We continue our sojourn through the cards of GMT’s upcoming, now P-500 listed, second game of the “Ancient Civilizations” series: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) GMT Games – Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East [the first game of the series is Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea GMT Games – Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS)].
ACME’s selection of “Regular” cards provides instruments which inflict benefits, sometimes at the expense of another Civilization; and then there are cards which singularly direct pain. These represent the Ancient World’s ways of damaging a Civilization, sometimes fatally when multiply applied, in the form of disk loss and/or the erosion of its wealth (mina).
This article focuses on those cards which, when one Civilization plays upon another, deliver mostly negative results… and, of course, when players each control a Civilization… that’s when the “take that” nature of the game comes to the fore… which in Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea brought forth ire and/or mirth, depending on players’ attitudes. This is also the case with Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East.
It IS all about CHAOS – both Inflicting Chaos upon others and Surviving Chaos
Readers should take pause if presuming ACME’s chaos isn’t deliberate. First, the players take on the role of the gods themselves when inflicting all manner of disasters upon one another. To learn more of this facet of the design, please reference: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea Part 2: Playing Your Role – Inside GMT blog This contributes to ACME being an historical simulation. For that, kindly reference: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea Part 4 of 4: The “Real History” Behind the Game – Inside GMT blog Can your Civilization survive and perhaps even prosper during “The Bronze Age Collapse”? Play ACME and find out!
Cards are generally played sequentially by Civilization after the Deployment Phase which places disks upon the map. For an explanation and example of game Phases leading up to the Card Phase, see: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Example of Play Part 1 of 3: Game Set-Up through Growth Phase – Inside GMT blog As to the Card Phase itself, see: Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Example of Play Part 2 of 3: Card Phase through Competition Phase – Inside GMT blog Do recall play of any of these cards can be negated through an appropriate NEGATE card.
So, with all background references complete, to hopefully help better appreciate what these cards represent… let the disasters of fire, brimstone, air turbulent, water and the evils of man commence! Here’s an image of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s map to help appreciate the grief these cards can inflict.
The Roiling Waves… Both the Sea & Riverine Varieties:
For every two Sea Areas a Civilization occupies, it gains one disk of Growth in preparation for the Deployment Phase. Furthermore, an adversary, or potential adversary Civilization with nautical disks can use their Areas as a bases to expand into adjacent Sea Areas, or worse, encroach into adjacent Land Areas to either expand into unoccupied Areas or threaten those of you and/or your allies.
Therefore, eliminating another Civilization from a Sea Area can have an effect far beyond that one disk’s removal… and these are the cards which can do that!
Shipwrecked, East Wind Rains, and Sink into the Seas. Note that two of these, cards #49 & 50, allow the player to select a Sea Area and then eliminate (“remove”) a disk from that Area and then one disk from each adjacent Area… so if inflicted on Sinai Sea or the East Caspian Sea there would be FIVE Areas, and five disks could be eliminated… including your own! (The Sea is dispassionate, eh?) There is a way to mitigate these cards’ worst effect… have more than one disk in a Sea Area (normal maximum stacking is two disks to an ACME Sea Area)!
A Card that Provides You Gain with Two More Cards Your Opponent Civilization(s) Won’t Like:
We’ll start with a benign good card for whichever Civilization plays it – Canals & Qanats. For Areas under your Civilization’s control it can be sweet indeed to receive 4 disks and a mina.
Then there’s Covet thy Neighbors ; which is a card allowing a Civilization to launch a kind of two disk amphibious invasion from a Sea Area it controls. Then, if willing to expend a mina to encourage reinforcing and/or expanding that new beachhead, two more disks can be added.
Another card which can provide a surprise presence in a part or parts of the map which appeared quiescent or subject to what seemed one-sided Competition is Royal Roads. Being able to shift 4 disks from the far corners of your empire is a nice ability: particularly if you have one or more good Competition cards for the upcoming struggle: “It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part Two – Great Person Competition Cards – Inside GMT blog & “It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter Two, Part One – Competition Cards – Inside GMT blog .
Evil Land Tidings… From Bad to Worse:
These cards simply remove disks from the map, and on the scale of “evil things which could happen” in a game of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East these could almost be considered routine: A Plague of Locusts, Earthquake, and Famine & Pestilence.
While losing a few disks from the preceding cards could be tolerable to a well-established Civilization with some disk reserve and/or mina resilience, these next two are more serious matters. They are so awesomely catastrophic that they’re dubbed “Biblical”. When played, these cards are set aside… not to return for potential replay until the game’s next Epoch. The first is Biblical Earthquake. Then there’s Biblical Plague. These can ravage the heart of a Civilization.
Imagine if the glorious Fertile Crescent Akkadian Civilization (Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East: Meet the Akkadians – Inside GMT blog) is struck by a Biblical Plague? The below ACME map section shows the 8 disk loss which could befall it.
Evil Watery Tidings… from Bad to Catastrophic (One of which is “Noah’s Ark Biblical”):
or
Make a Plan – and Hear God Laugh!
There are three of these in the game with two of such severity that they’re set aside for possible reselection until the next Epoch. It should be remembered that when playing any “evil” cards described throughout these InsideGMT articles that ALL CIVILIZATIONS in the target area are affected… including your own! These ACME Fate cards can be two-edged swords indeed!
A quick aside regarding an ACME rule which a Civilization can use to mitigate or completely forestall the removal of its disks from the map. Whenever a card (or Competition for that matter) calls for the removal of a disk, the Civilization can sacrifice, that is eliminate, any one card from its hand or a mina from its treasury. As written previously… it’s good having money in the world of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East!
Furthermore, if worse comes to worst and your Civilization is laid low to the point it is no longer viable, ACME, being a game, allows a player to abandon a Civilization and start anew to seek vengeance and a kind of fresh start with another non-active Civilization on the playable map; with that player’s Victory Points accrued to that point of the contest intact. This is the Gilgamesh Rule. More on that aspect of the game with a future InsideGMT article.
Each of these “watery death” cards require placement of one of the game’s wooden cylinders to indicate its “ground zero” from which further grief emanates. The first card is River Overflows Banks and then Coastal Flooding, which is a magnitude more severe and is taken out of the game until the next Epoch after its been played. Examine the ACME map and you should be able to discern where these cards could inflict maximum damage.
However, the ACME Fate card arguably the most powerful in the game for potentially scourging a great quantity of disks from the map is the aptly named 40 Days & 40 Nights. The below map section again has Akkad the center of attention… but note the wide swath of devastation the 40 Days & 40 Nights card can wrathfully inflict!
This concludes Part 1 of this series’ Chapter Three encompassing mostly cards inflicting disasters of natural (some in the spirit of the game could purport “supernatural”) causes. Part 2 will present pains inflicted on the game’s Civilizations which are entirely of human-made origin and could be sub-titled “Oh the evils that men do!”.
Until then, please use this Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East article’s InsideGMT ability to convey any comments and/or questions.
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