Each turn (once all players have taken an action), the Event Dial marker will move along, which indicates whether something else happens: Barbarians move (random direction), they respawn at their respective dens, or players can collect additional trade tokens for any mature cities they have. Civilization: A New Dawn is a much more streamlined, player-friendly version of the classic original, with the same core principles, but a considerably simplified gameplay system at its heart, and not a ship or army counter in sight. There’s even a hex-gridded map with plastic miniatures, control tokens, terrain types, and barbarians. To win you need to fulfill 4 goals – with expansion you have also two military targets – forts control. Component quality is good, even though I am not that fond of the artwork borrowed from Civilization VI; keep on reading.

If a board game's name is preceded by 'Sid Meier's Civilization', it should better be as complex and engaging as any digital 'Sid Meier's Civilization'.Every time a player amasses enough points to reach a new tech level (three points for level II, but five points for level IV), he can gain a new Focus card that replaces the old one in any type. During setup you plop down 3 of them and the first player to complete one task on each of the 3 cards wins! On the board will also be a number of spaces that need filling in with the relevant tokens: barbarian dens, independent city-states, natural wonders, and natural resources.

The only two on top of my head would be Lords of Waterdeep‘s Scoundrels of Skullport and Viticulture’s Tuscany. The barbarian inclusion also falls flat within the game and acts more of an annoyance then a credible threat to your civilization. Four out of ten however are about controlling wonders of one of the four types, and this is rather telling about what you are supposed to be doing: building wonders and holding on to them, or conquering them from others.

Examples include Civilized (establish 8 cities on the map), Technophile (reach 24 on the tech dial), Paranoid (control 2 military World Wonders), and Explorer (control 15 spaces adjacent to water or the edge of the map).