Mega Civilization Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Components
General Rules and Clarifications
Setting Up the Game
Map-board Setups
- The 18 Civilizations and Their Regions
Sequence of Play
Leaving the Game
Card-specific Rules - The Calamities
Card-specific Rules - Civilization Advances
The Short Game
- How to Set Up The Short Game?
- Start
Division of Trade Cards
- 5-8 Players / 9-10 Players / 9, 11 Players
- 12-14 Players / 15-18 Players

Game Components

4 map-boards

2074 tokens — 18 civilizations, consisting of:

55 population tokens (+1 spare) — one distinct color/design per civilization
9 cities
4 ships
2 AST / Census markers (+2 spare)

Credit tokens

30 population-credit tokens of value 5, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 10, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 20, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 50, in 5 colors
4 population-credit tokens of value 100, in 5 colors
City-credit tokens (temple, urn, triskele/knowledge, and star icons) of value 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100

Barbarians

18 Pirate cities
50 Barbarian tokens

Turn markers — 1 turn marker (+1 spare)

Out of play tokens — 70

18 player mats, each listing the Treasury, Sequence of Play, and Stock areas

1 double sided A.S.T. (Archeological Succession Table) — a Basic side and an Expert side

1 census track

840 trade cards

Blue set: 201 Western trade cards, 201 Eastern trade cards, 18 Water-cards, 7 Spare cards
Orange set: 172 Western trade cards, 172 Eastern trade cards, 18 Water-cards, 7 Spare cards
Player sequence cards: 18 numbered cards
18 "The Short Game" scenario cards, 8 Spare cards

729 Civilization Advance cards — 724 Civilization Advances, 5 Spare cards

10 Double sided player aids — a Strategy Explorer side and a 'Calamity Resolution' quick-chart side

1 Rulebook

1 "The First Game" scenario booklet

12 Trade card holders

1 set of ziplock bags for storage

1 Certificate of authenticity

General Rules and Clarifications

If this is the first time you are reading the manual, it is recommended that you skip this chapter for now and play 'The First Game' as described in the separate booklet.

The Player Mats

Each player uses a player mat to store his playing pieces. The player mat is divided into two parts: treasury and stock, divided by the 'sequence of play'. During the game it is important to note in which areas of the mat tokens will be kept. A player has 55 population tokens, 9 cities and 4 ships. The 55 tokens are two-sided: one side serves as population, while the other serves as treasury. So each of his 55 tokens is either on the board, in stock or in treasury. Ships and cities are either on the board or in stock, but never in treasury.

Units

Population tokens and cities are further referred to as 'Units'. Ships do not count as units.

Stock

By default, each player's playing pieces are placed in the stock-area with the colored side up and are considered to be 'in stock'. If a playing piece is destroyed or removed from the board, it is never removed from the game but always returned to stock. If a player pays treasury, the treasury tokens are turned over and moved to stock. Tokens that are placed on the board are always taken from stock and, unless clearly specified, are always placed with the colored side up.

Treasury

Some rules force or allow players to transfer tokens to the treasury-area. These tokens are then referred to as 'treasury tokens' or 'in treasury'. Any tokens in treasury must be flipped upside down to show the white side. The amphorae are the symbol for a player's treasury. Tokens in treasury are not regarded as population tokens.

Map-board Definitions

Adjacent areas. Unless clearly specified 'an adjacent area' means 'sharing a border'.

Areas adjacent by land; share at least a land border.
Areas adjacent by water; share at least a water border.

Markings in Areas

Population limit; a circle containing a number from 0 to 4.
Open Sea area; contains strictly water and have no population limits.
Coastal area; an area that contains land and water (indirectly) connected to an open sea area. Areas containing inland seas such as 'Anatolia' (map-board 2) or 'Nis' (map-board 3) are not considered 'Coastal Areas'.
Area-name; If an area has no name, it is regarded to be not on the map.
Starting location; an area containing a Civilization's name and symbol.
City site; a black or white stone gate-symbol in an area.
Volcano; a volcano symbol in an area or on the border of 2 areas. A volcano on the border of 2 areas is considered to be in both areas.
Flood plain; dark green stretch of land extending over parts of 1 or more areas. All areas fully or partly covered by a single flood plain are considered to be 'on the flood plain'. City sites on a flood plain show a white color. Black city sites in an area with a flood plain are considered to be not on that flood plain and thus safe.

Additional notes

Open sea areas are considered to be always in play, even though their area name is printed on a different map-board piece. Although the area-name for 'Caspian Sea' is printed on both map-board 2 and 3, this is considered to be one area.

Civilization Advances

A Civilization Advance card shows: a group color & symbol, the name of the Civilization Advance, a second group color & symbol (in case of a dual group), Victory Points, a cost price, color credits, attributes (with any additional credits), and specific credits to a single card.

Groups / colors

The cards are divided in 5 groups represented by colors as well as symbols: Science (green star), Arts (blue harp), Crafts (orange vase), Civics (red temple) and Religion (yellow tribal). Some Civilization Advances belong to 2 groups rather than just 1.

Victory Points

On the right top side of each card, it shows either 1, 3 or 6 Victory Points in a banner symbol. The points are counted at the end of the game to determine the winner.

Attributes

Most Civilization Advances show one or more attributes that apply to the holder of the card exclusively. These attributes typically provide calamity protection or benefits in play, however, sometimes they might aggravate certain calamity effects in addition to these benefits. Special Abilities can be used once a turn during a specific phase called Special Abilities-phase.

Credits and credit symbols

Once a player acquires a Civilization Advance, he receives the credit tokens printed on the left side of the card. These credits give a bonus when purchasing other Civilization Advances of the same group. Some Civilization Advances provide additional credit tokens; these credits are then mentioned in the attributes. A majority of the Civilization Advances provide additional credits to a specific card.

Trade Cards

It is important to keep a division between 'blue marked' cards and 'orange marked' cards (blue and orange cards have different backsides). Orange marked cards are only used in games of 12-18 players.

The trade cards are divided in 2 groups: 'Commodities' and 'Calamities'.

Commodities show trading goods.
Calamities show an illustration and either the indication 'Minor Calamity', 'Major Calamity' or 'Major Calamity (Non Tradeable)'.

Archeological Succession Table (A.S.T.)

The Archeological Succession Table (further called A.S.T.) has two sides. One side shows the 'Basic A.S.T.', the other side is the 'Expert A.S.T.' for experienced players. We suggest to start your first games using the 'Basic A.S.T.'. The A.S.T. is divided into 6 epochs: Stone age, Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age and Late Iron Age. Players start placing their succession marker in the arrow on the left and after each turn, if players meet the requirements mentioned on top, they may move their succession marker 1 space to the right. These rows vary per player and each civilization must stick to his own requirements per step on the A.S.T.

A.S.T.-ranking / A.S.T.-position

'A.S.T.-ranking' or 'A.S.T.-order' is specified as the vertical position on the list of civilizations as printed on the A.S.T., from the top to the bottom, irrespective of the horizontal position of succession markers.
'A.S.T.-position' is specified as the horizontal position of the actual succession markers. The marker furthest to the right is considered to be highest in position order. Ties are broken by A.S.T.-ranking order.

Whenever 'A.S.T.-order' is mentioned this refers to 'A.S.T.-ranking' order.

At any time, if a tie occurs between players' activities and it is not clearly specified how to break the tie, it is resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order.

A turn marker is used to show the number of turns played.

Setting Up the Game

Mega Civilization is a game that can be played from 5 up to 18 players.

There are some differences in the setup rules when playing with 5-8 players, 9-11 players, 12-14 players or 15-18 players. When starting a game, you should follow these adjustments accordingly if mentioned.

If this is your first game, it is recommended that you use the scenario 'The First Game' which is designed to explain the rules to any new group of preferably 5 players. 'The First Game'-scenario will take 1-2 hours.

Once you have finished 'The First Game' you are ready to start a full game.

Setting Game Limits for the Full Game

You can choose between either side of the A.S.T. These show the Basic or Expert version. The basic A.S.T. is recommended for beginners and regular players, where the Expert version is served for the more experienced groups of players. The Expert version will take 1-2 more turns and thus 1-2 hours more than the Basic version. The Expert version has some added rules which will be explained later.

You may consider setting your own time limit. If no specific game limit is set, by default the game ends if the succession marker of 1 or more players has entered the 'Late Iron Age' epoch on the A.S.T. A full game of Mega Civilization will take approximately 10-12 hours to complete, depending on the number of players and their experience. Regard the additional time needed for taking breaks during the game.

If you want a shorter game (6-8 hours), follow the rules for setting up 'The Short Game'. This scenario is not a beginners scenario, but a shorter version of the game for experienced players.

Selecting the Map-board

The game is divided into 'West' and 'East' which can be played independently by 5-9 players. For 10 players 'West' is played and for 11 players 'East' is played. For 12-18 players, 'West' and 'East' are combined and then referred to as 'blocks'.

Depending on the number of players, use the setups as defined in chapter 5. Map-board setups (page 14).

Take the playing pieces for only the civilizations mentioned in this setup and leave the others in the box. You will also need the set of black Barbarian tokens and pirate cities for later in the game.

Regions

Each civilization is associated with a 'region'; a group of areas which are most commonly occupied by the civilization. This does not mean that players should not try to occupy areas assigned to another civilization's region. In fact, to win the game, players will have to expand their boundaries. The regions are specified at the map-board setups.

Deal the numbered startup cards after which, in order, each player may choose a civilization to play. Each player receives a player mat and places all 55 population tokens, 9 cities and 4 ships on the 'stock' area of his player mat (colored side up). Each player takes 1 token from stock and places it on the corresponding starting location on the map-board.

Keep in mind that when playing both blocks combined (12 to 18 players), players from the East and West blocks do not necessarily start on the 2 most Eastern or Western map-boards respectively (see also page 16). It is clearly specified in the setups which civilizations belong to either East or West. Players should remember to which block they belong and for the remainder of the game draw only trade cards from that block.

For each player, place a census marker on the Census track (in the large empty area above '1-12') and a succession marker in the arrow on the A.S.T.

Place a turn marker on turn 1 on the A.S.T.

Sort out all Civilization Advances and create stacks sorted in ascending cost price order. Sort out the Credit tokens and place them next to the Civilization Advances. It is not necessary to place the 51 stacks directly within reach.

Selecting Trade Cards

This is an important part of setting up the game.

The game is provided with trade cards containing either blue E/W-symbols or orange E/W-symbols. The blue set and the orange set have different backsides. There is no situation where these two types are mixed. For each number of players involved an exact selection of trade cards is used. You can use the 'Division of Trade cards'-chart (page 46/47) to select the right sets of commodities and calamities.

In all cases the 'water' commodities are used. Place a stack of water cards face up next to all other trade cards. The function will be explained later.

5-9 players (Choose either West or East)

For a game of 5-9 players, only cards containing the blue symbols are used. If you play 'West' then only take the cards showing a 'W'. The same applies to cards showing an 'E' when playing 'East'. Take only the cards showing the right number of players (right of the E/W-symbol).

10 players (West)

In a 10-player game, the only option is to play 'West'. All cards containing the blue W-symbols are used in this case.

11 players (East)

In an 11-player game, the only option is to play 'East'. All cards containing the blue E-symbols are used in this case.

12-14 players

For a game of 12-14 players, it is divided into 2 combined games. 'West' uses only cards containing the orange W-symbols. 'East' uses only cards containing the orange E-symbols. Take only the cards showing the right number of players (right of the E/W-symbol).

15-18 players

For a game of 12-18 players, it is divided into 2 combined games. 'West' uses only cards containing the orange W-symbols. 'East' uses only cards containing the orange E-symbols. All orange cards are used for 15-18 players.

Preshuffling Trade Cards

From the start of the game, the trade cards are not just randomly piled in stacks, but are prepared in a defined order. To prepare this, follow the specific instructions depending on the number of players.

Setting Up the Game for 5-8 Players

Make sure the following cards are present:

If playing West: 9 ochre, 9 clay, 8 papyri, 8 iron, 8 fish, 9 fruit, 7 wool, 8 oil, 6 wine, 7 textiles, 5 tin, 6 copper, 5 resin, 6 incense, 4 marble, 5 gemstones, 4 ivory, 5 gold. Plus the 8 Major Calamities (Non Tradeable) and the 8 Major Calamities (Tradeable).

If playing East: 9 flax, 9 hides, 8 stone, 8 furs, 8 timber, 9 salt, 7 cotton, 8 sugar, 6 lacquer, 7 livestock, 5 silver, 6 bronze, 5 jade, 6 spice, 4 dye, 5 tea, 4 silk, 5 pearls. Plus the 8 Major Calamities (Non Tradeable) and the 8 Major Calamities (Tradeable).

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards into 9 stacks (per number).

For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn (cards kept face down):

Shuffle the combination of both sets of commodities (without the calamities).
From this stack, set an amount of cards aside equal to the number of players.
Shuffle the Tradeable Major Calamity through the stack of remaining commodities (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity at the bottom of the stack.
Place the cards previously set aside on top of the stack.

Place all 9 stacks in their stack holders and use the same number of holders for discard piles.

Additional rules for 5 and 6 players — For a 5-player game only, each player collects 1 credit token worth 10 of each color at the start of the game. For a 6-player game only, each player collects 1 credit token worth 5 of each color at the start of the game.

Setting Up the Game for 9-11 Players

Make sure the following cards are present:

When playing West (9 or 11 players): 9 ochre, 9 clay, 8 bone, 8 papyri, 8 iron, 8 wax, 8 fish, 9 fruit, 8 ceramics, 7 wool, 8 oil, 8 grain, 6 wine, 7 textiles, 6 glass, 5 tin, 6 copper, 6 lead, 5 resin, 6 incense, 6 herbs, 4 marble, 5 gemstones, 4 obsidian, 4 ivory, 5 gold, 4 amber and all 24 calamities.

When playing East (9 or 10 players): 9 flax, 9 hides, 8 bone, 8 stone, 8 furs, 8 wax, 8 timber, 9 salt, 8 ceramics, 7 cotton, 8 sugar, 8 grain, 6 lacquer, 7 livestock, 6 glass, 5 silver, 6 bronze, 6 lead, 5 jade, 6 spice, 6 herbs, 4 dye, 5 tea, 4 obsidian, 4 silk, 5 pearls, 4 amber and all 24 calamities.

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards into 9 stacks (per number).

Each stack contains 3 different sets of commodities and 3 different calamities.

From these sets of commodities, for each stack a single set is referred to as 'The additional set of commodities'. These are bone - wax - ceramics - grain - glass - lead - herbs - obsidian - amber. This additional set must be separated from the rest.

For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 2 regular sets of commodities and only the Minor Calamity (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards.
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place all 9 stacks in their stack holders and use the same number of holders for discard piles.

Setting Up the Game for 12-14 Players

A game of 12-14 players uses 2 separate 'blocks' of 9 stacks. Cards used for the 'West'-block must contain an orange W-symbol. Cards used for the 'East'-block must contain an orange E-symbol. Make sure the following cards are present:

	West	East
stack 1	9 ochre, 5 clay, 4 hides	9 flax, 4 clay, 5 hides
stack 2	8 papyri, 4 iron, 4 furs	8 stone, 4 iron, 4 furs
stack 3	8 fish, 5 fruit, 4 salt	8 timber, 4 fruit, 5 salt
stack 4	7 wool, 4 oil, 4 sugar	7 cotton, 4 oil, 4 sugar
stack 5	6 wine, 4 textiles, 3 livestock	6 lacquer, 3 textiles, 4 livestock
stack 6	5 tin, 3 copper, 3 bronze	5 silver, 3 copper, 3 bronze
stack 7	5 resin, 3 incense, 3 spice	5 jade, 3 incense, 3 spice
stack 8	4 marble, 3 gemstones, 2 tea	4 dye, 2 gemstones, 3 tea
stack 9	4 ivory, 3 gold, 2 pearls	4 silk, 2 gold, 3 pearls

From the calamities select only the Major Calamities of either block and add these to the selection of the appropriate blocks (16 calamities per block). The Minor Calamities are not used.

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards including commodities and Major Calamities per number into 9 stacks.

For either block, each stack contains 1 complete set of commodities and 2 broken sets (for which the other part is in the other block).

The full sets of the following commodities are referred to as 'The additional set of commodities':

West: ochre - papyri - fish - wool - wine - tin - resin - marble - ivory.
East: flax - stone - timber - cotton - lacquer - silver - jade - dye - silk.

For the purpose of setting up a 12-14 player game, these complete sets must be separated from the others.

