This balance is helped a lot by the randomization of the victory conditions, making all attributes important at one time or another. This also adds nicely to the replayability of the game, which is boosted too by the fact you have eight civilizations to choose from and can set up the map tiles differently each time, creating unique strategic challenges to overcome. As an opponent, the AP is predictable—you can always see what it will do on its next turn and any number of turns down the line. In spite of its predictability, or perhaps even because of it, the AP proves to be a compelling opponent because it presents the human player with a puzzle to solve, a puzzle that is not unlike playing against a human opponent. For example, you might know that the AP is going to take that prime city space on its next turn, but you are still left with a decision about whether to settle that spot first, forcing the AP to settle elsewhere, or let them take the spot and upgrade your military focus card so you can take the newly-settled city by force—or any number of other choices!

And what’s more, the AP isn’t just for solo play. It can also be used in games with up to three human players to provide an additional opponent against which you must compete. Will you coexist peacefully with the AP, manipulating it to your advantage and turning it against your human opponents, or will you team up with the other humans to carve up the AP’s territory for yourselves? The decision is yours. While some players argue that they don’t feel the theme of Gaia Project, this is a piece of civilization board game masterpiece which will appeal to those players who value deep strategy games that can still be placed at a decent pace. Gaia Project won’t punish you too badly if you make mistakes, but you will be wowed by how well your opponents have managed their resources, motivating you to do better with any of the 14 factions available in Gaia Project! Conversely, a leader may choose a competitive civilization that uses rival nations to advance its own agendas. Economy focus cards allow a player to interact with city-states and rival cities by moving caravans. The card’s focus row slot determines which terrain types the caravans can move into. The industry focus cards allow a player to build either a new city or a world wonder, which grants a powerful ability to the player who controls it. If building a city, the card’s focus row slot determines which types of terrain the player can consider whereas, if the player is building a world wonder, the focus row slot contributes toward the cost of that wonder.A leader may choose to create a peaceful civilization defined by artistic and intellectual pursuits. For artistic pursuits, the culture focus cards allow players to place control tokens, which can expand their territory and claim resources. The card’s focus row slot also determines which types of terrain on which the player can place control tokens. For the intellectual, the science focus cards advance a player’s tech dial, allowing the player to discover new technologies. The dial advances spaces equal to the number of the science card’s focus row slot.

As we all do our part to stop the spread of COVID-19 through social distancing, it can be difficult to fill out the player count for our favorite board games. This new reality sparked a discussion in the Fantasy Flight Games “digital office” about which of our non-cooperative games might be best suited to being played solo! Since I had recently designed the upcoming Terra Incognita expansion, Civilization: A New Dawn came to mind quite naturally. Each player's tech dial is put to zero and a capital city is placed on a free star space nearest to each player to act as base camp. City state cards relating to the ones that are in play are put nearby and finally three victory cards are laid out and the game can begin. Cyclades is a game of bluffing, skillful manoeuvring and securing favor from all high. Don’t you worry out about missing on some deity’s predisposition, though, as you have plenty of Greek gods and goddesses to choose from who, frankly, have little better to do than meddle in human affairs. Overall, Civilization: A New Dawn is an enjoyable and complete 4X strategy game. It’s a solid empire-builder, requiring a lot of thought and foresight to play well. The focus bar mechanic, in particular, is a really interesting concept, which encourages a much more long-term and patient style of play. Released in 2017, A New Dawn draws loosely from the latest entry in the long-running strategy PC series, Civilization VI. Players race to completely victory objectives by expanding their civilisation, developing its technology and diplomacy or military might, using the cards in front of them to perform various actions.The five cards can be upgraded by gathering enough tech points, but there’s no fixed linear progression – a starting card can be replaced with the most advanced version without needing to go through the two stages between. This keeps up the momentum and avoids funneling players down a particular play style, but it does detract from the typical satisfaction of watching your empire progressively advance through the eras, leaving things feeling a little more thematically disjointed. The victory conditions are similarly less clear-cut, requiring three random achievements spread across the 4X spectrum rather than presenting the chance to win with a singular focus. Tapestry is Jamey Stegmaier’s board game delight. A civilizational board game experience, Stegmaier just seems incapable of delivering a game that is not visually and mechanically satisfying. Through the Ages is often touted as one of the best civilization board games – and for a good reason. While the game can be a bit fiddly at first, it offers a fantastic blend of resource management, strategic decisions, foresight, and evolving stratagems that evolve just as the course of history has!

The focus bar mechanic is a real stand-out feature for me. This requires players to think long-term about their actions and plan several turns in advance. Each time you don’t play a card is an investment in its future strength, but how long can you hold on? Similarly, it’s great fun mapping out what cards you need at what point along the focus row, as grueling as it can sometimes be. Cons: When placing control tokens, you can place them on empty forest spaces that are not adjacent to an allied city. Once per turn, when your caravan moves to a rival city that is 8 or more spaces from your capital, you may build a city on a legal space within 2 spaces of that city. [2 caravans]A player’s turn consists of choosing a card from their focus row and resolving its effect. Play then moves on to the next player. The five cards act as follows: Through the Ages relies on both resource management and card drafting, which will allow you to expand access to new technology and resources that you can leverage to further advance your civilization. Plans may often be foiled if you focus too heavily on a single card, but the game itself makes it easy to adapt even when a player has beaten you to a good claim from the card marketplace.