Tag Archives: Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea

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Electrifying Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea

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Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS) received an overall warm welcome from the gaming public. For many of our fellow hobbyists the game hits a sweet spot with its epic theme served in the frame of quick and simple gameplay. A second game in the series, Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East, was recently announced on GMT‘s P500 list: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-836-ancient-civilizations-of-the-middle-east.aspx .

During the game’s development, I had the pleasure of assisting designers Mark and Chris, as well as developer Fred, by crafting a functional VASSAL Module for internal team use during playtesting. After the game’s publication, the opportunity arose to polish the Module for a public release.  That release was accomplished 9/21/19.

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A Bonus Player Aid for Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea

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Recently at WBC 2019, I ran multiple Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS) learn to play sessions. All but one game had six civilizations participating with more than one player occasionally sharing control of a civilization, like Bridge partners, so everyone who stopped by the table and was interested in learning and playing the game had opportunity to do so. That meant DOZENS of gamers got to experience ACIS during WBC. A number of them said they’d visit the GMT Exhibit Booth to order the game while its P500 discount price still applied. As P500 sales increased since WBC that appears to be the case. Your patronage is appreciated.

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A Game of the Ages for All Ages: Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea at Huzzah! Convention in Maine

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The designer (top, center) chortling for some reason early in the game — just before quite literally hell is unleashed upon Mauretania (Blue) and Gaul (yellow) — mostly by each other but with a little help from the others. Note the ages of the players varies from the young lad (Will Valentine) at top left to a young man about 30 and to players in their 40s, 50s and 60s…

To the table came six players from three generations, including a father, his millenial-age son, a lad of 12, and three guys from the late 30s to late 50s. None had ever played Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea before.

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Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea: An Example of Competition Resolution

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Introduction

When I was first introduced to Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea by its Designers (Chris Vorderbruegge and Mark McLaughlin) one of its facets which held immediate appeal was that conflict/battles in this game, called “Competitions”, DID NOT INVOLVE ANY DICE ROLLNG!! 

I’ve been a gamer for decades, since playing my first wargame, Avalon Hill’s D-Day 1961, and for all that time have been plagued by strange dice-rolling.  One of my Rockland Guys gaming buddies, Stephen, had a great tee shirt for when we attended conventions: it had in big letters the saying “I win on anything but a one… ARGHHH!” Yup, that’s a gaming garment I’m in great sympathy with.

When Mark and I were play-testing Kutuzov; one of the games in The Napoleonic Wars series, there was a memorable game when my French invaders took eighty-five (85!) dice rolls to take out a two value Russian border fortress. Those of you familiar with the Nappy game series should appreciate what a game-losing feat that was!

So, although there’s still “luck with cards” in Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea… at least there’s no dice rolling to contend with! 

There is a wealth of information concerning this game within InsideGMT.  There are After-Action-Reports with explanations of the game’s cards and Civilizations (each with its special attributes) as well as a rendition of its “near final” map.  But until this article, discussion of the actual mechanics of resolving a Competition was lacking.

This is hopefully now remedied and those gamers, like me, who dread taking dice in hand, can take heart instead. 

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The Gallic Wars from Brennus to Vercingetorix in Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea

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As we have a little extra time before going into production (due to delays caused by the current China trade situation, as GMT explained); we have been toying around with some minor tweaks to the game. Two of those are slight changes to the Gaul and Rome Civilization Displays, both of which now boast an extra bit of welcome chrome.

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It’s All in the Cards: The Cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (Part 6 – Final)

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In this article we continue to explore the event cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS). To read the previous five articles in this series, follow the links here, here, here, here, and here. We hope you’ve enjoyed this InsideGMT series thus far. 

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It’s All in the Cards: The Cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (Part 5)

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In this article we continue to explore the event cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS). To read the previous four articles in this series, follow the links here, here, here, and here. We hope you’ve enjoyed this InsideGMT series thus far. 

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It’s All in the Cards: The Cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (Part 4)

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In this article we continue to explore the event cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS). To read the previous three articles in this series, follow the links here, here, and here. 

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It’s All in the Cards: The Cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (Part 3)

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In this article we continue to explore the event cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS). To read the previous two articles in this series, follow the links here and here.

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It’s All in the Cards: The Cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (Part 2)

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In this second article of the series, we examine the 103 event cards that provide the random and color factors which can add so much excitement (and a bit of player stress) into a game of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS).  In the first article we covered natural events.  Here, we move on to mostly man-made events and calamities.