The ancient city-states of the Mediterranean constantly fought with one another for supremacy. Can you be the first civilization to achieve greatness?

Civscape is a take-that civilization card game, with all its rules on the cards. Play it while waiting for friends to show up (the rules allow others to be dealt in as they arrive) or play it to wrap up an evening of heavier gaming. Civilization games are usually strategic, deep, and long; this is a short tactical game of back-and-forth as you grow your civ and others knock it back.

In the Civscape card game, you will add Buildings to the Skyline of your city, discover new Technologies that are added to your Timeline, establish new systems of Government, carefully balance your Resources and race against your rivals to build Wonders and Statues.

To win, you need to play a Goal card and meet its conditions. For instance, if you have the Statue of Julius Caesar in hand, you can win if you have four Military cards in your civilization before you play the Statue. If you have the Royal Library Wonder, and have two of its pre-reqs (the Library, the University or the Watermill), you win; if you have the Philosophy Technology, and have its pre-reqs, Writing and Rhetoric, you win; and so on.

Each city-state is constantly pushing the limits of what it can sustain: a city grows larger than its technology supports, fields more military than it has resources for, and comes up with more plans than its current system of government can implement. Even as you expand your own city, you can cause trouble for other city states, subjecting them to calamities, disbanding their military, forcing them to choose new leaders, or seizing the crown of the Emperor.

You will play one of nine cities: Athens, Carthage, Corinth, Ephesus, Pella, Rome, Sparta, Syracuse or Thebes. Each city has 10 other corresponding cards, with a unique Wonder, Statue (great leader), other Buildings, Technology, Government, and Events. Prior to gameplay, each player selects their City and its cards, which are mixed together into the overall draw deck. Choose sets of rivals like the Peloponnesian War (Athens vs. Sparta and Thebes), the Punic War (Rome vs. Carthage), the League of Corinth (Pella & Corinth vs. Ephesus), the Sicilian War (Syracuse vs. Carthage) or one of the other suggested scenarios. With thousands of combinations, every game is different!

Download the free print-and-play PDF with all 108 cards!

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