Set up either block separately. For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 2 broken sets of commodities.
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place each of the 9 West stacks in their appropriate West stack holder, use an equal number of holders for West discard piles and then do the same for East.

Additional rules for 12 players — For a 12-player game only, each player collects 1 credit token worth 5 of each color at the start of the game.

Setting Up the Game for 15-18 Players

A game of 15-18 players uses 2 separate blocks of 9 stacks. Cards used for the 'West'-block must contain an orange W-symbol. Cards used for the 'East'-block must contain an orange E-symbol. Make sure the following cards are present:

	West	East
stack 1	9 ochre, 5 clay, 4 hides, 4 bone	9 flax, 4 clay, 5 hides, 4 bone
stack 2	8 papyri, 4 iron, 4 furs, 4 wax	8 stone, 4 iron, 4 furs, 4 wax
stack 3	8 fish, 5 fruit, 4 salt, 4 ceramics	8 timber, 4 fruit, 5 salt, 4 ceramics
stack 4	7 wool, 4 oil, 4 sugar, 4 grain	7 cotton, 4 oil, 4 sugar, 4 grain
stack 5	6 wine, 4 textiles, 3 livestock, 3 glass	6 lacquer, 3 textiles, 4 livestock, 3 glass
stack 6	5 tin, 3 copper, 3 bronze, 3 lead	5 silver, 3 copper, 3 bronze, 3 lead
stack 7	5 resin, 3 incense, 3 spice, 3 herbs	5 jade, 3 incense, 3 spice, 3 herbs
stack 8	4 marble, 3 gemstones, 2 tea, 2 obsidian	4 dye, 2 gemstones, 3 tea, 2 obsidian
stack 9	4 ivory, 3 gold, 2 pearls, 2 amber	4 silk, 2 gold, 3 pearls, 2 amber

Select all calamities of either block and add these to the selection of the appropriate blocks (24 calamities per block).

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards including commodities and calamities per number into 9 stacks per block.

For either block, each stack contains 1 complete set of commodities and 3 broken sets (for which the other part is in the other block).

The full sets of the following commodities are referred to as 'The additional set of commodities':

West: ochre - papyri - fish - wool - wine - tin - resin - marble - ivory.
East: flax - stone - timber - cotton - lacquer - silver - jade - dye - silk.

For the purpose of setting up a 15-18-player game, these complete sets must be separated from the others.

Set up either block separately. For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 3 broken sets of commodities and the Minor Calamity (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards.
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place each of the 9 West stacks in their appropriate West stack holder, use an equal number of holders for West discard piles and then do the same for East.

When playing East and West combined (12-18 players): It is recommended to select 2 players (or independent game masters) to take care of either block separately. This involves dealing cards, sorting out cards, reshuffling them and so on.

When playing with separate blocks, if there is enough room, it may be wise to split the stacks of Civilization Advances for either block. This way it creates shorter queues at 'the shop'.

At all times, if players demand, they may look at the 'Division of Trade cards' chart (page 46/47). It provides a clear overview of how trade cards are divided over the trade cards stacks.

Map-board Setups

The civilizations mentioned and the colored parts are the areas being used. Place 'out of play' tokens on the population limit of each area that is grayed out in the map-board setup. The regions-divisions in the last two images represent the same areas that are being used for each specific civilization.

The rulebook provides one map-board illustration for every player count from 5 to 18, showing exactly which areas of the four map-boards are in play and which civilizations occupy them (refer to the physical map-boards and the illustrations in the printed rulebook, pages 14-17, for the precise area boundaries). The player counts and notes are:

Map-board West with 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 players.
Map-board East with 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 players.
Map-board 10 players. All civilizations are considered West.
Map-board 11 players. All civilizations are considered East.
Map-board 12 players (6 players West - 6 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 13 players (6 players West - 7 players East). Assyria and Egypt are considered East for this setup.
Map-board 14 players (7 players West - 7 players East). Assyria and Egypt are considered East for this setup.
Map-board 15 players (8 players West - 7 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 16 players (8 players West - 8 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 17 players (8 players West - 9 players East).
Map-board 18 players (9 players West - 9 players East).

The 18 Civilizations and Their Regions

The full Western map shows the regions of Assyria, Egypt, Hatti, Minoa, Hellas, Celt, Rome, Carthage, and Iberia. The full Eastern map shows the regions of Maurya, Dravidia, Kushan, Indus, Persia, Parthia, Babylon, Saba, and Nubia.

Sequence of Play

Turn-by-turn Procedure

An orange box describes general rules. A gray box describes specific adjustments based on the number of players used.

The game turn — The game is played in turns, divided into phases, which in turn may be divided into several steps. During each phase most activities are resolved simultaneously by all players or sometimes in a specific order. At the end of each turn, players check whether goals are reached and start a new turn or determine victory.

A.S.T.-ranking order — At any time, if a tie occurs between players' activities, unless clearly specified, it is resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order. Players do not necessarily need to stick to this order and may act before their turn to speed up play. However, players may insist on waiting for their turn. In all other cases, players must follow the right order as specified. Players may never proceed to a new phase before their turn.

The Beneficiary — At several points, the rules speak of 'the beneficiary'. This is a player that often acts as the controller of an event and is often immune to certain negative effects. A player may or may not directly benefit from being the 'beneficiary'.

The beneficiary is usually defined as: The player with the most cities in stock. In case of a tie, from these players, the player with the most tokens in stock becomes the beneficiary. Next, from these players, A.S.T.-ranking order breaks ties. In case of calamities there is a more specific definition described in chapter 8. Card Specific Rules - The Calamities (page 33).

The Order of Phases

Tax collection
Population expansion (and Census)
Movement
Conflict
City construction (and Remove surplus population and Check for city support)
Trade cards acquisition
Trade
Calamity selection
Calamity resolution
Special abilities
Remove surplus population (and Check for city support)
Civilization advances acquisition
A.S.T.-alteration

1. Tax Collection

Order: Simultaneously

1a. Tax Collection

All players must transfer a number of tokens from stock to treasury equal to their tax rate for each of their cities on the map-board and flip them upside down in the treasury box. The default 'tax rate' is 2 and this may be adjusted later in the game through specific Civilization Advances. Players cannot choose to refrain from collecting tax. As long as all players have sufficient tokens in stock to comply, step 1b can be skipped.

Example: John has 5 cities on the board. He must transfer 10 tokens from stock to treasury.

1b. Tax Revolts

It might occur that 1 or more players do not have sufficient tokens in stock to collect their taxes. If this occurs, all other players must first finish their tax collection as usual. Players that had insufficient tokens in stock move all their tokens in stock to treasury.

For each city that this player could not collect tax from, 'the beneficiary' may choose and annex 1 of his cities, referred to as 'tax revolt'. This beneficiary does not collect taxes for any newly gained cities this way in the same turn. In this phase no check for city support is made.

Example: Michael has 5 cities on the board. He must transfer 10 tokens from stock to treasury, but he has only 7 tokens in stock. He must transfer all 7 to treasury and 2 of his cities revolt. Frank has the most cities in stock and becomes the beneficiary. He may choose 2 of Michael's cities and replace them with his own, from stock.

If more than 1 player are victims of a tax revolt, the tax revolts are resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order. A victim of a tax revolt cannot be the beneficiary of his own or any other player's tax revolt during the same turn.

2. Population Expansion

Order: Simultaneously, but may be resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order if desired.

2a. Population Expansion

Each player must place tokens from stock in each area containing his tokens:

1 token in each area containing 1 of his tokens and 2 tokens in each area containing 2 or more of his tokens (so an area containing 3 or 4 tokens only gets an additional 2; not 3 or 4).

If an area contains tokens belonging to more than 1 player, all of these players may expand population in this area as usual. It is very common that tokens are added to an area in excess of its population limit.

Tip: It is preferable to place each expanded token upside down so that each player can clearly see which tokens were originally situated in the area and which are expanded. Flip all tokens to the colored side when finished.

If a player does not have sufficient tokens in stock to complete his population expansion, he may choose where to add available tokens from stock regarding the above guidelines. This may include re-dividing his previously placed tokens this turn. Players cannot choose to expand less tokens than possible. Adding tokens during the Population Expansion-phase is not considered attacking. Barbarian tokens do not expand.

2b. Census

After a player has expanded his population according to the rules he must count all of his tokens on the board and change the status of his Census-marker on the Census track (cities and ships are not counted).

Tip: Since a player has exactly 55 tokens, sometimes it is easier to count the tokens in stock and treasury combined and subtract this number from 55.

Place the Census-markers alongside the numbers rather than on top of them. Use the numbers on the Census-markers to indicate their mutual A.S.T.-ranking order, pointing away from the track. Use the inside of the track for players holding 'Military'. Their mutual A.S.T.-order is again defined by the numbers on the Census-markers. Players holding Military move last.

3. Movement

This phase is resolved in Census order. The player with the highest Census takes all of the following actions in turn. After he has finished all steps in this phase, the player with the next highest census-count takes all of these steps and so on, until all players have done so. A.S.T.-ranking order breaks ties. However, it is preferable that players move simultaneously if possible as this speeds up game play. Players may insist to wait for their turn. As long as a player is busy moving, that player may revert any of his moved tokens when changing his mind. However, once the player is done he cannot change his movement. Barbarian tokens do not move.

Players may move each of their tokens on the board 1 step to an area adjacent by land. At any time during their Movement-phase players may choose to build ships. This can only be done in coastal areas containing 1 or more of his tokens. 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.

Players may move each of their ships 4 areas by water per turn. By default, ships cannot be moved through open sea areas. At any moment during ship movement, the ship may embark or disembark any number of tokens, but a ship can only carry up to 5 tokens at the same time by default. After the ship's last step any tokens on it are automatically disembarked in the area. Tokens cannot stay on ships after movement. Tokens may move either by ship or by land (not both). Ships may move through an area containing an 'out of play' token, but cannot end movement or disembark tokens there.

Once a player starts movement with ships built during a previous turn, he must first either pay 1 treasury or sacrifice a token for each ship he has on the board, or destroy each ship he does not want to retain. A player may choose not to maintain a ship, in order to rebuild it in the same turn.

At the end of a player's movement all of his ships that have not moved must either be destroyed or the player must pay 1 treasury/sacrifice 1 token per ship he wants to retain.

Tip: Once a token or ship has moved or if you choose to not move it, flip it upside down. After you are done with all movement, flip them all back to show that you are done.

City building

Cities are only built in the City Construction-phase. However, in order to build a city, players must have at least 6 tokens in an area containing a city site during the Movement-phase. If, after a conflict, a player still has 6 or more tokens in an area he may build a city there in the appropriate phase. Players can also try to build a 'wilderness city' in an area without a city site, but in this case 12 tokens are required. Wilderness cities can never be built in areas with a population limit of '0', regardless of holding any Civilization Advances.

Conflict situations

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. This is regarded as 'causing a conflict'. 'Entering an area' is defined by either moving a token into the area by land, or a token disembarking a ship in the area. The movement of a ship (with or without tokens on it) into an area is not regarded as entering the area, attacking, or causing conflict. If players share an area and the population limit of the area is not exceeded, all tokens co-exist and no conflict situation occurs in this area.

Attacking a city

As soon as a player enters an area containing an enemy city, this is considered 'attacking the city', regardless of the number of tokens used (even if it is 1). To successfully attack a city a player must move at least 7 tokens into the city area or the attack fails. 'Attacking' only applies to attacking a city; tokens can never be attacked.

Defending a city

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. During the Conflict-phase it will first result in a token conflict. Any remaining tokens are regarded as attacking the city, even if the number of tokens proves insufficient. If the city is not attacked successfully, this will eventually result in surplus population.

4. Conflict

Order of resolution in a conflict-phase — There are 2 different types of conflict. Conflict between tokens is defined as 'token conflict'. Conflict between tokens and a city is defined as 'city attack'.

4a. All token conflicts are resolved before all city attacks are resolved. It is preferable to resolve all token conflicts simultaneously. Any possible unsuccessful city attacks are not considered token conflict and these tokens are only removed during the resolution of city attacks. Any foreseen surplus population may not be removed during the Conflict-phase.
4b. After all token conflicts are resolved, all city attacks must be resolved one at a time, in defending A.S.T.-ranking order. If more than 1 city belonging to the same player is attacked, he may choose the order. Attacks on pirate cities are always resolved before any other city attacks.

The barbarians — As the game evolves, eventually barbarian tokens and pirate cities will appear on the board. For the purpose of the Conflict-phase only, other than clearly specified, all barbarian tokens and pirate cities are considered as if they would belong to a single player defined as 'The Barbarians'. If a rule refers to players, this rule may refer to 'The Barbarians' as well, though 'The Barbarians' do not benefit from any Civilization Advances.

4a. Resolution of Token Conflicts

Token conflicts are resolved in 'rounds of token removal'. For each area in which a token conflict occurs, players must count all tokens involved. The player(s) having the minority must first remove 1 of their tokens (removed tokens are destroyed and returned to stock). Next the following player(s) must remove 1 of their tokens from the area until all players involved have done so. If players have an equal number of tokens to start with, they must remove their tokens simultaneously.

After each player has removed a token, the check for majority is done again and tokens are removed again, and so forth. At any moment the population limit is no longer exceeded or a single player is the only player occupying the area (even if he exceeds the population limit), the conflict immediately ends in this area. Any excess tokens remain in the area. It may occur that by removing tokens simultaneously the area ends up depopulated or occupied by less tokens than the population limit.

When a city under attack is defended by tokens or when more than 2 players are involved in a city attack, a conflict between the tokens is resolved first. Any remaining tokens may still be counted to attack the city.

4b. Resolution of City Attacks

For each city attack, first define whether the attack is successful or not. By default, an attack is unsuccessful if the attacker has less than 7 tokens in the area (this may be altered by players holding 'Engineering'). In the case of an unsuccessful attack, all tokens from the attacking player in the city area are destroyed.

Resolution of a successful city attack

A successful city attack is divided in 4 steps and each city attack must be resolved completely, one at a time, in the following order:

The defending player replaces his city by 6 of his tokens from stock. If he has insufficient tokens, he replaces it with whatever tokens he has left in stock, even if it is 0. 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.
A token conflict is resolved following the exact same rules as a normal token conflict.
As a result of the successful attack, the attacking player may choose to draw a trade card at random from the defending player's hand. If the defending player does not hold any trade cards at this point, the attacking player cannot draw a card and this option is canceled. Both players are not allowed to inform the other players which card was drawn.
The attacking player may choose to gain up to 3 treasury. The defending player's treasury is unaffected.

Attacking a pirate city

If a pirate city is successfully attacked, the city is replaced by 6 barbarian tokens. The attacker cannot draw a trade card, but may still gain up to 3 treasury as result of the attack.

5. City Construction

This phase is divided into 3 steps:

5a. City Construction.
5b. Surplus Population Removal.
5c. Check for support and unsupported city reduction.

All players must take all 3 steps in this specific order. All players take their actions simultaneously, but players may choose to take their action in A.S.T.-ranking order.

5a. City Construction

Players may choose to build any number of cities per turn in areas regarding the minimum requirements:

At least 6 tokens in an area with a city site.
At least 12 tokens in an area without a city site (referred to as 'wilderness city'). Cities cannot be built in an area with population limit '0'. Each area can only contain 1 city.

For each city built, the player removes all tokens from the area and places a city in the area from stock. The maximum number of cities in play for any player is 9.

Note: The map-board contains white and black city sites. For the purpose of city construction they are treated in the same way.

5b. Surplus Population Removal

After the player has built his cities, he must immediately remove all of his tokens exceeding the population limits. This includes any tokens in areas containing a city.

Note: 'Agriculture' and 'Public Works' may create exceptions to this rule.

5c. City Support and Reduction

After the player has removed all of his surplus population he must check for city support. By default a player's city support rate is 2. This means that a player should have at least 2 tokens on the board for each of his cities on the board. For each city that he cannot support he should remove one of his choice and replace it with tokens equal to the population limit of that area until he has sufficient city support. This is referred to as 'Reducing a city'. If a player has built any cities this turn he must reduce these cities first. Any tokens newly gained by reduction may immediately count for city support for other cities.

6. Trade Cards Acquisition

IMPORTANT: Before drawing or dealing any cards for the first time, make sure the stacks are set up in the right way as defined in chapter 4. Setting up the game (page 11-13). For any other turn do not forget to check carefully to be sure all cards discarded in the previous turn are shuffled the right way and placed under the appropriate stacks, as mentioned in phase 13b.

Tip: Before drawing cards, write down a list containing the number of cities for each player and have a single player deal all the cards.

