No-Trading Variant for Advanced Civilization

Version 2.1, November 2001

I originally wrote this variant as a way to allow 2- or 3-player games of Advanced Civilization, but it may also be useful to groups who find trading to be more a source of disagreement than an opportunity to demonstrate skill.  A copy of Outpost by Prism Games (now out-of-print) is required in addition to Advanced Civilization.

The normal rules of Advanced Civilization apply, except as stated below.

1. The trade cards are not used, except the calamities which get stacked in one pile.

2. Instead of drawing trade cards, use the money cards from Outpost.  For your first city you draw an Ore, for your second you draw a Water, and so on until the ninth city gets you a Moon Ore.  (If also using the Imperial Civilization variant, start over with an Ore for the 10th city.)  Outpost mega-cards are not used.

3. You can buy a card for 18 Treasury, but it will be one more of the highest type of card your cities produce (so for example, if you have four cities and "buy a Gold", you get a second Research).

4. There is no trading.

5. Calamities are awarded by die rolls, as follows:
   1. Have one player roll a die, determined by the most advanced age that anyone is in on the AST, to determine the total number of calamities that happen this turn:

      Stone Age:	no calamities
      Early Bronze Age:	d4-2
      Late Bronze Age:	d6-2
      Early Iron Age:	d8-2
      Late Iron Age:	d6+1

      
      Results less than zero are treated as zero.

   2. For each calamity, have everyone roll 2d6.  (Players with too few cities to advance on the AST this turn need not roll.*)  Reroll ties for lowest or highest.

      Then have one player draw a card from the calamity pile.  The low roller is the primary victim; the high roller "traded it to him".  (For Civil War, the high roller is the beneficiary.)

      Resolve this calamity immediately, before rolling for the next.

   3. Crete is still immune to the Barbarian Hordes (exception:  Atlantis variant).  If he rolls low and then draws the Hordes, there is no effect, but this still counts toward the number of calamities rolled in step a.

   4. Since there is no Grain, Water is used instead (with Pottery) to reduce your losses in a Famine.  The value of the Water card(s) used need not be shown.

   5. All calamities drawn are left out face-up until after the calamity phase of the next turn (so no calamity can occur on two consecutive turns).

6. The Outpost money cards are considered trade cards for all other purposes; you can keep up to eight, and they can be taken by sacking other players' cities.  (Since the backs are not identical, the "random draw" in this case must be determined by a die roll.)

7. Each money-card pile is shuffled at the end of each turn in which a card was returned to that pile, to defeat counting.  The same applies to the calamity pile.

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*  The determination that a player need not roll is made before each roll for a calamity.  I put this in to keep someone who rolls badly from getting screwed too much by calamities (whether they happen in the same turn or not); it replaces the normal limit of two calamities per turn.  A player who need not roll may choose to roll anyway in the hope of being the high roller, but must then accept the possibility of being the victim (or of being the beneficiary of a Civil War and suffering a subsequent tax revolt as a result).

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