilization Number (AST ranking order).

Changes to Accommodate Particular Players

Minoa Fast Start
If an inexperienced player takes Minoa, allow that player a free ship build on turn 3.
o Minoa must still pay any upkeep for the ship in future turns.

Honest Traders
If your group of players includes people who're disinclined to deceive others about trade cards,
institute the following rules for all players:
o Never say anything or even hint anything about the final card you are trading.
o All other trading cards are honestly described, and can be shown to the other player.
o Expect the third card to be bad. (Which is okay--pass it off during your next trade.)
 p. 47
Avoiding Destabilizing Alliances
Certain players may be apt to approach this game as a war game, which it is not. To discourage
players from early on establishing game-long alliances that could mar the fluidity of the game,
suggest that all alliances be seen as applying for only the present game turn.
Furthermore, suggest that agreements be focused on only a couple key areas, where weakness
borders weakness, or strength borders strength, so as not to create unfair advantages relative to
the rest of the players, to the detriment of the game.
Ultimately, players in alliances that are destabilizing may find themselves being chosen as sec-
ondary victims quite often, and may find themselves being traded the worst of the calamities.

Altering the Game

Starting Civilization Advance(s)
Permit each civilization to select one Civilization Advance prior to the start of play.
Limit the amount a player may spend to 100, 150, or 200.
Exclude certain Civilization Advances that may prove unbalancing: perhaps Agriculture, Metal-
working, Cloth Making, Astronavigation, and/or Urbanism.

Increase the Importance of the 17 Triply-Linked Civilization Advances

Make it so that low-tier Advances that provide a discount for a specific mid-tier Advance, now
provide a discount of 15 (e.g., 10% of the average purchase price) or 20, not just 10.
Make it so that mid-tier Advances that provide a discount for a specific upper-tier Advance, now
provide a discount of 25 (e.g., 10% of the average purchase price) or 30 or even 40, not just 20.

Imperial Variant
Allow players twice the number of tokens: 110 population tokens, 18 cities, 8 ships.
The 10th city will draw a card from stack 1; the 11th city from stack 2; etc.
Adjust the calamities so that they aren't too negligible or too severe. (This will take some work.)
Be prepared for a loooong game, and for players to purchase most if not all of the Advances.

Limit the Damage Done by the Dreaded "Civil War"

Keep Civil War as a valid "catch-up" mechanism, and let it still hurt a lot, but don't eviscerate
players.
o Option A: You select all but 30 of your unit points. But for every 3 unit points beyond 30,
you get to keep an additional unit point.
If you have 44 unit points, you would lose all but 34=a loss of 10.
If you have 61 unit points, you would lose all but 40=a loss of 21.
If you have 75 unit points, you would lose all but 45=a loss of 30.
o Option B: For every step on the AST you go beyond step 10, keep 3 more unit points.
If you are on step 12, you would keep 41 unit points, etc.
o Option C: You select all but 35 of your unit points, or an amount of unit points equal to
what the beneficiary holds, whichever is larger. Then, for every full three unit points you
have greater than this value, you keep one additional unit point.
If you have 76 unit points and the beneficiary has 42 unit points, then you keep a
base of 42 unit points plus 34/3 (11) unit points, for a total of 53 unit points--a
loss of 23 unit points. And the beneficiary ends up with 42 + 23=65 unit points.
 p. 48
Limiting Calamities
"I have developed several variants for Advanced Civilization, with an eye on reducing play-
ing time. We specify that a player could be the primary victim of 1 calamity until their AST
marker reaches the Early Iron Age, at which time they could be primary victim of 2 calamities.
"A possible transition point for Mega Civilization would be entry into the Late Bronze Age. A
side benefit is that an unlucky player can't be hit with two calamities in the same turn during the
early stages of the game and get so far behind that he never recovers." [from a BGG poster]

Compensation for Non-Tradable Calamities

A person who drew 1 or 2 NT calamites may draw 1 additional card from any stack lower than
the higher-stack calamity.
A person who drew 3 or more NT calamities may draw up to 2 replacement cards. One must
come from a stack lower than one of the NT calamity cards, and the other must come from a
stack lower than another NT calamity card.
These additional draws come after everyone else has drawn and purchased all Trade cards that
they want. (Permissibility of the draws will be verified later in the turn.)

Prevent Agriculture from being an "Automatic Purchase"

Agriculture only increases the population limit for "0" and "1" areas.
Medicine gains the ability to increase the population for "2" areas.

Emphasize the Top-Tier Civilization Advances

At the end, players gain 1 VP for each different color 6-VP Civilization Advance they own.
o This will result in from 0 to 5 VPs for each player--1 VP for the first color 6-VP Ad-
vance; 2 VPs for having two different color 6-VP Advances; etc.
o Dual-colored Civilization Advances do not--by themselves--count as "new" color.
Always assume a color for these Advances that results in the fewest possible bonus VPs.
If the only top-tier Advances a player owns are Cultural Ascendancy (blue) and
Wonder of the World (blue-orange), he gains just 1 bonus VP.
But if the only top-tier Advance a player owns is Wonder of the World (blue-
orange), he gains 1 bonus VP.
And if the only top-tier Advances a player owns are Philosophy (green-yellow)
and Wonder of the World (blue-orange), he gains 2 bonus VPs. [Nor would this
change if the player also owned both Cultural Ascendancy (blue) and Mathemat-
ics (blue-green) as well.]

Siphon Water Cards from Players' Hands

A "0" Water Card can be discarded during the Movement phase to turn any chosen "0" popula-
tion-limit area into a "1" population-limit area for all purposes, but only for this turn.
o Placed a blue bead in the affected area, indicating a temporary oasis or hot springs.
This population limit increase immediately applies to that area for all players.
o Yes, a player with Agriculture can now keep two population tokens in this area.
To maintain this area as a "1" population limit during the next turn, another water card will have
to be discarded during that turn's Movement phase, etc.
In this way a "0" population-limit area can even get a Wilderness City, albeit a precarious one.
 p. 49
Just for Fun
When players purchase specific Civilization Advances, they may gain an additional discount of
10 if certain complete commodity sets (or say, sets of at least three) are being turned in by you
during this turn.
o Ochre, Flax, or Livestock when purchasing Agriculture.
o Stone or Marble when purchasing Sculpture or Monument.
o Papyri when purchasing Written Record.
o Iron when purchasing Metalworking or Military; Herbs or Oil for Medicine.
o Gold when purchasing Monarchy; Silver when purchasing Coinage.
o Clay when purchasing Pottery; Lead when purchasing Public Works.
You could even institute a majority thumbs up/thumbs down voting mechanism from among the
other players after arguing your case.
o Tea when purchasing Urbanism.
o Wine when purchasing Diplomacy.
o Pearls or Gemstone when purchasing Anatomy.