Players are not allowed to conceal their total hand size of trade cards.

6a. Drawing Trade Cards

The player with the least number of cities on the board first draws a number of trade cards equal to the number of his cities in play. Then, the player with the next least number of cities in play draws his trade cards as described. If more than 1 player has the same number of cities in play, the player with the highest A.S.T.-ranking order draws first. Players without cities draw no trade cards.

Players may look at the cards they draw but are not allowed to inform other players what they drew (it may be a commodity or a calamity). If at any point a stack is empty, a player does not draw a substitute card from another stack. Instead he draws a 'water' card, which can be used as a trade card worth '0'.

Example: Ronald (Minoa) has 3 cities, so he draws first. He draws from stack 1, 2 and 3. Judith (Hellas) and Tony (Egypt) both have 5 cities, but Hellas is higher on the A.S.T. than Egypt, so for their mutual order Hellas draws first. Judith draws from stack 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. (card 4 turns out to be a calamity). Tony would draw from stack 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, but stack 2 is empty, so he draws from stack 1, receives a 'water' card and draws from stack 3, 4 and 5.

6b. Additional Purchases

After all players have drawn their regular trade cards, in the exact same order as step 6a, each player may choose to purchase any number of additional trade cards, one by one, and/or pass. By default players can only purchase a trade card from stack 9 for 15 treasury tokens. Players are not allowed to count the number of cards left on a particular stack (unless the stack is empty). A player must pay treasury before receiving the card. If at any moment a stack is empty, players may still choose that stack but receive a 'water' card instead and still pay the same amount of treasury as the initial trade card. After a player receives cards or passes, he cannot revert his choice. A player is not allowed to inform other players what he drew and the player cannot return a card if he does not like the result, for instance if it turns out to be a calamity.

Separate trade card blocks — If the separate trade card blocks East and West are used (12-18 players), the western civilizations draw or purchase cards strictly from the 'West'-block and the same applies to East-cards for eastern civilizations. Even when a stack is empty at one block, a player does not draw a substitute card from the other block, instead he draws a 'water' card.

7. Trade

Time limit — It is recommended to set a time limit of 10 minutes for this phase, using a timer that is visible to all players. Some groups prefer longer or shorter trading times – use what works best for your group.

The value of commodity cards

A single card of a specific commodity is worth its face value, which is equal to the number printed in the first box at the bottom of the card. Two equal cards of a specific commodity are worth the amount equal to the number printed in the second box at the bottom of the card, 3 equal cards of a specific commodity are worth the third box, and so on.

In other words: set value = (number of identical commodity cards)² x (face value of the commodity).

Commodities of the same face value but with different names are worth only their individual face values combined.

Example values: 1 Ceramics card (face value 3) = Value 3. 2 Ceramics cards = Value 12. 3 Iron cards (face value 2) = Value 18. 1 Ceramics + 1 Fruit (same face value 3, but different-named commodities) = Total value 6 (their individual face values combined, not squared together). 8 Oil cards (face value 4) = Value 256.

Calamities

Except for Non Tradeable Calamities, which may never be traded, all other calamities may be included in a trade transaction but cannot be mentioned in a trade offer.

During the Trade-phase, calamities do not have any effect, other than acting as trade cards, though during the Calamity Resolution-phase, any calamities held by a player at that point will resolve eventually.

Trade

The objective is to try and complete sets of equal trade cards to increase their total set value as described above. For each commodity type there are exactly enough cards to complete 1 set of trading cards, which is equal to the number of boxes shown on the commodity. It may turn out that a set cannot be completed during a single turn.

Simultaneously, each player may make trade negotiations with any other player.

Trades cannot involve more than 2 players at a time and each trade must include at least 3 trade cards per player.

For each trade offer (per player) both players must truthfully inform each other on the identity of 2 commodities, as well as the total number of cards involved in their offer. Both players may choose to mention the names of the excess commodities involved in the deal this way, though this information does not necessarily have to be the truth. If more than 2 commodities are mentioned, the first 2 mentioned must be true. Players are not allowed to speak about calamities held or involved in a trade, though players may promise a calamity-free trade offer, which does not need to be true either. Treasury or Civilization Advances cannot be involved, though any other (non-binding) promises such as peace-treaties are allowed.

Once both players agree on a trade, the trade transaction is resolved and all trade cards involved are transferred simultaneously. Other players are not allowed to see which cards are traded. A trade transaction cannot be reverted except when a player receives a Non Tradeable Calamity, a different number of cards than specified, or not at least the first 2 commodities specified. In this case all cards involved are reverted and the players may make new negotiations. Players are not allowed to conduct trade deals in bad faith simply to gain information and revert a deal.

End of trade

As soon as no player is willing or able to trade or if the time limit is reached the trade session ends.

Separate trade card blocks — If the separate trade card blocks East and West are used (12-18 players), players may trade with players from either side. In fact, in this case, most of the time it is the only way to complete a set.

8. Calamity Selection

Calamity limit per player — After this phase players are not allowed to hold more than 3 calamities, 2 of which may be Major Calamities (either Non Tradeable or Tradeable), 3 of which may be Minor Calamities and none of which may be duplicates.

In a game of 5-8 and 12-14 players, no Minor Calamities are used. In this case the rule should be read as 'no more than 2 calamities'. In a game using a single block (up to 11 players), there are no duplicate calamities involved.

All players must truthfully reveal the number (but not the identity) of the calamities they hold by placing the calamities face down in front of them, so that every player can see who holds what number of calamities. These cards are regarded as if they were still held by the player. If at this point nobody holds a calamity, this phase can be skipped.

Regardless of the number of calamities held by a player, if a single player holds any calamities of the same name, he must discard 1 of these at random. If the number of calamities held by a player still exceeds the limit described above, he must discard the excess cards at random until the limit is no longer exceeded. All discarded calamities must be placed on their appropriate discard piles, 1 stack for each number.

Example 1: David holds 3 calamities in an 8-player game: 'Famine', 'Treachery' and 'Barbarian Hordes'. In this phase he has to discard 1 of the cards. He shuffles them face down and his neighbor draws one. He reveals 'Treachery'. This calamity is discarded. David will be the victim of 'Famine' and 'Barbarian Hordes' in the next phase.

Example 2: Jacob holds 5 calamities in a 16-player game: 'Superstition', another 'Superstition', 'Tyranny', 'Squandered Wealth' and 'Coastal Migration'. That is 3 Major Calamities and 2 Minor Calamities. He first has to discard 1 of the 2 'Superstitions' at random. Next, since he still exceeds the limit, 1 of his 4 calamities left is discarded randomly. This could possibly be 'Tyranny', the one he wishes to get rid of most, but also the considerably less harmful 'Squandered Wealth'.

After all calamities are resolved, the calamity cards (and possibly any commodity cards discarded) must be placed on their appropriate discard piles, 1 stack for each number.

At this point no checks are made for surplus population, city support or conflict.

Separate trade card blocks — If 2 players reveal calamities of the same name, these 2 calamities are resolved in A.S.T.-order, but may be resolved simultaneously.

A player cannot be selected as a secondary victim of a specific calamity, when the player: is also the primary victim of a calamity of the same name; has been selected as the secondary victim of a calamity of the same name; is the beneficiary of a calamity with the same name during the same turn. When selecting the beneficiary or secondary victim of a Non Tradeable Calamity, players must choose a player from their own block. It may still occur that a player suffers from secondary damage if one or more areas are selected for the calamity resolution instead of players (for example Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake, Flood, Cyclone).

9. Calamity Resolution

This phase is divided into 2 steps, where first all Minor Calamities are resolved simultaneously, and then, in a specific order, all Major Calamities.

When resolving any calamity, the rules as described in chapter 8 'Card Specific Rules - The Calamities' (page 33) must be respected. The Calamity Resolution Quickchart may be used, but it does not specify every detail or exception and acts as a quick guide.

9a. Minor Calamities

Simultaneously all players must reveal all Minor Calamities that they hold and resolve them simultaneously. Players may wait for players with a higher A.S.T.-ranking, before resolving their own Minor Calamities, if this influences their decisions. If a player is the victim of more than 1 Minor Calamity, his Minor Calamities must be resolved in ascending stack order. Civilization Advances do not directly influence the effects of Minor Calamities.

9b. Major Calamities

One player (or the game master) calls all calamities, one at a time, in order of ascending stack number. Since there are 2 Major Calamities per stack, the Non Tradeable of the two is always called and resolved before the Tradeable is (thus always starting with 'Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake').

Once a player holds a calamity that is called, he must reveal it and resolve it, before the next calamity is called, until all calamities are revealed and resolved.

10. Special Abilities

This phase is resolved in A.S.T.-position order (the player progressed furthest on the A.S.T. is first). Each player using special abilities must wait for his turn.

Special abilities

The attributes on specific Civilization Advances that say 'SPECIAL ABILITY' are referred to as Special Abilities: Diaspora, Fundamentalism, Monotheism, Politics, Provincial Empire, Trade Routes and Universal Doctrine.

The attributes are described in chapter 9 'Card Specific Rules - The Civilization Advances' (page 38).
Special Abilities may be used either entirely or not at all.
Special abilities that refer to units refer to cities and/or population tokens, not ships.
Placing, destroying or annexing units is not considered attacking or causing conflict.
In between any Special Abilities, no check is made for surplus population, city support or conflict.

Protection against special abilities

If a player holds a Civilization Advance that says 'protects against X', this player cannot be the target of another player's Special Ability with name X and his units are unaffected if involved.

In A.S.T.-position order, players may choose to use any of their special abilities in any desired order. Players are not allowed to take their actions before their turn, as this may influence other player's decisions.

11. Remove Surplus Population

Order: simultaneously

In those rare occasions that there is a conflict situation at this point, it is resolved 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, reduce any cities following the same rules as in phase 5b and 5c.

12. Civilization Advances Acquisition

Order: This phase is resolved in A.S.T.-position order (the player progressed furthest on the A.S.T. purchases first), with A.S.T.-ranking as a tiebreaker (the higher player purchases first). If desired, players may make purchases simultaneously, to speed up game-play, but any player may choose to wait for his turn.

Hand limit

After this phase, each player must keep a hand limit of commodity cards, regardless of whether he purchased any Civilization Advances or not. The hand limits vary per number of players:

5-11 players: 8 commodity cards.
12-18 players: 9 commodity cards.

The attributes and clarifications of each advance are described in chapter 9 'Card specific rules - The Advances' (page 38).

Each player may choose to purchase any number of Civilization Advances. Players can spend the trade cards (set value) in any combination with treasury tokens (worth 1 point each). Keep in mind the hand limit of trade cards that is mentioned above. If a player does not purchase anything he must discard his excess trade cards to meet the hand limit mentioned.

Once a player purchases a Civilization Advance he immediately receives the credit tokens printed on it. He keeps these credit tokens for the rest of the game.

The default price of a Civilization Advance is printed on the card. This price may be reduced in the following ways:

Credit tokens a player has received in previous turns;
Additional credits printed on other Civilization Advances players have bought in previous turns.

If a Civilization Advance belongs to 2 groups/colors, the discount from the color with the highest value of credit tokens applies. The credit value of the 2 colors is never combined.

Credit tokens held by a player may be counted for purchasing more than 1 number of Civilization Advances during a single transaction.

Example 1: John has bought 'Music' (80 - blue - arts) in the previous turn. He now has 10 credits to all blue cards (arts) and 5 credits to all yellow cards (religion). If he purchases 'Drama and Poetry' (80 - blue - arts) this turn, he may subtract 10, and buy it for 70. If he would buy 'Mysticism' (50 dual yellow/blue - dual religion/arts) during the same turn, he may subtract 10 from that as well and buy it for 40. Even though 'Mysticism' is both blue and yellow and he also holds 5 yellow credits, he cannot add this to the blue credits, as he should only count the highest color credits.

Example 2: Flo has bought 'Pottery' (60 - orange - crafts) and 'Masonry' (60 - orange - crafts) in a previous turn. He now holds 20 orange credits, 5 green credits and 5 blue credits. He wants to buy 'Agriculture' (120 - orange - crafts). He may subtract the 20 orange credits plus 'Pottery' provides an additional 10 credits to 'Agriculture' alone. Therefore he may buy it for 90 rather than 120. It will provide him with an additional 10 orange credit tokens, so next turn he could subtract 30 from all orange cards.

As long as players have enough trade points, they can purchase any card they like. They do not have to hold any pre-requisite cards. A player can only buy 1 copy of each Civilization Advance. If a player spends trade points, the combined total of trade cards and treasury used is counted. If he spends more points than required he will not receive any 'change', neither in treasury tokens, nor in trade cards.

If players forget to subtract credit points, they will not receive any change in a later phase or turn. It may occur that a player can get a card for free if he has built up sufficient value in credit tokens. The purchase price can never be lower than zero.

Civilization Advances and credit tokens held by players are open for all other players to see. They cannot be exchanged or lost. The attributes on each Civilization Advance only apply to the holder of the card and go into effect as soon as the transaction is completed. All effects and credits are cumulative.

Note: The game does not include 18 copies of each Civilization Advance card. However, all 51 advances are available for each player. The most common Civilization Advances are printed more often than more rarely bought ones. Once a stack of cards runs out, players can use a substitute note instead.

'Strategy Explorer - Quickchart'

When buying Civilization Advances players may use this quickchart to define their strategy. It gives an overview of how the system of all 51 Civilizations is built up in 3 groups of 17 cards. Each card in the low range gives 10 credits to a specific card in the midrange, which in turn gives 20 credits to a specific card in the high range. Also, it shows the color of each card and the number of credits it provides.

Example 3: If Michael bought 'Pottery' in a previous turn, he has 10 credits to all crafts (orange). That would make 'Agriculture' 110. But the card itself gives 10 additional credits to 'Agriculture' as well. Therefore 'Agriculture' will cost 100. If he buys it, this will mean that next turn he has 20 specific credits to 'Democracy', which then will cost 200 instead of 220.

Quickchart chain example: Pottery (60, orange/crafts, 1 VP) → gives 10 credits to Agriculture. Agriculture (120, orange/crafts, 3 VP) → gives 20 credits to Democracy. Democracy (220, red/civics, 6 VP).

13. A.S.T. Alteration

This phase is divided into 5 steps which are resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order.

For the Basic A.S.T. the 6 different epochs and their requirements are:

Stone Age: no requirements.
Early Bronze Age: at least 2 cities.
Middle Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 3 Civilization Advances.
Late Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 3 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 100 each.
Early Iron Age: at least 4 cities and 2 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 200 each.
Late Iron Age: at least 5 cities and 3 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 200 each.

For the Expert A.S.T. the 6 different epochs and their requirements are:

Stone Age: no requirements.
Early Bronze Age: at least 3 cities.
Middle Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 5 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.
Late Bronze Age: at least 4 cities and 12 Civilization Advances.
Early Iron Age: at least 5 cities and 10 Civilization Advances with a cost price of less than 100 each and a total of 38 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.
Late Iron Age: at least 6 cities and 17 Civilization Advances with a cost price of less than 100 each plus 56 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.

Requirements count for both entering and moving through an epoch. The calamity effect of 'Regression' does not prevent a player from advancing during this phase, providing that he fulfills all epoch requirements.

IMPORTANT: After the A.S.T. has been altered:

Check that all trade cards discarded or used this turn have been turned in.
Check that all cards are on the right discard pile.
Follow the right procedure when shuffling all piles.

13a. Succession Markers

In A.S.T.-ranking order, each player checks for the requirements of the next space on his track and takes either of the following actions:

If he meets the requirements his succession marker is moved 1 space forward.
If he does not meet the requirements, his succession marker stays in place this turn.

Additional rules: Only if the Expert version of the A.S.T. is used, if a player has no cities on the board at this point, his succession marker is moved 1 space backward (except for markers in the Stone Age, where there is no requirement).

After all players have checked/moved their A.S.T.-marker, also move the turn marker one space to the right.

13b. Game End

The game ends when the succession marker of 1 or more players enters the final (colored) space. In that case move to 13d: Victory Determination, otherwise finish this phase.

Additional rules: Only if the Expert version of the A.S.T. is used, the game runs for 1 additional turn after 1 or more players have entered the first of 2 final (colored spaces). In this final turn, player's markers may advance, stay in place or move back, even out of the colored zone, but in any case the game ends after this final turn. In this case move to 13d: Victory Determination.

13c. Reshuffling Trade Cards

All trade cards discarded or used this turn must be placed on their appropriate discard piles, 1 stack for each number.

Separate trade card blocks — If the separate trade card blocks East and West are used (12-18 players), all cards belonging to each individual block must be gathered and sorted separately. In this case the following rules must be applied to either block separately.

