by Torala
This... is... a... fantastic... game. Okay, let me start at the beginning.I got up at 6:00. I needed to be at a friends house at about 8:00. After celebrating my birthday with my wife with my wife, a breakfast and opening some presents (they totally ruined my purchase-plans for the SPIEL ) I drove to my friend. After opening more presents (and ruining almost all the rest of my purchase-plans for the SPIEL ) we went to the main station and drove to Essen in about 1,5 hours and got to the fair.
After enjoying the fair, meeting some friends from all over Germany and trying to find the rest of our to-buy-lists we picked up my copy of Clash of Cultures and got it signed. After a delayed return home we could finally start to play a first round of ...
Rules and Material
I read the online-rules once before and studied them again on our return-trip from the SPIEL. I think they are really well written and easy to understand if you know these kind of games. It took me about 20-25minutes to explain all the rules to my friend.
The material is just... its SO much. I dont have the slightest clue how I will attempt to store the game parts - especially after painting (which I plan to do).
Some points that I want to mention before getting into the gameplay:
The player boards and player aids are really nice. They are very structured and easy to understand. They got almost everything you need (I'm missed the consequences of happy/angry cities on there but after looking it up it turned out to be so easy, that you dont need it on there).
The turn-order-sequences are way easier than "Civilization" (FFG). In the standard game you get 7 rounds, each having 3 turns. Every turn has the players do 3 actions each.
So in total you get roughly 63 actions (there are ways to get more or even lose some actions) in which you can do everything. No different phases - just do what you want and what your Culture needs.
The resource management is very easy, you just slide the markers left or right, no need to look at your different cities and how much they have on what
Objectives: nice to have the choise between civil and military goals, luck isnt forcing you into one direction.
Events are very different and can ruin your plans really quickly.
Action cards are also very dfferent and dont force you into any decisions since you can use them for a bonus in building up your culture or in combat.
The research-mechanic (advances) is really easy to get into, we often forgot some advantages we got like extra actions or extra resources when you do something, but quickly got the hang of it. After a few games this wont be a problem.
Miniatures: the city pieces are a great idea and you can really get a feel for the growth of you cities. The Armies and Settlers arent that good looking, but still I cant wait to paint all of these miniatures someday in the near future.
Gameplay
As it is typical for these kind of games, the first turns were used to explore the new terretories and to found new cities to expand on your empire.
Quickly we discovered how important happy citizens are, as I was able to collecte 2 resources which each city very fast (happy cities increase your city size for those purposes by 1, allowing you to collect one more resource in an action) and my opponent wasnt.
Due to an objective my opponent deciced to go into science very quickly as he needed all four advances in this category to get 2 victory points. After that he got religious and relied on temples to grow his cities.
I decieded to take the path of a scholar and went for academies and rely on "Ideas" to get a headstart in advances. I had to force my objectives and couldnt use many of my action-cards. My opponent of the otherhand was getting a lead in fullfilling his objectives and could use many "free action"-action-cards to harm me or benefit himself. Each of us could acquire a Wonder after a few rounds but couldnt get much use out of it except for the victory points.
We totally ignored all military-based actions until the last round. In the first 3 actions I raised an army and send it out to capture 2 of my opponents cities since he hadnt any defences. The game was quickly over after that. That wont happen in the next game so easily
Playtime and conclusion
The playtime for such a complexe theme was fantastic. We needed about 2h 15min (+ 25min rules explanation) for the first game. You can expect this to get even faster if you played more often.
This, the more versatile ways to victory (scoring all kind of stuff, not just finishing one victory condition) and the research/advance-system make it so much better for friends of mine who like Civilization from FFG, but cant get the strategies down to compete with more experienced players. I have high hopes that the clearly laid out Clash of Cultures will be one of the games which will hit the tables more often.
Its 2:00 at night here in Germany now and I will go to bed now. Please excuse any grammar and spelling errors - I will check for them tomorrorw. It was a long day - but it was fun