Advanced Civilization

Lore & Background

Advanced Civilization enhances the game as much as it expands it, clarifying rules and simplifying certain aspects of play. New features include assigning points to position on the Archaeological Succession Table (AST) rather than voiding a player from winning who has fallen behind, a fixed set of new Civilization cards, six new commodity cards, five new calamity cards (Civil War, Famine, Plague, Piracy, and Volcano), introduction of non-tradeable calamities, nine new Civilization cards including a religion group (which consists of multiple cards), simplified trade, and rules for eight players as well as late-comers and those leaving early.

Reader's Guide

Gameplay is broadly similar to Civilization, with most phases having minor alterations that simplify or rebalance play. Major differences include more resource types, additional calamities, and calamities that cannot be discarded or held—a player holding a calamity after trading becomes its primary victim, encouraging trading of tradable calamity cards. Trading rules are simplified: each player must trade three or more cards but only honestly state the number of cards and the name of two cards, not the total point value. Victory is determined by points rather than being first to reach the end of the AST; the largest share of points typically comes from civilization cards, followed by AST position, with other points from cities in play, trade cards, and treasury tokens. A video game version, Avalon Hill's Advanced Civilization, was created with slightly modified rules for computer play.

Did You Know?

• Advanced Civilization was published in 1995 by Avalon Hill.
• Ownership of the original Civilization game is necessary to play Advanced Civilization.
• The game introduces non-tradeable calamities and a religion group of Civilization cards.

A Blueprint for a Genre

Francis Tresham's 1980 design, first brought to UK shelves by Hartland Trefoil and to American tables by Avalon Hill the following year, quietly planted seeds that would reshape the entire strategy gaming landscape. Civilization is widely regarded as one of the most consequential titles in the strategy genre, with designers and scholars citing it as a foundational pillar for both the grand strategy and 4X subgenres that dominate modern gaming. Perhaps its single most enduring contribution is the technology tree. The game was the first to implement this mechanic, in which players unlock new items and abilities only after acquiring specific prerequisites. That cascading dependency structure became a staple across countless board games and video games that followed. The Civilization brand has since passed into Hasbro's portfolio, and after languishing out of print for many years, the title found new life through a 2018 republication by Gibsons Games, introducing the experience to a generation that had only ever heard its name in passing.

A Mediterranean Stage for Cooperation

The game unfolds across a board depicting the regions surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, with each of the two to seven players assuming the role of a historic civilization and beginning in the area geographically appropriate to that culture. The overarching objective is to be the first to reach the final space on the Archaeological Succession Table, a fifteen-step progression running from 8,000 B.C. to 250 B.C. What sets Civilization apart from its contemporaries is its deliberate de-emphasis on warfare. Rather than rewarding military conquest, the design actively encourages trade and cooperation among players as the primary engines of advancement. Conflict remains entirely permissible and can become unavoidable, since the board's geography is intentionally constrained to limit each player's room for expansion. This structural pressure forces civilizations into contact, whether through diplomacy, negotiation, or armed struggle. A single game typically stretches beyond eight hours, and because players rarely satisfy every advancement criterion on the first attempt, sessions usually extend well past fifteen turns, creating a long, layered narrative of growth.

The Art of the Trade

At the heart of Civilization's economy lies a trading system of remarkable elegance and tension. As players convert growing populations into cities, they earn access to trade cards representing eleven distinct commodities, from humble grain and iron to precious gems and spice. Each commodity's point value equals the number of cities required to unlock it, and the true reward comes from collecting multiple cards of the same type, since the payout squares the card count and multiplies by the commodity value. A single salt card is worth three points, but three salt cards yield twenty-seven, and a full set of nine delivers a staggering two hundred and forty-three. Because total card counts differ per commodity, every resource remains strategically relevant. The twist that makes trade sessions legendary is the calamity card: eight disaster tokens, including volcanic eruptions, famine, and civil war, are shuffled into the pool. A player must truthfully name one card in their offer and state the total point value, but the rest can be concealed, allowing a volcano to be smuggled into a deal. The player left holding a calamity at the end of trading suffers its devastating effects, and the resulting haggling often becomes the loudest, most exuberant part of the game.

A Life in Editions

Civilization's publication journey reflects the turbulent economics of the board game industry. The original 1980 Hartland Trefoil edition in the UK featured a cover depicting an antique Greek temple, an Egyptian fresco, and baskets, with the game board printed as a single multifold sheet. Avalon Hill's American release followed in 1981, and its second edition reimagined the packaging with a two-piece board and a striking cover: three figures drawn from the 1964 film The Fall of the Roman Empire and the 1961 movie King of Kings—Stephen Boyd as a Roman legionary general, Alec Guinness as a Greek or Roman statesman, and Rita Gam as a Judaean or Minoan noblewoman—set above a collage of the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Nile, and an erupting Mount Vesuvius. A 1988 edition from Gibsons Games, Welt der Spiele, and Piatnik brought the game to English and German markets with a cover showing six Mediterranean figures, while Descartes issued a French version in 1989. After years out of print, Gibsons Games revived the title in 2018, and the brand now sits under Hasbro's umbrella.

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