WARNING: Do not mix any cards from the East and West blocks.

Cards are not shuffled through the remaining stacks. Rather, for each of the 9 discard piles, all cards except for the Non Tradeable Calamity are first shuffled and then placed face down under the remaining stack of trade cards of the appropriate number. Next all Non Tradeable Calamities are placed under each stack accordingly. This way, the remaining undrawn cards are still on top of each stack and the Non Tradeable Calamity is always placed at the bottom.

13d. Victory Determination

At the end of the game, each player is granted the following Victory Points (VP):

Category	Victory Points
Cities	1 VP for the number of cities in play.
Civilization Advances	1 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price of less than 100. 3 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price between 100 and 200. 6 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price of more than 200.
A.S.T. Position	5 VP for every step taken on the A.S.T. These values are printed at the bottom.
A.S.T. Bonus	Only if a single player moves his succession marker into the 'Late Iron Age' epoch he receives a bonus of 5 VP. If more than 1 player did so, this bonus is not granted to anyone.

The player with the highest number of Victory Points is the winner!

If two or more players have the same number of points, ties are broken in the following order:

The position of his succession marker on the A.S.T.
The player with the single largest number of Civilization Advances (in order): worth 6 VP; worth 3 VP.
The total price of all Civilization Advances the player holds.
The highest total value of credit tokens of a single color.
The highest total number of credit tokens.
The number of cities the player has on the board.
The number of tokens the player has on the board.
A.S.T.-ranking order.

Leaving the Game

Leaving the Game Prematurely

Whenever during the game any player should leave the game, the remaining players can agree to continue playing following the rules below.

Before the player quits, finish the current phase. If possible, finish the current turn until just before altering the A.S.T. and shuffling the trade cards.

The player's cards and census/A.S.T.-markers

All Civilization Advances purchased by the leaving player and his credit tokens are discarded.
All trade cards held by the leaving player are discarded, shuffled and placed under in the appropriate stacks during 'Reshuffling Trade Cards' in the A.S.T.-Alteration-phase. It is important that these cards are returned to the stacks, otherwise some commodity sets will be left incomplete!

The player's appearance on the map-board

Remove all of his remaining ships.
Place 1 'out of play' token in each area associated with the region (as mentioned in chapter 5, page 18/19) and remove all of the player's playing pieces, as well as all pirate cities and all barbarian tokens from these areas. All units belonging to other players remain in these areas.
For all of the player's remaining units on the board outside of the player's associated region, replace his tokens by barbarian tokens and his cities by pirate cities. These are considered barbarian tokens and pirate cities and may be attacked as normal.

Units Within 'Out of Play' Areas

There may still be other player's tokens or cities in areas containing an 'out of play' token. In A.S.T.-order, players involved must do the following (applying to these areas only):

Destroy all ships.
Reduce all cities. If a player has insufficient tokens in stock, he places as many tokens as possible following his choice.
Any tokens left must be removed and placed elsewhere on the map-board, providing that these areas already contain 1 of their tokens and no conflict situation occurs.

This should result in no tokens occupying an area containing an 'out of play' token.

All players must make an additional check for surplus population and remove all surplus population.
All players must make an additional check for city support and must reduce unsupported cities.

Note: An area containing an 'out of play' token cannot be used. Exception: the water part of the area may be used to sail a ship through, but a player may neither end his ship-movement, nor disembark tokens in this area, nor enter the area by land.

(Re)joining the Game at a Later Stage

The rules of Mega Civilization do not provide options for players (re-)joining the game once it has already been started. Although this was possible in previous versions of Avalon Hill's Civilization, this feature is no longer supported.

Card-specific Rules - The Calamities

Primary victim / Secondary victim

Each player holding a calamity is referred to as 'The primary victim' of this calamity. Unless clearly specified, the calamity only applies to the primary victim and his tokens, cities and trade cards. Ships and Civilization Advances are unaffected.

Some calamities force a primary victim to assign damage to other players, who are then referred to as 'secondary victims'. He cannot choose to refrain from doing so, except for where there are no (or insufficient) legal targets.

Separate trade card blocks — A player cannot be selected as a secondary victim of a specific calamity, when the player: is also the primary victim of a calamity of the same name, has been selected as a secondary victim of a calamity of the same name, is the beneficiary of a calamity with the same name during the same turn. When selecting the beneficiary or secondary victim of a Non Tradeable Calamity, players must choose a player from their own block. It may still occur that a player suffers from secondary damage if one or more areas are selected for the calamity resolution instead of players (for example Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake, Flood, Cyclone).

Barbarian tokens and pirate cities cannot be selected as secondary victims of a calamity and do not suffer secondary damage from calamities.

Definitions: Unit points, Damage, Reduce, Destroy, Annex, Assign, Coastal

A city is worth 5 unit points, a token is worth 1 unit point. Ships never count as unit points.
X Damage means that the player must remove his units from the board to stock, worth X points.
Reducing a city as taking damage: Players may choose to reduce a city when taking damage. Reducing a city this way means that a player removes a city and replaces it with tokens up to the population limit. For example, if a player replaces a city with 2 tokens, this counts as 5 - 2 = 3 damage. If he has insufficient tokens in stock, he must replace it with whatever he has. If a player has to reduce a city, it may be any city he has on the board. If necessary, in order to take 1 damage, a player may reduce a city to 4 tokens, even exceeding the population limit, in which case the surplus is only removed during 'surplus population removal'.
Reducing a city as a calamity-effect: Apart from damage, some calamities just require the reduction of cities. In this case the cities are replaced by tokens up to the population limit.
Destroying a city means that it is removed but not replaced by tokens (equal to 5 damage).
Annexing unit points means that a player replaces other player's tokens or cities with his own.
Assigning X damage means that a player must name another player to take X damage. Secondary victims may choose from where to remove their units.
Coastal cities are defined as cities in coastal areas. Areas containing lakes do not count as coastal areas.
'To pay treasury' means that the player must transfer exactly this amount of treasury to stock in order to prevent a calamity effect. If the player cannot comply, he cannot use this ability.
'To lose treasury' means that the player must transfer exactly this amount of treasury to stock. If he does not have sufficient treasury, he transfers all his treasury to stock.

The Beneficiary

If a calamity speaks of 'the beneficiary', for each new calamity, this is defined again. This is a player that often acts as the controller of an event and is often immune to certain negative effects. A player may or may not directly benefit from being the 'beneficiary'.

The beneficiary is defined (at the moment of resolution) as: The last player who traded the calamity to the primary victim. If this appears to be untraceable or if the calamity was drawn and not traded, this is the player with the most cities in stock. In case of a tie, from these players, the player with the most tokens in stock becomes the beneficiary. From these players, the A.S.T.-order breaks any ties. The primary victim itself cannot be selected.

The Effect of Civilization Advances

If a player holds a Civilization Advance that increases damage, this applies to himself only. Also, if the Advance prevents damage, he may prevent this for himself only. This may result in the primary victim getting no damage while a secondary victim still does.

The effects of Civilization Advances on a calamity are cumulative.

During this phase no check is made for surplus population, conflict or city support, nor are these actions resolved, even if as result of a calamity, one of these situations might occur or contradict a rule.

Insufficient Units, Cities or Treasury

If for any reason, as a result of a calamity, a player has insufficient cities or tokens to remove, or commodity cards to discard, or has no coastal units where requested, he removes or uses whatever he has available to comply.

Example: Gerart has to reduce 3 cities but only has 2 on the map-board, so he reduces both his cities.

On those occasions where a player can only comply if he exceeds the amount required, he must do so. When resolving calamities the rules as described here must be regarded. The 'Calamity Resolution'-quickchart does not specify every detail, exception or tie-breaker. It only acts as a quick reference.

Minor Calamities

Tempest — Take 2 damage in coastal areas and lose 5 treasury tokens.

Squandered Wealth — Lose 10 treasury tokens.

City Riots — Reduce 1 of your cities and lose 5 treasury tokens.

City in Flames — Destroy 1 of your cities or pay 10 treasury tokens to prevent this.

Tribal Conflict — Take 5 damage.

Minor Uprising — Destroy 1 of your cities.

Banditry — Discard 2 commodity cards of your choice. You may prevent discarding cards by paying 4 treasury tokens per card.

Coastal Migration — Destroy 1 of your coastal cities and lose 5 treasury tokens.

Major Calamities

Volcanic Eruption / Earthquake (Non Tradeable)

Volcanic Eruption: Only if you have a city in an area with a volcano, destroy all units (irrespective of ownership) in the area(s) touched by the volcano. If you have cities in more than 1 area with a volcano, select the volcano that would affect the most of your unit points.

Earthquake: If you have no cities in an area with a volcano, select and destroy 1 city and select and reduce 1 city adjacent by land or water (irrespective of ownership).

In the case of an Earthquake, if you hold Engineering, your city is reduced rather than destroyed.

The Western map-boards and the Eastern map-boards have 3 volcanoes each. Most volcanoes are on the border of two areas, which are both affected. If you have a city in an area with a volcano this calamity is a 'Volcanic Eruption', otherwise it is an 'Earthquake'. If there are 2 Volcanic Eruptions or Earthquakes in a single turn a player may suffer damage from both calamities. In case of an Earthquake, if the only option for the second city is one of your own, you must choose that one.

Treachery — The beneficiary selects and annexes 1 of your cities.

− If you hold Diplomacy the beneficiary selects and annexes 1 additional city.

The beneficiary is the last player that traded the calamity to you. If you drew it yourself, or if it seems to be untraceable, the player with the most cities in stock (in case of a tie the most tokens in stock) is the beneficiary. For each city that cannot be annexed the beneficiary selects and destroys a city.

Famine (Non Tradeable) — Take 10 damage and assign 5 damage to each of 3 players of your choice.

− If you are the primary victim and hold Agriculture, take 5 additional damage.

If you hold Pottery, prevent 5 damage.
If you hold Calendar, prevent 5 damage.

Even if a primary victim can prevent all of his damage, Famine is not canceled and players that can prevent their damage can still be selected as secondary victims.

Slave Revolt — Your city support rate is increased by 2 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. Perform a check for city support and reduce cities until you have sufficient support.

If you hold Mythology, your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.
If you hold Enlightenment, your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. − If you hold Mining, your city support rate is increased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. − If you hold Cultural Ascendancy, your default city support rate is 3, and still is increased by 2 more during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

The default city support rate is 2. Any tokens newly gained by reducing a city this way, may immediately count for your city support.

Flood (Non Tradeable) — Only if you have any units on a flood plain, take 15 damage from the flood plain. If you have any units on more than 1 flood plain, select the flood plain where the most of your units would be affected. All other players with units on the same flood plain take 5 damage from that flood plain as well. Cities built on black city sites are not considered to be on the flood plain. If you have no units on a flood plain, take 5 damage from coastal areas instead.

If you hold Engineering, prevent 5 damage.

In flood plain areas any wilderness cities, cities on a white city site and tokens are considered to be on this flood plain. Any cities built considered on black city sites are safe. If there are 2 Floods in a single turn, a player may suffer damage from both calamities.

Superstition — Reduce 3 of your cities.

If you hold Mysticism, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Deism, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Enlightenment, reduce 1 less city. − If you hold Universal Doctrine, reduce 1 additional city.

Civil War (Non Tradeable) — Select all but 35 of your unit points. All units thus selected must be in areas adjacent to each other if possible. In each of those areas all of your units must be selected. The beneficiary annexes all selected units.

If you hold Music, select 5 less unit points.
If you hold Drama and Poetry, select 5 less unit points.
If you hold Democracy, select 10 less unit points. − If you hold Philosophy, select 5 additional unit points. − If you hold Military, select 5 additional unit points.

The beneficiary is the player with the most cities in stock (in case of a tie, the most tokens in stock). This cannot be the primary victim himself. You must count all your unit points, and subtract 35. If you have less unit points than required (regarding any Civilization Advances held) there is no Civil War. If the beneficiary has sufficient units in stock but not exactly the same number of cities or tokens, you must make such a choice in units that he can annex all selected units. If he has insufficient unit points in stock he chooses and annexes as many as possible regarding the above rule, but replaces the remainder with barbarian tokens and/or pirate cities instead.

Barbarian Hordes — The beneficiary selects 1 of your cities (if possible a wilderness city), which is attacked by 15 barbarian tokens. After combat, the beneficiary moves all barbarian tokens in excess of the population limit to an area adjacent by land or water containing your units and combat is resolved again. The beneficiary may only move barbarian tokens into an area containing a city if the attack would be successful. This process is repeated until no population limit is exceeded by the barbarian tokens or no area can legally be chosen. Any barbarian tokens in excess of a population limit are then destroyed.

If you hold Monarchy 5 less barbarian tokens are used. − If you hold Politics, 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − If you hold Provincial Empire, 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − Barbarian tokens are unaffected by Cultural Ascendancy or Diplomacy.

The beneficiary is the last player that traded the calamity to you. If you did not trade it after you drew it or if it seems to be untraceable, the player with the most cities in stock (in case of a tie, the most tokens in stock) is the beneficiary. If an area also contains tokens belonging to other players, these are involved in the conflict. Barbarians may move across sea borders, but not across open sea areas, and they cannot skip an area. Barbarians do not benefit from any of the attributes of Civilization Advances held by the beneficiary. No trade cards are drawn and no pillage occurs as a result of successful city attacks. If there are 2 Barbarian Hordes in a single turn a player may suffer damage from both calamities. Barbarian tokens remain on the board until destroyed in conflict or annexed using 'Universal Doctrine'.

Cyclone (Non Tradeable) — Select the open sea area that has the largest number of your cities directly adjacent to it. Select and reduce 3 of these cities. All other players with cities directly adjacent to the same open sea area must select and reduce 2 of their cities adjacent to the open sea area as well.

If you hold Masonry, reduce 1 less of your selected cities.
If you hold Calendar, reduce 2 less of your selected cities. − If you hold Trade Empire, select and reduce 1 additional city adjacent to the open sea area.

In case of a tie you choose the Cyclone area. Even if you can prevent reducing cities yourself, the Cyclone is not canceled for secondary victims.

Epidemic — Take 15 damage and select 2 other players that must take 10 damage as well. The beneficiary may not be selected as a secondary victim.

If you hold Medicine, prevent 5 damage.
If you are the primary victim and hold Enlightenment, prevent 5 damage. − If you are the primary victim and hold Roadbuilding, take 5 additional damage. − If you are the primary victim and hold Trade Empire, take 5 additional damage.
If you are a secondary victim and hold Anatomy, prevent 5 damage.

Tyranny (Non Tradeable) — The beneficiary selects and annexes 15 of your unit points. All units selected this way must be in areas adjacent to each other as much as possible, and in each of those areas all of your units must be selected.

If you hold Sculpture, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.
If you hold Law, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points. − If you hold Monarchy, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points. − If you hold Provincial Empire, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points.

The beneficiary is the player with the most cities in stock (in case of a tie, the most tokens in stock). This cannot be the primary victim himself. Only if the beneficiary has insufficient unit points in stock he chooses and annexes as many as possible respecting the above rule, but replaces the remainder with barbarian tokens and/or pirate cities instead.

Civil Disorder — Reduce all but 3 of your cities.

If you hold Music, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Drama and Poetry, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Law, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Democracy, reduce 1 less city. − If you hold Advanced Military, reduce 1 additional city. − If you hold Naval Warfare, reduce 1 additional city.

Corruption (Non Tradeable) — Discard commodity cards with a total face value (not set value) of at least 10 points.

If you hold Law, discard 5 less points of face value. − If you hold Coinage, discard 5 additional points of face value. − If you hold Wonder of the World, discard 5 additional points of face value.

Iconoclasm and Heresy — Reduce 4 of your cities and select 2 other players that must reduce 1 of their cities as well. The beneficiary may not be selected as a secondary victim.

If you hold Philosophy, reduce 2 less cities.
If you hold Theology, reduce 3 less cities. − If you hold, Monotheism, reduce 1 additional city.
If you hold Theocracy, you may choose to discard 2 commodity cards to prevent the city reduction effect for you.

If the primary victim uses the ability of 'Theocracy' that does not cancel the calamity for any secondary victims.

Regression (Non Tradeable) — Your succession marker on the A.S.T. is moved 1 step backward.

− If you hold Fundamentalism, your marker is moved backward 1 additional step.

If you hold Enlightenment, for each step backward, you may choose to prevent the effect by destroying 2 of your cities (if possible non-coastal).
If you hold Library, your marker is moved backward 1 less step.

