Dusting off the Black Sheep of my Collection

My collection is growing quickly, but is still not a giant collection (despite my wife's thoughts on the subject). I love all my games on my shelf. But one of them, makes me sad every time I look at it: Sid Meier's Civilization- The board game

As I've mentioned in a previous post I (STILL) have yet to play this game with someone. This is why I feel sadness when I look at this game on my shelf. Granted, the pandemic has presented it's challenges in that regard, but even back in the summer when restrictions here at least allowed us to get together with family (in limited numbers), Civilization just didn't make it to the top of the choices list. This is also partly my doing since I just keep getting awesome games to play! LOL

I still really enjoy SMC on the PC, and when I do get this game to the table, and run through rules etc I always think; "This is great!". It's not my favourite in my collection, but it absolutely deserves to be here.

Today allowed me some time for myself with an empty house for a while; Did some reading, played guitar and played Caverna: The Cave Farmers solo. Then later this afternoon (before dinner), I wanted to get SMC off the shelf and to the table.

Back in October when I played this solo, I used the Crazy, but working solitaire variant . The nice thing about a game from 2010; there's a bunch of fan-made solo variants to try. My memory from the October game, was that the variant definitely worked, and was interesting.. and crazy. Crazy in the sense that your attention is very much on military power and ensuring the barbarians (which are coming quickly and from various locations) can be kept at bay.

Today I chose a different variant: Solo Play: Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game

As with the other variant, it's tough! This one however puts a little more of the actual game experience into play (as best it can without other players naturally). All 4 victory conditions are in play; cultural, military, money and technological. You have to reach 1 of them by the end of the game. The game lasts (on the easiest level that I chose) after 15 turns. It reminds me of Terraforming Mars solo. You have a lot to consider, and not much time to do it.

This variant utilizes a D6 die to create some feel of the actual game. For the most part, after turn 4 you have to roll the D6 die at various times to, potentially, causing trouble for you. But sometimes you get lucky and either nothing happens, or it provides an option for you if you want it. Pretty cool.

Overall, I really think I enjoyed this variant more than the last one I tried. Having said that, it had been so long since I played, I screwed up a few things. A couple didn't really make a huge difference either way, but the big issue was I kept forgetting that I could actually do MORE in my city management phase! For those of you who haven't played it, in this phase you have several options of what you can choose to do, but you can only pick one each turn.... PER CITY! I kept forgetting! Actually I didn't even realize I was screwing that up until turn 7 or 8, at which point the game is half over. It sure would've opened many options and abilities if I would've realized it from the start. LOL

I finished the game, but absolutely did not meet any victory conditions. BUT I was reminded why this game is in my collection (especially when I played it properly after realizing my mistake LOL). It's still my "Black Sheep" of my collection, but it truly is a great game, with tons of options and strategy!