Image Courtesy of <PERSON>, via the publisher, Z-man games
<PERSON>’s Picks: Clash of Cultures
I’m a bit nervous doing a review on CoC. Previously, my reviews have been on games or expansions that have little to no other reviews and many of them are relatively unpopular kid games. So, there was little chance they would actually be read. Further, CoC has already had a number of excellent reviews. So why this review? Because CoC is so freakin’ fantastic I just have to throw my two cents in!
While most of the pictures used will be from my own stock, there are several from other BGGers who uploaded excellent pics. I thank those indiviuals for those pics.
The Basics:
Publisher - Z-Man Games, 2012
Designer- <PERSON>
Play Time: 240 minutes (BGG), 180 minutes (game box), 60-210 minutes (personal experience)
# of Players: 2-4
Ages: 14+ (game box). 10+ (personal experience)
Category/Mechanics- Civilization builder, 4X, area movement, variable player powers, modular board, combat with dice, resource management.
Difficulty - Moderate, with extensive use of text
Clash of Cultures is an epic, empire building game where you try build your civilization into the dominant culture of the land. To win, you must acquire the most victory points. There are several ways to gain points: discovering advances (technologies), building or capturing cities, exerting cultural influence, completing objectives and building wonders. Even some event cards will give you points...like when a volcano destroys your city. Of course, your opponents are trying to do the same and, naturally, as yours and their cultures expand, the cultures will come into conflict (err, Clashing).
The box says it is for ages 14+ and I think that is fairly accurate in terms of who would most likely enjoy playing this. However, I have played this with a 10 year old and a 13 year old, both of whom are used to playing table top games. Both did fine with gameplay, even if their decisions were not always "ideal." There is quite a bit of text in terms of the advance board, action cards and event cards. However, gameplay/turn taking is rather intuitive and after a few games I feel some players younger than 14 would do just fine with CoC. There is no chance I would go younger than 10, though.
CoC is epic and the box says this game takes “180 minutes.” While I've played a couple of standard 2P games that have taken just 60 minutes, most of our 2P games are closer to 90 (not including set-up and take-down). 299
Each additional player adds between 45-60 minutes from there, I think. Our standard 3P games are typically about 2-2.5 hours in length and the one 4P game I've done took 3.5 hours. There are a few variants that can cut the game’s length, including a four round game, when needed. The gameplay does have some downtime, so if your playing group (or someone) suffers from AP---it is likely this game will be closer to the 240 minutes listed by BGG. My group generally plays pretty fast for most games. Once the rules are ingrained, turns should be rather quick, except near the final rounds or when there is a large amount of combat. Either way, it never feels that long; the game is exciting and challenging throughout---so time flies.
Bang for your Buck (aka Components):
I judge components in terms of aesthetics, price, and durability. Obvoiusly, if I'm paying a heafty amount I expect really good componets. Currently the MRSP is $79.99 but CoC can be found on Amazon Prime for about 60-65 US dollars. This game has a high production value with many bits so you will simply have to put up the $$$ for the quality. I own the second printing of the first edition and I have not been disappointed at all in the components and consider it fair priced.
Here's what you get:
Game box
Rulebook
20 Region Tiles
Numerous cardboard tokens, such as resource indicators
8 Dice
4 Player boards
4 Player Aids
192 little plastic cubes (my print---earlier ones were wooden)
119 Cards
7 Wonder pieces
147 City-pieces
112 Unit pieces
Here they are in more detail:
1 Rulebook. 24 pages in length. Nice, large rulebook in full color. Plenty of examples and pictures with clear directions. Well done.
You can find a link to the rules PDF here: http://zmangames.com/product-details.php?id=996. It was after reading these rules that I knew this was the civ game I was looking for. 386