Regression does not prevent you from advancing on the A.S.T. at the end of the turn.

Piracy — The beneficiary selects 2 of your coastal cities and you select 1 coastal city from each of 2 other players. All selected cities are replaced by pirate cities. The beneficiary may not be selected as a secondary victim.

− If you are the primary victim and hold Cartography, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 additional coastal city.

If you are the primary victim and hold Naval Warfare, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 less coastal city.
If you hold Naval Warfare, you may not be selected as a secondary victim.

Pirate cities remain on the board until destroyed or annexed using 'Universal Doctrine'.

Card-specific Rules - Civilization Advances

Advanced Military — In conflicts, you may choose to remove tokens from areas adjacent by land. After each round of token removal a new check for token majority must be made. You may decide to wait for other token conflicts to be resolved first. You are allowed to cause conflict in areas containing units belonging to players holding Cultural Ascendancy.

− CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 additional city.

In conflict the token balance may change after every round of removal as you can remove tokens from different areas instead of the conflict area. A new check for token majority must be made each round. A player holding 'Advanced Military' may wait before resolving token conflicts in which he is involved, in order to choose where to remove his tokens (or ships, if he also holds 'Naval Warfare'). If in this case more than 1 player involved holds 'Advanced Military', the player with the lowest A.S.T.-ranking order may wait for players with a higher order. Players are not allowed to reduce a city in order to provide themselves with more tokens in conflict. If you attack a city unsuccessfully the tokens that are destroyed from the area may not be removed from an adjacent area instead.

Agriculture — The population limit of '0', '1' and '2' areas on the board is increased by 1 for you as long as these areas do not contain any other player's units or barbarian tokens.

− FAMINE: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

'Agriculture' does not allow you to build a city in an area with population limit '0'. When reducing a city, you may immediately regard the effect and thus place the additional token. In conflict, as soon as you are the only player occupying the area (and the conflict ends), you may immediately regard the effect and thus keep the additional token if present. The effect of 'Agriculture' does not apply to areas containing cities in combination with the effect of 'Public Works'.

Anatomy — Upon purchase, you may choose to acquire a science card with an undiscounted cost price of less than 100 for free.

EPIDEMIC: If you are a secondary victim, prevent 5 damage.

Architecture — Once per turn, when constructing a city, you may choose to pay up to half of the required number of tokens from treasury.

You are allowed to use the ability when building a wilderness city.

Astronavigation — Your ships are allowed to move through open sea areas.

Your ships may not end in an open sea area.

Calendar

FAMINE: Prevent 5 damage.
CYCLONE: Reduce 2 less selected cities.

Cartography — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire additional trade cards from stack 2 for 5 treasury tokens and/or from stack 7 for 13 treasury tokens per card.

− PIRACY: If you are the primary victim, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 additional coastal city.

Cloth Making — Your ships are allowed to move 5 steps.

Coinage — You may choose to increase or decrease your tax rate by 1.

− CORRUPTION: Discard 5 additional points of face value.

You may only set the tax rate for all of your cities at once. You cannot vary taxes per city. If an increase in tax rate would result in a tax revolt, you may still choose to do so.

Cultural Ascendancy — Players are not allowed to cause conflict in areas containing your units, except for areas where a conflict situation already occurs. This does not count for players holding Cultural Ascendancy or Advanced Military. Your units are protected against the effect of Politics. Your default city support rate is increased by 1.

Placing tokens during population expansion, annexation, Special Effects or moving ships in an area without disembarking tokens is not considered attacking or causing conflict. An opponent moving a single token in an area that would result in conflict if it stays there is considered a 'conflict situation', even if in case of a city attack the attack would be unsuccessful. If a player holding 'Advanced Military' moves a single token into an area containing your city, this is considered 'attacking the city'. After he moved (and the token stays there), other players may move tokens into this area, even if they don't hold 'Advanced Military', because at this point a 'conflict situation' already occurs in this area. At any moment a check is made for city support (including the resolution of Slave Revolt) you must have an additional token on the map-board for each of your cities. When you purchase Cultural Ascendancy there is no check for city support. The first possible moment is during the City Construction phase.

Deism

SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.

Democracy — During the Tax Collection phase you collect tax as usual but your cities do not revolt as a result of a shortage in tax collection.

CIVIL WAR: Select 10 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

If an increase in tax rate would result in a tax revolt, you may still choose to do so. If this would happen you can still become the beneficiary of another player's tax revolt that turn.

Diaspora — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to take up to 5 of your tokens from the board and place them anywhere else on the board, providing that no population limits are exceeded.

When placing your tokens the effects of 'Agriculture' and 'Public Works' may be regarded.

Diplomacy — Players are not allowed to move tokens into areas containing your cities, except for areas where a conflict situation already occurs. This does not count for players holding Diplomacy or Military.

− TREACHERY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 1 additional city.

Placing tokens during population expansion, annexation, Special Effects or moving ships into an area without disembarking tokens is not considered attacking or causing conflict. If a player holding 'Military' moves a single token into an area containing your city, this is considered 'attacking the city'. After he moved (and the token stays there), other players may move tokens into this area, even if they don't hold 'Military', because at this point a 'conflict situation' already occurs in this area.

Drama and Poetry

CIVIL WAR: Select 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

Empiricism — None.

Engineering — Other players require 8 tokens to successfully attack your cities. Your cities are then replaced by 6 tokens. This does not apply when the attacking player also holds Engineering. You require 6 tokens to successfully attack other player's cities. Their cities are then replaced by 5 tokens. This does not apply when the defending player also holds Engineering.

EARTHQUAKE: Your city is reduced instead of destroyed.
FLOOD: Prevent 5 damage.

Enlightenment

SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.
SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.
EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, prevent 5 damage.
REGRESSION: For each step backward, you may choose to prevent the effect by destroying 2 of your cities (if possible non-coastal).

Fundamentalism — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to destroy all units in an area adjacent to your units by land. Barbarian tokens, pirate cities and units belonging to players holding Fundamentalism or Philosophy are unaffected.

− REGRESSION: Your marker is moved backward 1 additional step.

Law

TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.
CORRUPTION: Discard 5 less points of face value.

Library — You may discount the cost of any other Civilization Advance that you purchase in the same turn as Library by 40 points.

REGRESSION: Your marker is moved backward 1 step less.

Literacy — None.

Masonry

CYCLONE: Reduce 1 less of your selected cities.

Mathematics — None.

Medicine

EPIDEMIC: Prevent 5 damage.

Metalworking — In conflicts, for each round of token removal all other players not holding Metalworking must remove their token first.

If more than 1 player holds 'Metalworking', their mutual order is again the normal minority/majority order.

Military — Your movement phase is after all other players not holding Military have moved. You are allowed to move tokens into areas containing cities belonging to players holding Diplomacy.

− CIVIL WAR: Select 5 additional unit points.

If more than 1 player holds 'Military', for these players their mutual order is again defined by their census.

Mining — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire additional trade cards from stack 6 and/or stack 8 for 13 treasury tokens per card. Treasury tokens are worth 2 points when purchasing Civilization Advances.

− SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is increased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

Monarchy — You may choose to increase your tax rate by 1.

BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 less barbarian tokens are used.

Monotheism — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to annex all units in an area adjacent to your units by land. Barbarian tokens, pirate cities and units belonging to players holding Monotheism or Theology are unaffected.

− ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 1 additional city.

If you have insufficient units in stock to annex all units in the area to start with, you cannot select this area. If you annex an area containing a city and a token (due to Public Works) or more tokens than the population limit allows (due to Agriculture), the extra token must also be annexed, even if you don't also hold any of these advances. In this case it will be destroyed during 'Remove surplus population'.

Monument — Acquire 20 additional points of credit tokens in any combination of colors.

You gain the additional credits once as it is purchased. Your choice cannot be changed at a later stage.

Music

CIVIL WAR: Select 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

Mysticism — SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.

Mythology

SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

Naval Warfare — Your ships are allowed to carry 6 tokens. In conflicts, you may choose to remove ships from the conflict area instead of tokens. After each round of token removal a new check for token majority must be made.

PIRACY: If you are the primary victim, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 less coastal city. You may not be selected as a secondary victim. − CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 additional city.

In conflict, at check for majority of tokens, your ships are not counted. Because you can remove a ship rather than a token each round, this token balance may change every round of removal. Therefore a new check for majority has to be made each round. Even if you hold Naval Warfare, moving your ships into an area alone (with or without tokens), still is not regarded causing conflict or attacking, while disembarking tokens may actually be. In an area containing only your ship and 1 or more enemy tokens or a city, your ship alone does not cause conflict. An enemy token in an area containing only your ship (none of your tokens) is not causing conflict here due to your ship. When attacking a city, a ship does not count for the minimum of 7 tokens; you still require sufficient tokens. However, during conflict resolution you may remove your ships as losses if the attack is successful. If your city attack is unsuccessful, all of your ships in this area are destroyed as well.

Philosophy

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 2 cities less.

Your units are protected against the effect of Fundamentalism.

− CIVIL WAR: Select 5 additional unit points.

Politics — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose 1 of 2 options: 1) Gain up to 5 treasury tokens from stock. 2) Annex all units in an area adjacent by land to your units. Pay treasury tokens equal to the number of units annexed to the unit's owners, or the effect is canceled. Barbarian tokens, pirate cities and units belonging to players holding Politics or Cultural Ascendancy are unaffected.

− BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 additional barbarian tokens are used.

If you have insufficient units in stock or treasury to annex all units in the area to start with, you cannot select this area. If you annex an area containing a city and a token (due to Public Works) or more tokens than the population limit allows (due to Agriculture), the extra token must also be annexed (and be paid for), even if you do not also hold any of these advances. In this case it will be destroyed during 'Remove surplus population'.

Pottery

FAMINE: Prevent 5 damage.

Provincial Empire — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to select up to 5 players that have units adjacent by land or water to your units. These players must choose and give you a commodity card with a face value of at least 2. Players holding Provincial Empire or Public Works may not be selected.

− BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points.

The victims may choose whether they give their cards open or closed. You may choose whether you reveal them.

Public Works — Areas containing your cities may also contain 1 of your tokens. You are protected against the effect of Provincial Empire.

Tokens in areas with a city expand as normal. If your city is annexed or destroyed due to a tax revolt or calamity the additional token is destroyed. When building a city, only if you use more than the required tokens from the map-board, you may leave 1 token in the area. If you reduce a city containing the additional token you must immediately count the extra token as population and thus replace the city with 1 token less than normal. 'Agriculture' does not allow you to keep more than 1 token in an area containing your city. If a Special Ability mentions destroying or annexing all units in an area containing your city, the additional token must also be annexed or destroyed.

Rhetoric — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire additional trade cards from stack 3 for 9 treasury tokens per card.

Roadbuilding — When moving over land, your tokens may move 2 areas. Tokens that are in a conflict situation after 1 step are not allowed to move any further. Your hand limit of trade cards is increased by 1.

− EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

For each of your tokens, if you choose to move 2 steps, you must do so in one go and then flip the token over. This second step may not be made before or after embarking a ship. If a token is in a 'conflict situation' after the first of 2 steps, you may not move this token a second step. This second step may end in a 'conflict situation'.

Sculpture — TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.

Theocracy

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: You may choose and discard 2 commodity cards to prevent a city reduction effect for you.

Theology

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 3 cities less.

Your units are protected against the effect of Monotheism.

Trade Empire — Once per turn, you may choose to use 1 substitute commodity card of at least the same face value when turning in an incomplete set of commodity cards.

− CYCLONE: Select and reduce 1 additional city adjacent to the open sea area. − EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

Trade Routes — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to discard any number of commodity cards to gain treasury tokens at twice the face value of the commodity cards discarded this way.

You cannot gain less treasury than exactly twice the face value of a commodity card. If you have insufficient tokens in stock you cannot discard this card.

Universal Doctrine — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to annex 1 pirate city or up to 5 barbarian tokens anywhere on the board.

− SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 additional city.

Urbanism — Once per turn, when constructing a wilderness city you may choose to use up to 4 tokens from areas adjacent by land.

In combination with 'Architecture' this means a wilderness city can be built in an area containing 2 tokens, using 4 tokens from adjacent areas and 6 tokens from treasury.

Wonder of the World — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire 1 additional trade card for free from a stack number that is higher than your number of cities in play. Wonder of the World counts as a city during the A.S.T.-alteration phase.

− CORRUPTION: Discard 5 additional points of face value.

Written Record — Acquire 10 additional points of credit tokens in any combination of colors.

You gain the additional credits once as it is purchased. Your choice cannot be changed at a later stage.

The Short Game

A full game of Mega Civilization takes 10-12 hours to complete. The setup for 'The Short Game' provides a set of rules and pre-constructed decks of Civilization Advances that allow a game of 5 to 6 turns, which means 6-8 hours accordingly. This scenario is recommended for experienced players. If this is the first time you play the game, it is recommended to play the scenario 'The First Game' before starting a full game or this scenario.

How to Set Up The Short Game?

The game provides a set of 9 different cards showing pre-constructed sets of Civilization Advances.

For each different number of players, it is important to select the right theme-set cards, as described. We strongly recommend not to vary these selections.

5 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Mystical Palaces.
6 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Mystical Palaces.
7 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Mystical Palaces.
8 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces, Cultural Heights.
9 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
10 players — Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
11 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
12 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
13 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
14 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
15 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
16 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
17 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Spreading Knowledge, 2x Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
18 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Spreading Knowledge, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Emerging Empire, 2x Mystical Palaces.

Now, set up the game as normal, as described in chapter 4 'Setting up the game' (page 10) using the basic A.S.T. and adjust the following:

Shuffle the selection of theme-set cards as described and place them face down in a stack.
All players draw a pre-constructed set-card and take a look at it, without revealing it (players may look up the Advances in silence).
All players choose a civilization using the numbered startup cards.
In A.S.T.-ranking order, each player may build 5 cities within their own region, as described in the regions setup (chapter 5, page 18/19), 4 of which must be on a city site. Remember no cities can be built in areas with population limit '0'.
Once all players are done, simultaneously all players reveal their theme-set card and collect the Civilization Advances mentioned on this card and collect the corresponding credit tokens. It is recommended to have a round of each player calling the Advances they have received to all players, so that every player knows what everybody holds.
Some theme-sets order the destruction of 1 city when revealed. This is done at this point.
As if it was Trade Cards Acquisition-phase all players draw trade cards (4-5 cards per player). First all players with 4 cities draw their cards, next all players with 5 cities draw their cards, A.S.T.-ranking breaks ties. If players draw a calamity, they don't reveal this. Players cannot purchase additional trade cards at this point.
In A.S.T.-ranking order, all players may divide up to 14 tokens over their associated region (player's choice). No population limits may be exceeded, but players may regard 'Agriculture'.
All players must transfer exactly 10 tokens from stock to treasury.
Advance all succession markers to column 11 on the A.S.T. (just before the Late Bronze Age).
At this point, all players should have a set of 4 Civilization Advances, 4-5 trade cards, 4-5 cities and 14 tokens on the board and 10 tokens in treasury.

Start

Now, the game starts as if it was a regular turn, by collecting taxes. Players may regard 'Coinage' and 'Monarchy' at this point.

Any calamities drawn at the start of the game may be traded during the Trade-phase. During the Calamity Resolution-phase these calamities as well as additional calamities drawn or traded are resolved as usual.

The game ends once a player advances to the final space on the A.S.T. This is the moment for victory determination.

Tips and tricks:

In 'The Short Game' some calamities have a less devastating effect than in the regular game.
This type of game develops quicker than expected. It is more important to score Victory Points by purchasing Civilization Advances than planning for the long range and stay in place on the A.S.T. for a turn.
It is most important to advance on the A.S.T. every turn. There are fewer possibilities to catch up than in the full game.

Division of Trade Cards

The following charts show exactly how many of each commodity or calamity card belong to the West and East decks, per stack and per number of players. A '.' means that commodity or calamity is not used at that player count.

