Antiquity - Third Edition

Glad to find this copy!! Luckily there will be a new edition soon. It's a top notch game.

Antiquity is not a game for everyone. It is a difficult and unforgiving at first, but once you find your bearings, I think you'll find it to be one of the deepest and most satisfying strategy games you'll ever play. Antiquity has a great mix of macro and micro management. It is competitive yet not directly so; you'll find most of the winning strategies result in more passive aggressive actions and only after the mid-game--the first half is mostly spent on your own civilization. Players will likely only feel discouraged as a result of their own poor planning as opposed to offensive actions perpetrated by other players (unlike many strategy games.) There's no luck or randomness here and the only person to blame for your civilization falling apart is yourself.The players must manage their resources and prevent pollution on a shared world map while planning their own private city or cities. The city, which represents the micromanagement portion of the game, largely affects the economic power and influence you'll have on the world map. Poor city planning can be the death of you--and a very slow and painful one at that! There simply is no fat in the game design, the designers know this and after your first turn you'll realize every action and every decision is critical; every single move must be budgeted out carefully lest you be destroyed! The difficulty is mostly a result of the game's ever-increasing famine track which maintains the number of food units a player must have (not spend) in order to support their population. If a player does not possess the necessary food, then they must place a gravestone in one of their cities. This prevents you from constructing often necessary buildings as your city space becomes increasingly occupied with "dead" space. To make matters worse, per round pollution must be placed around your city. Pollution prevents you from harvesting and mining your area of control which can ruin your economy. Furthermore, if there are no free spaces to aid pollution to you must place a grave stone within your city per pollution unit--see above for why this is bad! But don't lose hope as their are buildings to remove both pollution and gravestones, and to prevent famine. Your actions in either macro or micro portions of the game affect the other for better or for worse so be careful!Yes, this sounds hard and possibly not fun, but trust this is one of the most engaging and involved experiences out there in gaming. I could continue with a much longer detailing of the game, but it's better left experienced. This is one of my favourite games, easily!