5-8 Players / 9-10 Players / 9, 11 Players

Stack	Name	5-8 West	5-8 East	9-10 West	9,11 East
1	Ochre	9	.	9	.
1	Flax	.	9	.	9
1	Clay	9	.	9	.
1	Hides	.	9	.	9
1	Bone	.	.	8	8
2	Papyri	8	.	8	.
2	Stone	.	8	.	8
2	Iron	8	.	8	.
2	Furs	.	8	.	8
2	Wax	.	.	8	8
2	Tempest	.	.	1	1
2	Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake	1	1	1	1
2	Treachery	1	1	1	1
3	Fish	8	.	8	.
3	Timber	.	8	.	8
3	Fruit	9	.	9	.
3	Salt	.	9	.	9
3	Ceramics	.	.	8	8
3	Squandered Wealth	.	.	1	1
3	Famine	1	1	1	1
3	Slave Revolt	1	1	1	1
4	Wool	7	.	7	.
4	Cotton	.	7	.	7
4	Oil	8	.	8	.
4	Sugar	.	8	.	8
4	Grain	.	.	8	8
4	City Riots	.	.	1	1
4	Flood	1	1	1	1
4	Superstition	1	1	1	1
5	Wine	6	.	6	.
5	Lacquer	.	6	.	6
5	Textiles	7	.	7	.
5	Livestock	.	7	.	7
5	Glass	.	.	6	6
5	City in Flames	.	.	1	1
5	Civil War	1	1	1	1
5	Barbarian Hordes	1	1	1	1
6	Tin	5	.	5	.
6	Silver	.	5	.	5
6	Copper	6	.	6	.
6	Bronze	.	6	.	6
6	Lead	.	.	6	6
6	Tribal Conflict	.	.	1	1
6	Cyclone	1	1	1	1
6	Epidemic	1	1	1	1
7	Resin	5	.	5	.
7	Jade	.	5	.	5
7	Incense	6	.	6	.
7	Spice	.	6	.	6
7	Herbs	.	.	6	6
7	Minor Uprising	.	.	1	1
7	Tyranny	1	1	1	1
7	Civil Disorder	1	1	1	1
8	Marble	4	.	4	.
8	Dye	.	4	.	4
8	Gemstones	5	.	5	.
8	Tea	.	5	.	5
8	Obsidian	.	.	4	4
8	Banditry	.	.	1	1
8	Corruption	1	1	1	1
8	Iconoclasm and Heresy	1	1	1	1
9	Ivory	4	.	4	.
9	Silk	.	4	.	4
9	Gold	5	.	5	.
9	Pearls	.	5	.	5
9	Amber	.	.	4	4
9	Coastal Migration	.	.	1	1
9	Regression	1	1	1	1
9	Piracy	1	1	1	1

12-14 Players / 15-18 Players

Stack	Name	12-14 West	12-14 East	15-18 West	15-18 East
1	Ochre	9	.	9	.
1	Flax	.	9	.	9
1	Clay	5	4	5	4
1	Hides	4	5	4	5
1	Bone	.	.	4	4
2	Papyri	8	.	8	.
2	Stone	.	8	.	8
2	Iron	4	4	4	4
2	Furs	4	4	4	4
2	Wax	.	.	4	4
2	Tempest	.	.	1	1
2	Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake	1	1	1	1
2	Treachery	1	1	1	1
3	Fish	8	.	8	.
3	Timber	.	8	.	8
3	Fruit	5	4	5	4
3	Salt	4	5	4	5
3	Ceramics	.	.	4	4
3	Squandered Wealth	.	.	1	1
3	Famine	1	1	1	1
3	Slave Revolt	1	1	1	1
4	Wool	7	.	7	.
4	Cotton	.	7	.	7
4	Oil	4	4	4	4
4	Sugar	4	4	4	4
4	Grain	.	.	4	4
4	City Riots	.	.	1	1
4	Flood	1	1	1	1
4	Superstition	1	1	1	1
5	Wine	6	.	6	.
5	Lacquer	.	6	.	6
5	Textiles	4	3	4	3
5	Livestock	3	4	3	4
5	Glass	.	.	3	3
5	City in Flames	.	.	1	1
5	Civil War	1	1	1	1
5	Barbarian Hordes	1	1	1	1
6	Tin	5	.	5	.
6	Silver	.	5	.	5
6	Copper	3	3	3	3
6	Bronze	3	3	3	3
6	Lead	.	.	3	3
6	Tribal Conflict	.	.	1	1
6	Cyclone	1	1	1	1
6	Epidemic	1	1	1	1
7	Resin	5	.	5	.
7	Jade	.	5	.	5
7	Incense	3	3	3	3
7	Spice	3	3	3	3
7	Herbs	.	.	3	3
7	Minor Uprising	.	.	1	1
7	Tyranny	1	1	1	1
7	Civil Disorder	1	1	1	1
8	Marble	4	.	4	.
8	Dye	.	4	.	4
8	Gemstones	3	2	3	2
8	Tea	2	3	2	3
8	Obsidian	.	.	2	2
8	Banditry	.	.	1	1
8	Corruption	1	1	1	1
8	Iconoclasm and Heresy	1	1	1	1
9	Ivory	4	.	4	.
9	Silk	.	4	.	4
9	Gold	3	2	3	2
9	Pearls	2	3	2	3
9	Amber	.	.	2	2
9	Coastal Migration	.	.	1	1
9	Regression	1	1	1	1
9	Piracy	1	1	1	1

Mega Civilization Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Components
General Rules and Clarifications
Setting Up the Game
Map-board Setups
- The 18 Civilizations and Their Regions
Sequence of Play
Leaving the Game
Card-specific Rules - The Calamities
Card-specific Rules - Civilization Advances
The Short Game
- How to Set Up The Short Game?
- Start
Division of Trade Cards
- 5-8 Players / 9-10 Players / 9, 11 Players
- 12-14 Players / 15-18 Players

Game Components

4 map-boards

2074 tokens — 18 civilizations, consisting of:

55 population tokens (+1 spare) — one distinct color/design per civilization
9 cities
4 ships
2 AST / Census markers (+2 spare)

Credit tokens

30 population-credit tokens of value 5, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 10, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 20, in 5 colors
30 population-credit tokens of value 50, in 5 colors
4 population-credit tokens of value 100, in 5 colors
City-credit tokens (temple, urn, triskele/knowledge, and star icons) of value 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100

Barbarians

18 Pirate cities
50 Barbarian tokens

Turn markers — 1 turn marker (+1 spare)

Out of play tokens — 70

18 player mats, each listing the Treasury, Sequence of Play, and Stock areas

1 double sided A.S.T. (Archeological Succession Table) — a Basic side and an Expert side

1 census track

840 trade cards

Blue set: 201 Western trade cards, 201 Eastern trade cards, 18 Water-cards, 7 Spare cards
Orange set: 172 Western trade cards, 172 Eastern trade cards, 18 Water-cards, 7 Spare cards
Player sequence cards: 18 numbered cards
18 "The Short Game" scenario cards, 8 Spare cards

729 Civilization Advance cards — 724 Civilization Advances, 5 Spare cards

10 Double sided player aids — a Strategy Explorer side and a 'Calamity Resolution' quick-chart side

1 Rulebook

1 "The First Game" scenario booklet

12 Trade card holders

1 set of ziplock bags for storage

1 Certificate of authenticity

General Rules and Clarifications

If this is the first time you are reading the manual, it is recommended that you skip this chapter for now and play 'The First Game' as described in the separate booklet.

The Player Mats

Units

Population tokens and cities are further referred to as 'Units'. Ships do not count as units.

Stock

Treasury

Map-board Definitions

Adjacent areas. Unless clearly specified 'an adjacent area' means 'sharing a border'.

Areas adjacent by land; share at least a land border.
Areas adjacent by water; share at least a water border.

Markings in Areas

Population limit; a circle containing a number from 0 to 4.
Open Sea area; contains strictly water and have no population limits.
Coastal area; an area that contains land and water (indirectly) connected to an open sea area. Areas containing inland seas such as 'Anatolia' (map-board 2) or 'Nis' (map-board 3) are not considered 'Coastal Areas'.
Area-name; If an area has no name, it is regarded to be not on the map.
Starting location; an area containing a Civilization's name and symbol.
City site; a black or white stone gate-symbol in an area.
Volcano; a volcano symbol in an area or on the border of 2 areas. A volcano on the border of 2 areas is considered to be in both areas.
Flood plain; dark green stretch of land extending over parts of 1 or more areas. All areas fully or partly covered by a single flood plain are considered to be 'on the flood plain'. City sites on a flood plain show a white color. Black city sites in an area with a flood plain are considered to be not on that flood plain and thus safe.

Additional notes

Civilization Advances

Groups / colors

Victory Points

On the right top side of each card, it shows either 1, 3 or 6 Victory Points in a banner symbol. The points are counted at the end of the game to determine the winner.

Attributes

Credits and credit symbols

Trade Cards

It is important to keep a division between 'blue marked' cards and 'orange marked' cards (blue and orange cards have different backsides). Orange marked cards are only used in games of 12-18 players.

The trade cards are divided in 2 groups: 'Commodities' and 'Calamities'.

Commodities show trading goods.
Calamities show an illustration and either the indication 'Minor Calamity', 'Major Calamity' or 'Major Calamity (Non Tradeable)'.

Archeological Succession Table (A.S.T.)

A.S.T.-ranking / A.S.T.-position

'A.S.T.-ranking' or 'A.S.T.-order' is specified as the vertical position on the list of civilizations as printed on the A.S.T., from the top to the bottom, irrespective of the horizontal position of succession markers.
'A.S.T.-position' is specified as the horizontal position of the actual succession markers. The marker furthest to the right is considered to be highest in position order. Ties are broken by A.S.T.-ranking order.

Whenever 'A.S.T.-order' is mentioned this refers to 'A.S.T.-ranking' order.

At any time, if a tie occurs between players' activities and it is not clearly specified how to break the tie, it is resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order.

A turn marker is used to show the number of turns played.

Setting Up the Game

Mega Civilization is a game that can be played from 5 up to 18 players.

Once you have finished 'The First Game' you are ready to start a full game.

Setting Game Limits for the Full Game

If you want a shorter game (6-8 hours), follow the rules for setting up 'The Short Game'. This scenario is not a beginners scenario, but a shorter version of the game for experienced players.

Selecting the Map-board

Depending on the number of players, use the setups as defined in chapter 5. Map-board setups (page 14).

Regions

For each player, place a census marker on the Census track (in the large empty area above '1-12') and a succession marker in the arrow on the A.S.T.

Place a turn marker on turn 1 on the A.S.T.

Selecting Trade Cards

This is an important part of setting up the game.

In all cases the 'water' commodities are used. Place a stack of water cards face up next to all other trade cards. The function will be explained later.

5-9 players (Choose either West or East)

10 players (West)

In a 10-player game, the only option is to play 'West'. All cards containing the blue W-symbols are used in this case.

11 players (East)

In an 11-player game, the only option is to play 'East'. All cards containing the blue E-symbols are used in this case.

12-14 players

15-18 players

Preshuffling Trade Cards

Setting Up the Game for 5-8 Players

Make sure the following cards are present:

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards into 9 stacks (per number).

For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn (cards kept face down):

Shuffle the combination of both sets of commodities (without the calamities).
From this stack, set an amount of cards aside equal to the number of players.
Shuffle the Tradeable Major Calamity through the stack of remaining commodities (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity at the bottom of the stack.
Place the cards previously set aside on top of the stack.

Place all 9 stacks in their stack holders and use the same number of holders for discard piles.

Setting Up the Game for 9-11 Players

Make sure the following cards are present:

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards into 9 stacks (per number).

Each stack contains 3 different sets of commodities and 3 different calamities.

For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 2 regular sets of commodities and only the Minor Calamity (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards.
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place all 9 stacks in their stack holders and use the same number of holders for discard piles.

Setting Up the Game for 12-14 Players

	West	East
stack 1	9 ochre, 5 clay, 4 hides	9 flax, 4 clay, 5 hides
stack 2	8 papyri, 4 iron, 4 furs	8 stone, 4 iron, 4 furs
stack 3	8 fish, 5 fruit, 4 salt	8 timber, 4 fruit, 5 salt
stack 4	7 wool, 4 oil, 4 sugar	7 cotton, 4 oil, 4 sugar
stack 5	6 wine, 4 textiles, 3 livestock	6 lacquer, 3 textiles, 4 livestock
stack 6	5 tin, 3 copper, 3 bronze	5 silver, 3 copper, 3 bronze
stack 7	5 resin, 3 incense, 3 spice	5 jade, 3 incense, 3 spice
stack 8	4 marble, 3 gemstones, 2 tea	4 dye, 2 gemstones, 3 tea
stack 9	4 ivory, 3 gold, 2 pearls	4 silk, 2 gold, 3 pearls

From the calamities select only the Major Calamities of either block and add these to the selection of the appropriate blocks (16 calamities per block). The Minor Calamities are not used.

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards including commodities and Major Calamities per number into 9 stacks.

For either block, each stack contains 1 complete set of commodities and 2 broken sets (for which the other part is in the other block).

The full sets of the following commodities are referred to as 'The additional set of commodities':

West: ochre - papyri - fish - wool - wine - tin - resin - marble - ivory.
East: flax - stone - timber - cotton - lacquer - silver - jade - dye - silk.

For the purpose of setting up a 12-14 player game, these complete sets must be separated from the others.

Set up either block separately. For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 2 broken sets of commodities.
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place each of the 9 West stacks in their appropriate West stack holder, use an equal number of holders for West discard piles and then do the same for East.

Additional rules for 12 players — For a 12-player game only, each player collects 1 credit token worth 5 of each color at the start of the game.

Setting Up the Game for 15-18 Players

	West	East
stack 1	9 ochre, 5 clay, 4 hides, 4 bone	9 flax, 4 clay, 5 hides, 4 bone
stack 2	8 papyri, 4 iron, 4 furs, 4 wax	8 stone, 4 iron, 4 furs, 4 wax
stack 3	8 fish, 5 fruit, 4 salt, 4 ceramics	8 timber, 4 fruit, 5 salt, 4 ceramics
stack 4	7 wool, 4 oil, 4 sugar, 4 grain	7 cotton, 4 oil, 4 sugar, 4 grain
stack 5	6 wine, 4 textiles, 3 livestock, 3 glass	6 lacquer, 3 textiles, 4 livestock, 3 glass
stack 6	5 tin, 3 copper, 3 bronze, 3 lead	5 silver, 3 copper, 3 bronze, 3 lead
stack 7	5 resin, 3 incense, 3 spice, 3 herbs	5 jade, 3 incense, 3 spice, 3 herbs
stack 8	4 marble, 3 gemstones, 2 tea, 2 obsidian	4 dye, 2 gemstones, 3 tea, 2 obsidian
stack 9	4 ivory, 3 gold, 2 pearls, 2 amber	4 silk, 2 gold, 3 pearls, 2 amber

Select all calamities of either block and add these to the selection of the appropriate blocks (24 calamities per block).

Preshuffling the trade cards

Sort all trade cards including commodities and calamities per number into 9 stacks per block.

For either block, each stack contains 1 complete set of commodities and 3 broken sets (for which the other part is in the other block).

The full sets of the following commodities are referred to as 'The additional set of commodities':

West: ochre - papyri - fish - wool - wine - tin - resin - marble - ivory.
East: flax - stone - timber - cotton - lacquer - silver - jade - dye - silk.

For the purpose of setting up a 15-18-player game, these complete sets must be separated from the others.

Set up either block separately. For each of the 9 stacks take all of the following steps in turn:

Shuffle the combination of the 3 broken sets of commodities and the Minor Calamity (stack 1 does not contain calamities).
Shuffle the combination of 'the additional set' and the Tradeable Major Calamity and place this underneath the previously shuffled set of cards.
Place the Non Tradeable Calamity underneath this stack.

Place each of the 9 West stacks in their appropriate West stack holder, use an equal number of holders for West discard piles and then do the same for East.

When playing with separate blocks, if there is enough room, it may be wise to split the stacks of Civilization Advances for either block. This way it creates shorter queues at 'the shop'.

At all times, if players demand, they may look at the 'Division of Trade cards' chart (page 46/47). It provides a clear overview of how trade cards are divided over the trade cards stacks.

Map-board Setups

Map-board West with 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 players.
Map-board East with 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 players.
Map-board 10 players. All civilizations are considered West.
Map-board 11 players. All civilizations are considered East.
Map-board 12 players (6 players West - 6 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 13 players (6 players West - 7 players East). Assyria and Egypt are considered East for this setup.
Map-board 14 players (7 players West - 7 players East). Assyria and Egypt are considered East for this setup.
Map-board 15 players (8 players West - 7 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 16 players (8 players West - 8 players East). Assyria is considered East for this setup.
Map-board 17 players (8 players West - 9 players East).
Map-board 18 players (9 players West - 9 players East).

The 18 Civilizations and Their Regions

Sequence of Play

Turn-by-turn Procedure

An orange box describes general rules. A gray box describes specific adjustments based on the number of players used.

The Order of Phases

Tax collection
Population expansion (and Census)
Movement
Conflict
City construction (and Remove surplus population and Check for city support)
Trade cards acquisition
Trade
Calamity selection
Calamity resolution
Special abilities
Remove surplus population (and Check for city support)
Civilization advances acquisition
A.S.T.-alteration

1. Tax Collection

Order: Simultaneously

1a. Tax Collection

Example: John has 5 cities on the board. He must transfer 10 tokens from stock to treasury.

1b. Tax Revolts

2. Population Expansion

Order: Simultaneously, but may be resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order if desired.

2a. Population Expansion

Each player must place tokens from stock in each area containing his tokens:

1 token in each area containing 1 of his tokens and 2 tokens in each area containing 2 or more of his tokens (so an area containing 3 or 4 tokens only gets an additional 2; not 3 or 4).

2b. Census

Tip: Since a player has exactly 55 tokens, sometimes it is easier to count the tokens in stock and treasury combined and subtract this number from 55.

3. Movement

At the end of a player's movement all of his ships that have not moved must either be destroyed or the player must pay 1 treasury/sacrifice 1 token per ship he wants to retain.

Tip: Once a token or ship has moved or if you choose to not move it, flip it upside down. After you are done with all movement, flip them all back to show that you are done.

City building

Conflict situations

Attacking a city

Defending a city

4. Conflict

4a. All token conflicts are resolved before all city attacks are resolved. It is preferable to resolve all token conflicts simultaneously. Any possible unsuccessful city attacks are not considered token conflict and these tokens are only removed during the resolution of city attacks. Any foreseen surplus population may not be removed during the Conflict-phase.
4b. After all token conflicts are resolved, all city attacks must be resolved one at a time, in defending A.S.T.-ranking order. If more than 1 city belonging to the same player is attacked, he may choose the order. Attacks on pirate cities are always resolved before any other city attacks.

4a. Resolution of Token Conflicts

4b. Resolution of City Attacks

Resolution of a successful city attack

A successful city attack is divided in 4 steps and each city attack must be resolved completely, one at a time, in the following order:

The defending player replaces his city by 6 of his tokens from stock. If he has insufficient tokens, he replaces it with whatever tokens he has left in stock, even if it is 0. 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.
A token conflict is resolved following the exact same rules as a normal token conflict.
As a result of the successful attack, the attacking player may choose to draw a trade card at random from the defending player's hand. If the defending player does not hold any trade cards at this point, the attacking player cannot draw a card and this option is canceled. Both players are not allowed to inform the other players which card was drawn.
The attacking player may choose to gain up to 3 treasury. The defending player's treasury is unaffected.

Attacking a pirate city

If a pirate city is successfully attacked, the city is replaced by 6 barbarian tokens. The attacker cannot draw a trade card, but may still gain up to 3 treasury as result of the attack.

5. City Construction

This phase is divided into 3 steps:

5a. City Construction.
5b. Surplus Population Removal.
5c. Check for support and unsupported city reduction.

All players must take all 3 steps in this specific order. All players take their actions simultaneously, but players may choose to take their action in A.S.T.-ranking order.

5a. City Construction

Players may choose to build any number of cities per turn in areas regarding the minimum requirements:

At least 6 tokens in an area with a city site.
At least 12 tokens in an area without a city site (referred to as 'wilderness city'). Cities cannot be built in an area with population limit '0'. Each area can only contain 1 city.

For each city built, the player removes all tokens from the area and places a city in the area from stock. The maximum number of cities in play for any player is 9.

Note: The map-board contains white and black city sites. For the purpose of city construction they are treated in the same way.

5b. Surplus Population Removal

After the player has built his cities, he must immediately remove all of his tokens exceeding the population limits. This includes any tokens in areas containing a city.

Note: 'Agriculture' and 'Public Works' may create exceptions to this rule.

5c. City Support and Reduction

6. Trade Cards Acquisition

Tip: Before drawing cards, write down a list containing the number of cities for each player and have a single player deal all the cards.

Players are not allowed to conceal their total hand size of trade cards.

6a. Drawing Trade Cards

6b. Additional Purchases

7. Trade

The value of commodity cards

In other words: set value = (number of identical commodity cards)² x (face value of the commodity).

Commodities of the same face value but with different names are worth only their individual face values combined.

Calamities

Except for Non Tradeable Calamities, which may never be traded, all other calamities may be included in a trade transaction but cannot be mentioned in a trade offer.

Trade

Simultaneously, each player may make trade negotiations with any other player.

Trades cannot involve more than 2 players at a time and each trade must include at least 3 trade cards per player.

End of trade

As soon as no player is willing or able to trade or if the time limit is reached the trade session ends.

8. Calamity Selection

After all calamities are resolved, the calamity cards (and possibly any commodity cards discarded) must be placed on their appropriate discard piles, 1 stack for each number.

At this point no checks are made for surplus population, city support or conflict.

Separate trade card blocks — If 2 players reveal calamities of the same name, these 2 calamities are resolved in A.S.T.-order, but may be resolved simultaneously.

9. Calamity Resolution

This phase is divided into 2 steps, where first all Minor Calamities are resolved simultaneously, and then, in a specific order, all Major Calamities.

9a. Minor Calamities

9b. Major Calamities

Once a player holds a calamity that is called, he must reveal it and resolve it, before the next calamity is called, until all calamities are revealed and resolved.

10. Special Abilities

This phase is resolved in A.S.T.-position order (the player progressed furthest on the A.S.T. is first). Each player using special abilities must wait for his turn.

Special abilities

The attributes are described in chapter 9 'Card Specific Rules - The Civilization Advances' (page 38).
Special Abilities may be used either entirely or not at all.
Special abilities that refer to units refer to cities and/or population tokens, not ships.
Placing, destroying or annexing units is not considered attacking or causing conflict.
In between any Special Abilities, no check is made for surplus population, city support or conflict.

Protection against special abilities

If a player holds a Civilization Advance that says 'protects against X', this player cannot be the target of another player's Special Ability with name X and his units are unaffected if involved.

11. Remove Surplus Population

Order: simultaneously

In those rare occasions that there is a conflict situation at this point, it is resolved 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, reduce any cities following the same rules as in phase 5b and 5c.

12. Civilization Advances Acquisition

Hand limit

After this phase, each player must keep a hand limit of commodity cards, regardless of whether he purchased any Civilization Advances or not. The hand limits vary per number of players:

5-11 players: 8 commodity cards.
12-18 players: 9 commodity cards.

The attributes and clarifications of each advance are described in chapter 9 'Card specific rules - The Advances' (page 38).

Once a player purchases a Civilization Advance he immediately receives the credit tokens printed on it. He keeps these credit tokens for the rest of the game.

The default price of a Civilization Advance is printed on the card. This price may be reduced in the following ways:

Credit tokens a player has received in previous turns;
Additional credits printed on other Civilization Advances players have bought in previous turns.

If a Civilization Advance belongs to 2 groups/colors, the discount from the color with the highest value of credit tokens applies. The credit value of the 2 colors is never combined.

Credit tokens held by a player may be counted for purchasing more than 1 number of Civilization Advances during a single transaction.

'Strategy Explorer - Quickchart'

13. A.S.T. Alteration

This phase is divided into 5 steps which are resolved in A.S.T.-ranking order.

For the Basic A.S.T. the 6 different epochs and their requirements are:

Stone Age: no requirements.
Early Bronze Age: at least 2 cities.
Middle Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 3 Civilization Advances.
Late Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 3 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 100 each.
Early Iron Age: at least 4 cities and 2 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 200 each.
Late Iron Age: at least 5 cities and 3 Civilization Advances with a minimal cost price of 200 each.

For the Expert A.S.T. the 6 different epochs and their requirements are:

Stone Age: no requirements.
Early Bronze Age: at least 3 cities.
Middle Bronze Age: at least 3 cities and 5 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.
Late Bronze Age: at least 4 cities and 12 Civilization Advances.
Early Iron Age: at least 5 cities and 10 Civilization Advances with a cost price of less than 100 each and a total of 38 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.
Late Iron Age: at least 6 cities and 17 Civilization Advances with a cost price of less than 100 each plus 56 Victory Points in Civilization Advances.

IMPORTANT: After the A.S.T. has been altered:

Check that all trade cards discarded or used this turn have been turned in.
Check that all cards are on the right discard pile.
Follow the right procedure when shuffling all piles.

13a. Succession Markers

In A.S.T.-ranking order, each player checks for the requirements of the next space on his track and takes either of the following actions:

If he meets the requirements his succession marker is moved 1 space forward.
If he does not meet the requirements, his succession marker stays in place this turn.

After all players have checked/moved their A.S.T.-marker, also move the turn marker one space to the right.

13b. Game End

The game ends when the succession marker of 1 or more players enters the final (colored) space. In that case move to 13d: Victory Determination, otherwise finish this phase.

13c. Reshuffling Trade Cards

All trade cards discarded or used this turn must be placed on their appropriate discard piles, 1 stack for each number.

WARNING: Do not mix any cards from the East and West blocks.

13d. Victory Determination

At the end of the game, each player is granted the following Victory Points (VP):

Category	Victory Points
Cities	1 VP for the number of cities in play.
Civilization Advances	1 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price of less than 100. 3 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price between 100 and 200. 6 VP for each Civilization Advance with a cost price of more than 200.
A.S.T. Position	5 VP for every step taken on the A.S.T. These values are printed at the bottom.
A.S.T. Bonus	Only if a single player moves his succession marker into the 'Late Iron Age' epoch he receives a bonus of 5 VP. If more than 1 player did so, this bonus is not granted to anyone.

The player with the highest number of Victory Points is the winner!

If two or more players have the same number of points, ties are broken in the following order:

The position of his succession marker on the A.S.T.
The player with the single largest number of Civilization Advances (in order): worth 6 VP; worth 3 VP.
The total price of all Civilization Advances the player holds.
The highest total value of credit tokens of a single color.
The highest total number of credit tokens.
The number of cities the player has on the board.
The number of tokens the player has on the board.
A.S.T.-ranking order.

Leaving the Game

Leaving the Game Prematurely

Whenever during the game any player should leave the game, the remaining players can agree to continue playing following the rules below.

Before the player quits, finish the current phase. If possible, finish the current turn until just before altering the A.S.T. and shuffling the trade cards.

The player's cards and census/A.S.T.-markers

All Civilization Advances purchased by the leaving player and his credit tokens are discarded.
All trade cards held by the leaving player are discarded, shuffled and placed under in the appropriate stacks during 'Reshuffling Trade Cards' in the A.S.T.-Alteration-phase. It is important that these cards are returned to the stacks, otherwise some commodity sets will be left incomplete!

The player's appearance on the map-board

Remove all of his remaining ships.
Place 1 'out of play' token in each area associated with the region (as mentioned in chapter 5, page 18/19) and remove all of the player's playing pieces, as well as all pirate cities and all barbarian tokens from these areas. All units belonging to other players remain in these areas.
For all of the player's remaining units on the board outside of the player's associated region, replace his tokens by barbarian tokens and his cities by pirate cities. These are considered barbarian tokens and pirate cities and may be attacked as normal.

Units Within 'Out of Play' Areas

There may still be other player's tokens or cities in areas containing an 'out of play' token. In A.S.T.-order, players involved must do the following (applying to these areas only):

Destroy all ships.
Reduce all cities. If a player has insufficient tokens in stock, he places as many tokens as possible following his choice.
Any tokens left must be removed and placed elsewhere on the map-board, providing that these areas already contain 1 of their tokens and no conflict situation occurs.

This should result in no tokens occupying an area containing an 'out of play' token.

All players must make an additional check for surplus population and remove all surplus population.
All players must make an additional check for city support and must reduce unsupported cities.

(Re)joining the Game at a Later Stage

Card-specific Rules - The Calamities

Primary victim / Secondary victim

Barbarian tokens and pirate cities cannot be selected as secondary victims of a calamity and do not suffer secondary damage from calamities.

Definitions: Unit points, Damage, Reduce, Destroy, Annex, Assign, Coastal

A city is worth 5 unit points, a token is worth 1 unit point. Ships never count as unit points.
X Damage means that the player must remove his units from the board to stock, worth X points.
Reducing a city as taking damage: Players may choose to reduce a city when taking damage. Reducing a city this way means that a player removes a city and replaces it with tokens up to the population limit. For example, if a player replaces a city with 2 tokens, this counts as 5 - 2 = 3 damage. If he has insufficient tokens in stock, he must replace it with whatever he has. If a player has to reduce a city, it may be any city he has on the board. If necessary, in order to take 1 damage, a player may reduce a city to 4 tokens, even exceeding the population limit, in which case the surplus is only removed during 'surplus population removal'.
Reducing a city as a calamity-effect: Apart from damage, some calamities just require the reduction of cities. In this case the cities are replaced by tokens up to the population limit.
Destroying a city means that it is removed but not replaced by tokens (equal to 5 damage).
Annexing unit points means that a player replaces other player's tokens or cities with his own.
Assigning X damage means that a player must name another player to take X damage. Secondary victims may choose from where to remove their units.
Coastal cities are defined as cities in coastal areas. Areas containing lakes do not count as coastal areas.
'To pay treasury' means that the player must transfer exactly this amount of treasury to stock in order to prevent a calamity effect. If the player cannot comply, he cannot use this ability.
'To lose treasury' means that the player must transfer exactly this amount of treasury to stock. If he does not have sufficient treasury, he transfers all his treasury to stock.

The Beneficiary

The Effect of Civilization Advances

The effects of Civilization Advances on a calamity are cumulative.

Insufficient Units, Cities or Treasury

Example: Gerart has to reduce 3 cities but only has 2 on the map-board, so he reduces both his cities.

Minor Calamities

Tempest — Take 2 damage in coastal areas and lose 5 treasury tokens.

Squandered Wealth — Lose 10 treasury tokens.

City Riots — Reduce 1 of your cities and lose 5 treasury tokens.

City in Flames — Destroy 1 of your cities or pay 10 treasury tokens to prevent this.

Tribal Conflict — Take 5 damage.

Minor Uprising — Destroy 1 of your cities.

Banditry — Discard 2 commodity cards of your choice. You may prevent discarding cards by paying 4 treasury tokens per card.

Coastal Migration — Destroy 1 of your coastal cities and lose 5 treasury tokens.

Major Calamities

Volcanic Eruption / Earthquake (Non Tradeable)

Earthquake: If you have no cities in an area with a volcano, select and destroy 1 city and select and reduce 1 city adjacent by land or water (irrespective of ownership).

In the case of an Earthquake, if you hold Engineering, your city is reduced rather than destroyed.

Treachery — The beneficiary selects and annexes 1 of your cities.

− If you hold Diplomacy the beneficiary selects and annexes 1 additional city.

Famine (Non Tradeable) — Take 10 damage and assign 5 damage to each of 3 players of your choice.

− If you are the primary victim and hold Agriculture, take 5 additional damage.

If you hold Pottery, prevent 5 damage.
If you hold Calendar, prevent 5 damage.

Even if a primary victim can prevent all of his damage, Famine is not canceled and players that can prevent their damage can still be selected as secondary victims.

Slave Revolt — Your city support rate is increased by 2 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. Perform a check for city support and reduce cities until you have sufficient support.

If you hold Mythology, your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.
If you hold Enlightenment, your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. − If you hold Mining, your city support rate is increased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt. − If you hold Cultural Ascendancy, your default city support rate is 3, and still is increased by 2 more during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

The default city support rate is 2. Any tokens newly gained by reducing a city this way, may immediately count for your city support.

If you hold Engineering, prevent 5 damage.

Superstition — Reduce 3 of your cities.

If you hold Mysticism, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Deism, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Enlightenment, reduce 1 less city. − If you hold Universal Doctrine, reduce 1 additional city.

If you hold Music, select 5 less unit points.
If you hold Drama and Poetry, select 5 less unit points.
If you hold Democracy, select 10 less unit points. − If you hold Philosophy, select 5 additional unit points. − If you hold Military, select 5 additional unit points.

If you hold Monarchy 5 less barbarian tokens are used. − If you hold Politics, 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − If you hold Provincial Empire, 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − Barbarian tokens are unaffected by Cultural Ascendancy or Diplomacy.

If you hold Masonry, reduce 1 less of your selected cities.
If you hold Calendar, reduce 2 less of your selected cities. − If you hold Trade Empire, select and reduce 1 additional city adjacent to the open sea area.

In case of a tie you choose the Cyclone area. Even if you can prevent reducing cities yourself, the Cyclone is not canceled for secondary victims.

Epidemic — Take 15 damage and select 2 other players that must take 10 damage as well. The beneficiary may not be selected as a secondary victim.

If you hold Medicine, prevent 5 damage.
If you are the primary victim and hold Enlightenment, prevent 5 damage. − If you are the primary victim and hold Roadbuilding, take 5 additional damage. − If you are the primary victim and hold Trade Empire, take 5 additional damage.
If you are a secondary victim and hold Anatomy, prevent 5 damage.

If you hold Sculpture, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.
If you hold Law, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points. − If you hold Monarchy, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points. − If you hold Provincial Empire, the beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points.

Civil Disorder — Reduce all but 3 of your cities.

If you hold Music, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Drama and Poetry, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Law, reduce 1 less city.
If you hold Democracy, reduce 1 less city. − If you hold Advanced Military, reduce 1 additional city. − If you hold Naval Warfare, reduce 1 additional city.

Corruption (Non Tradeable) — Discard commodity cards with a total face value (not set value) of at least 10 points.

If you hold Law, discard 5 less points of face value. − If you hold Coinage, discard 5 additional points of face value. − If you hold Wonder of the World, discard 5 additional points of face value.

Iconoclasm and Heresy — Reduce 4 of your cities and select 2 other players that must reduce 1 of their cities as well. The beneficiary may not be selected as a secondary victim.

If you hold Philosophy, reduce 2 less cities.
If you hold Theology, reduce 3 less cities. − If you hold, Monotheism, reduce 1 additional city.
If you hold Theocracy, you may choose to discard 2 commodity cards to prevent the city reduction effect for you.

If the primary victim uses the ability of 'Theocracy' that does not cancel the calamity for any secondary victims.

Regression (Non Tradeable) — Your succession marker on the A.S.T. is moved 1 step backward.

− If you hold Fundamentalism, your marker is moved backward 1 additional step.

If you hold Enlightenment, for each step backward, you may choose to prevent the effect by destroying 2 of your cities (if possible non-coastal).
If you hold Library, your marker is moved backward 1 less step.

Regression does not prevent you from advancing on the A.S.T. at the end of the turn.

− If you are the primary victim and hold Cartography, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 additional coastal city.

If you are the primary victim and hold Naval Warfare, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 less coastal city.
If you hold Naval Warfare, you may not be selected as a secondary victim.

Pirate cities remain on the board until destroyed or annexed using 'Universal Doctrine'.

Card-specific Rules - Civilization Advances

− CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 additional city.

Agriculture — The population limit of '0', '1' and '2' areas on the board is increased by 1 for you as long as these areas do not contain any other player's units or barbarian tokens.

− FAMINE: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

Anatomy — Upon purchase, you may choose to acquire a science card with an undiscounted cost price of less than 100 for free.

EPIDEMIC: If you are a secondary victim, prevent 5 damage.

Architecture — Once per turn, when constructing a city, you may choose to pay up to half of the required number of tokens from treasury.

You are allowed to use the ability when building a wilderness city.

Astronavigation — Your ships are allowed to move through open sea areas.

Your ships may not end in an open sea area.

Calendar

FAMINE: Prevent 5 damage.
CYCLONE: Reduce 2 less selected cities.

Cartography — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire additional trade cards from stack 2 for 5 treasury tokens and/or from stack 7 for 13 treasury tokens per card.

− PIRACY: If you are the primary victim, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 additional coastal city.

Cloth Making — Your ships are allowed to move 5 steps.

Coinage — You may choose to increase or decrease your tax rate by 1.

− CORRUPTION: Discard 5 additional points of face value.

You may only set the tax rate for all of your cities at once. You cannot vary taxes per city. If an increase in tax rate would result in a tax revolt, you may still choose to do so.

Deism

SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.

Democracy — During the Tax Collection phase you collect tax as usual but your cities do not revolt as a result of a shortage in tax collection.

CIVIL WAR: Select 10 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

If an increase in tax rate would result in a tax revolt, you may still choose to do so. If this would happen you can still become the beneficiary of another player's tax revolt that turn.

Diaspora — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to take up to 5 of your tokens from the board and place them anywhere else on the board, providing that no population limits are exceeded.

When placing your tokens the effects of 'Agriculture' and 'Public Works' may be regarded.

− TREACHERY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 1 additional city.

Drama and Poetry

CIVIL WAR: Select 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

Empiricism — None.

EARTHQUAKE: Your city is reduced instead of destroyed.
FLOOD: Prevent 5 damage.

Enlightenment

SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.
SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.
EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, prevent 5 damage.
REGRESSION: For each step backward, you may choose to prevent the effect by destroying 2 of your cities (if possible non-coastal).

− REGRESSION: Your marker is moved backward 1 additional step.

Law

TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.
CORRUPTION: Discard 5 less points of face value.

Library — You may discount the cost of any other Civilization Advance that you purchase in the same turn as Library by 40 points.

REGRESSION: Your marker is moved backward 1 step less.

Literacy — None.

Masonry

CYCLONE: Reduce 1 less of your selected cities.

Mathematics — None.

Medicine

EPIDEMIC: Prevent 5 damage.

Metalworking — In conflicts, for each round of token removal all other players not holding Metalworking must remove their token first.

If more than 1 player holds 'Metalworking', their mutual order is again the normal minority/majority order.

Military — Your movement phase is after all other players not holding Military have moved. You are allowed to move tokens into areas containing cities belonging to players holding Diplomacy.

− CIVIL WAR: Select 5 additional unit points.

If more than 1 player holds 'Military', for these players their mutual order is again defined by their census.

− SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is increased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

Monarchy — You may choose to increase your tax rate by 1.

BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 less barbarian tokens are used.

− ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 1 additional city.

Monument — Acquire 20 additional points of credit tokens in any combination of colors.

You gain the additional credits once as it is purchased. Your choice cannot be changed at a later stage.

Music

CIVIL WAR: Select 5 less unit points.
CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 less city.

Mysticism — SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 less city.

Mythology

SLAVE REVOLT: Your city support rate is decreased by 1 during the resolution of Slave Revolt.

PIRACY: If you are the primary victim, the beneficiary selects and replaces 1 less coastal city. You may not be selected as a secondary victim. − CIVIL DISORDER: Reduce 1 additional city.

Philosophy

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 2 cities less.

Your units are protected against the effect of Fundamentalism.

− CIVIL WAR: Select 5 additional unit points.

− BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 additional barbarian tokens are used.

Pottery

FAMINE: Prevent 5 damage.

− BARBARIAN HORDES: 5 additional barbarian tokens are used. − TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 additional unit points.

The victims may choose whether they give their cards open or closed. You may choose whether you reveal them.

Public Works — Areas containing your cities may also contain 1 of your tokens. You are protected against the effect of Provincial Empire.

Rhetoric — During the Trade Cards Acquisition phase, you may acquire additional trade cards from stack 3 for 9 treasury tokens per card.

− EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

Sculpture — TYRANNY: The beneficiary selects and annexes 5 less unit points.

Theocracy

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: You may choose and discard 2 commodity cards to prevent a city reduction effect for you.

Theology

ICONOCLASM AND HERESY: Reduce 3 cities less.

Your units are protected against the effect of Monotheism.

Trade Empire — Once per turn, you may choose to use 1 substitute commodity card of at least the same face value when turning in an incomplete set of commodity cards.

− CYCLONE: Select and reduce 1 additional city adjacent to the open sea area. − EPIDEMIC: If you are the primary victim, take 5 additional damage.

Trade Routes — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to discard any number of commodity cards to gain treasury tokens at twice the face value of the commodity cards discarded this way.

You cannot gain less treasury than exactly twice the face value of a commodity card. If you have insufficient tokens in stock you cannot discard this card.

Universal Doctrine — SPECIAL ABILITY: You may choose to annex 1 pirate city or up to 5 barbarian tokens anywhere on the board.

− SUPERSTITION: Reduce 1 additional city.

Urbanism — Once per turn, when constructing a wilderness city you may choose to use up to 4 tokens from areas adjacent by land.

In combination with 'Architecture' this means a wilderness city can be built in an area containing 2 tokens, using 4 tokens from adjacent areas and 6 tokens from treasury.

− CORRUPTION: Discard 5 additional points of face value.

Written Record — Acquire 10 additional points of credit tokens in any combination of colors.

You gain the additional credits once as it is purchased. Your choice cannot be changed at a later stage.

The Short Game

How to Set Up The Short Game?

The game provides a set of 9 different cards showing pre-constructed sets of Civilization Advances.

For each different number of players, it is important to select the right theme-set cards, as described. We strongly recommend not to vary these selections.

5 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Mystical Palaces.
6 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Mystical Palaces.
7 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Mystical Palaces.
8 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces, Cultural Heights.
9 players — Conquering the Seas, Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
10 players — Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
11 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
12 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
13 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
14 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, Spreading Knowledge, Cultural Heights, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
15 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
16 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Spreading Knowledge, Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
17 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Spreading Knowledge, 2x Emerging Empire, Mystical Palaces.
18 players — 2x Conquering the Seas, 2x Sacred Constructors, 2x Coin and Commerce, 2x Exploring the Deserts, 2x Early Merchants, 2x Spreading Knowledge, 2x Cultural Heights, 2x Emerging Empire, 2x Mystical Palaces.

Now, set up the game as normal, as described in chapter 4 'Setting up the game' (page 10) using the basic A.S.T. and adjust the following:

Shuffle the selection of theme-set cards as described and place them face down in a stack.
All players draw a pre-constructed set-card and take a look at it, without revealing it (players may look up the Advances in silence).
All players choose a civilization using the numbered startup cards.
In A.S.T.-ranking order, each player may build 5 cities within their own region, as described in the regions setup (chapter 5, page 18/19), 4 of which must be on a city site. Remember no cities can be built in areas with population limit '0'.
Once all players are done, simultaneously all players reveal their theme-set card and collect the Civilization Advances mentioned on this card and collect the corresponding credit tokens. It is recommended to have a round of each player calling the Advances they have received to all players, so that every player knows what everybody holds.
Some theme-sets order the destruction of 1 city when revealed. This is done at this point.
As if it was Trade Cards Acquisition-phase all players draw trade cards (4-5 cards per player). First all players with 4 cities draw their cards, next all players with 5 cities draw their cards, A.S.T.-ranking breaks ties. If players draw a calamity, they don't reveal this. Players cannot purchase additional trade cards at this point.
In A.S.T.-ranking order, all players may divide up to 14 tokens over their associated region (player's choice). No population limits may be exceeded, but players may regard 'Agriculture'.
All players must transfer exactly 10 tokens from stock to treasury.
Advance all succession markers to column 11 on the A.S.T. (just before the Late Bronze Age).
At this point, all players should have a set of 4 Civilization Advances, 4-5 trade cards, 4-5 cities and 14 tokens on the board and 10 tokens in treasury.

Start

Now, the game starts as if it was a regular turn, by collecting taxes. Players may regard 'Coinage' and 'Monarchy' at this point.

The game ends once a player advances to the final space on the A.S.T. This is the moment for victory determination.

Tips and tricks:

In 'The Short Game' some calamities have a less devastating effect than in the regular game.
This type of game develops quicker than expected. It is more important to score Victory Points by purchasing Civilization Advances than planning for the long range and stay in place on the A.S.T. for a turn.
It is most important to advance on the A.S.T. every turn. There are fewer possibilities to catch up than in the full game.

Division of Trade Cards

5-8 Players / 9-10 Players / 9, 11 Players

Stack	Name	5-8 West	5-8 East	9-10 West	9,11 East
1	Ochre	9	.	9	.
1	Flax	.	9	.	9
1	Clay	9	.	9	.
1	Hides	.	9	.	9
1	Bone	.	.	8	8
2	Papyri	8	.	8	.
2	Stone	.	8	.	8
2	Iron	8	.	8	.
2	Furs	.	8	.	8
2	Wax	.	.	8	8
2	Tempest	.	.	1	1
2	Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake	1	1	1	1
2	Treachery	1	1	1	1
3	Fish	8	.	8	.
3	Timber	.	8	.	8
3	Fruit	9	.	9	.
3	Salt	.	9	.	9
3	Ceramics	.	.	8	8
3	Squandered Wealth	.	.	1	1
3	Famine	1	1	1	1
3	Slave Revolt	1	1	1	1
4	Wool	7	.	7	.
4	Cotton	.	7	.	7
4	Oil	8	.	8	.
4	Sugar	.	8	.	8
4	Grain	.	.	8	8
4	City Riots	.	.	1	1
4	Flood	1	1	1	1
4	Superstition	1	1	1	1
5	Wine	6	.	6	.
5	Lacquer	.	6	.	6
5	Textiles	7	.	7	.
5	Livestock	.	7	.	7
5	Glass	.	.	6	6
5	City in Flames	.	.	1	1
5	Civil War	1	1	1	1
5	Barbarian Hordes	1	1	1	1
6	Tin	5	.	5	.
6	Silver	.	5	.	5
6	Copper	6	.	6	.
6	Bronze	.	6	.	6
6	Lead	.	.	6	6
6	Tribal Conflict	.	.	1	1
6	Cyclone	1	1	1	1
6	Epidemic	1	1	1	1
7	Resin	5	.	5	.
7	Jade	.	5	.	5
7	Incense	6	.	6	.
7	Spice	.	6	.	6
7	Herbs	.	.	6	6
7	Minor Uprising	.	.	1	1
7	Tyranny	1	1	1	1
7	Civil Disorder	1	1	1	1
8	Marble	4	.	4	.
8	Dye	.	4	.	4
8	Gemstones	5	.	5	.
8	Tea	.	5	.	5
8	Obsidian	.	.	4	4
8	Banditry	.	.	1	1
8	Corruption	1	1	1	1
8	Iconoclasm and Heresy	1	1	1	1
9	Ivory	4	.	4	.
9	Silk	.	4	.	4
9	Gold	5	.	5	.
9	Pearls	.	5	.	5
9	Amber	.	.	4	4
9	Coastal Migration	.	.	1	1
9	Regression	1	1	1	1
9	Piracy	1	1	1	1

12-14 Players / 15-18 Players

Stack	Name	12-14 West	12-14 East	15-18 West	15-18 East
1	Ochre	9	.	9	.
1	Flax	.	9	.	9
1	Clay	5	4	5	4
1	Hides	4	5	4	5
1	Bone	.	.	4	4
2	Papyri	8	.	8	.
2	Stone	.	8	.	8
2	Iron	4	4	4	4
2	Furs	4	4	4	4
2	Wax	.	.	4	4
2	Tempest	.	.	1	1
2	Volcanic Eruption or Earthquake	1	1	1	1
2	Treachery	1	1	1	1
3	Fish	8	.	8	.
3	Timber	.	8	.	8
3	Fruit	5	4	5	4
3	Salt	4	5	4	5
3	Ceramics	.	.	4	4
3	Squandered Wealth	.	.	1	1
3	Famine	1	1	1	1
3	Slave Revolt	1	1	1	1
4	Wool	7	.	7	.
4	Cotton	.	7	.	7
4	Oil	4	4	4	4
4	Sugar	4	4	4	4
4	Grain	.	.	4	4
4	City Riots	.	.	1	1
4	Flood	1	1	1	1
4	Superstition	1	1	1	1
5	Wine	6	.	6	.
5	Lacquer	.	6	.	6
5	Textiles	4	3	4	3
5	Livestock	3	4	3	4
5	Glass	.	.	3	3
5	City in Flames	.	.	1	1
5	Civil War	1	1	1	1
5	Barbarian Hordes	1	1	1	1
6	Tin	5	.	5	.
6	Silver	.	5	.	5
6	Copper	3	3	3	3
6	Bronze	3	3	3	3
6	Lead	.	.	3	3
6	Tribal Conflict	.	.	1	1
6	Cyclone	1	1	1	1
6	Epidemic	1	1	1	1
7	Resin	5	.	5	.
7	Jade	.	5	.	5
7	Incense	3	3	3	3
7	Spice	3	3	3	3
7	Herbs	.	.	3	3
7	Minor Uprising	.	.	1	1
7	Tyranny	1	1	1	1
7	Civil Disorder	1	1	1	1
8	Marble	4	.	4	.
8	Dye	.	4	.	4
8	Gemstones	3	2	3	2
8	Tea	2	3	2	3
8	Obsidian	.	.	2	2
8	Banditry	.	.	1	1
8	Corruption	1	1	1	1
8	Iconoclasm and Heresy	1	1	1	1
9	Ivory	4	.	4	.
9	Silk	.	4	.	4
9	Gold	3	2	3	2
9	Pearls	2	3	2	3
9	Amber	.	.	2	2
9	Coastal Migration	.	.	1	1
9	Regression	1	1	1	1
9	Piracy	1	1	1	1