PocketCiv Event Card: Visitation

The Visitation card for PocketCiv:


The event gives you the name of the Empire that is visiting you. From there, there is a small amount of "follow the tree" down to get to your ultimate results, which is either doing a Trade Actioin, or an Attack Action. Visitors can either come in peace naturally, or come to pillage, however, if you have Diplomacy, and enough of a donation of gold, you can turn them into a Trade Partner, forever making a visit from this Empire an opportunity to do a Trade Action and avoid the nastiness of having your villages and damsels pillaged.

January 2006 - Triple Lyndig

Since BGDF has moved over to a new server, they will eventually lose all of their old posting. So now I have to keep a record of my showdown entries somewhere else.

Triple Lyndig
(Figure Skating in the Detroit Professional Skating League)

The “board” is an ice skating rink 2 foot by 3 foot, divided into 6 performance zones. Each zone has a BullsEye target of three colored rings, known as the Performance Rating Area (PRA). On the perimeter in each zone are holes to place completion flags.

Teams of 2 players are randomly decided, as is the order of the teams to perform.

The Performance:
Each member of the Performing Team is given a large wooden puck (Skaters). One member gets a deck of cards whose cardback says "Skater," the other gets a deck called "Partner." Players who are watching the performance each get a medium obstacle puck (Octopus) and a small obstacle puck (Banana). The performing team gets 20 completion flags.

The Performing Team starts with their Skaters in any zone they wish. A turn consists of:
1)The team draw cards from their decks to maintain a hand of 8 cards.

2)They select five cards face down in front of them from their hand, keeping three cards in reserve. They may discuss which cards they want to play.

3)Watching players may "throw an obstacle on the ice" by placing one of their obstacles on the outer edge of the rink and flick it once in to the rink.

4)Each Performing Player flicks their Skaters on the rink. Place a completion flag in a hole in the zone that each Skater slide into. Players may decide to flick their Skaters again, at the cost of placing more completion flags. If a Skater falls off the rink, place 3 flags in that zone to bring the Skater back on where it left the rink. Obstacles may be hit with no penalty (they just get in the way). Skaters can bounce their pucks off of previously placed flags.

When all completions flags are placed on the rink, the players cannot flick their discs anymore, and they have one last round of playing cards.

Both Skaters MUST be in the same zone to play cards and be in a different zone than the zone in which they started the turn.

5) Performing players takes turns playing one of their five selected cards, starting with the player playing the Skater deck. These cards feature traditional skating moves (“Backwards Gracefully”, “Backflip”,”Double Axle”) which award points based on how close the Skater is to the center bullseye of the PRA. The Partner deck player must play a matching traditional skating move (with points awarded as described), or a special Partner move (such as “Lift and Hold” or “Throw Her Into The Air”) which multiplies the point total on the previously played card from the Skater deck. Players may play any amount of cards they wish, or none at all before declaring this turn over. Keep the running total of points on a pad of paper. Players not touching any ring color cannot play any cards.

Some cards will require the Skater being in certain zones, the Skater touching certain colored rings on the PRA, or other restrictions based on scoring potential.

Examples:
“Forward Gracefully” has no requirement, but scores a single point when touching the “average” ring of the PRA, 2 points when touching the “Excellent” and 4 points in the “Perfect” circle.

The Partner card, “Lift and Hold” has a multiplier of 2X touching an “Excellent” ring and 3X when touching the "Perfect” circle in the PRA, and cannot be played otherwise.

The very high scoring “Triple Lyndig” requires being in any ring of the PRA in a corner zone with a single flick from a corner zone on the other side of the rink.

6)All obstacles are removed from the rink. Both Players discard the five cards they selected. They may also discard any amount of their three reserved cards. If the Skaters have at least 2 completion flags left, they start a new turn back at step 1.

When a team has finished performing, look to see which zone has the least amount of completion flags. The judges like Skaters who use the whole rink. Bonus points are awarded based on the number of flags in the least visited zone, the more the better.

After all teams have had a chance to perform, the team with the highest score wins. Multiple rounds may be played with more or less completion flags (short program and long program) with order of performance reversed. The total for both rounds is added to determine the winner.

By removing the Partner deck, and lowering the completion flag amount, players can also play as single skaters.

February 2006 - Love Me Blender

Since BGDF has moved over to a new server, they will eventually lose all of their old posting. So now I have to keep a record of my showdown entries somewhere else. Well, at least the ones I find to be viable...

Love Me Blender!
(manufactured by Presley Kitchenware Inc.)

Two players create love potions to move Pat on the Infatuation Line.

Components:
-The Love Me Blender[1] and Blender Base[2].
-Marbles, in four "Ingredient" colors, and additionally, black and clear.
-Marble bag.
-8 small bowls.
-Board showing the Infatuation Line[3] and many potion recipes[4].
-Pat, a pawn.
-Markers to cover up used recipes.

Setup:
-Place Pat on the Zero space on the Infatuation Line.
-Black and colored marbles go in the bag, clear marbles in a bowl off to the side.
-Each player gets a bowl for their stock of Ingredients. Four "Storehouse" bowls are placed in the center of the table. The last bowl is used for black marbles.
-Decide who goes first.

Gameplay:
A player performs one of the following two choices:

-Collect Ingredients:
The player takes all the marbles from one Storehouse and places them into his personal stock.

-or-

-Attempt A Potion:
The player takes any amount of marbles from his stock and places them into the Blender along with an equal amount of clear marbles[5]. The Blender is then shaken by the player; the opposing player may also shake it if he feels that it is not mixed enough. Place Blender on the Blender Base and Press "MIX", which releases all marbles into the reservoirs.
All clear marbles are returned to their bowl.
Remaining marbles in the BAD reservoir are returned to the bag.
Remaining marbles in the RETURN FROM BLENDER reservoir are divided up and placed into the four Storehouse bowls in any way the acting player decides.
The player selects ONE unmarked potion from the board by matching the ingredient list of the potion to the marbles in the GOOD reservoir[6]. The player puts a marker on this potion[7] and moves Pat the number of spaces indicated on the potion, or to the next colored space that is indicated by the potion[8] towards himself.
If there are no potions available that match the GOOD marbles, the player fails to make a potion and cannot move Pat.
All GOOD marbles are returned to the bag.

After doing either A or B above, the player then pulls 5 random marbles from the bag. Black marbles go in the 5th bowl. The player then distributes the colored marbles anyway he wishes in the 4 Storehouses.

The other player takes his turn.

A round ends immediately when A)Pat hits a 10 point space for one player, or B) 6 black marbles are in the 5th bowl.
Pat scores points for the player based on which side he is on. The points awarded are listed on the space Pat is on. Return Pat to the zero space. Return all black marbles and marbles from players personal stocks to the bag. A new round starts[9].

Points are doubled for the 2nd round, tripled for the third. The game is over after 3 rounds, or if all potions have been covered. Best total score wins.



[1] The Blender is a plastic toy that looks like a typical Blender which holds many marbles, except that the pitcher is opaque. There is a "MIX" button on the front. Inside, there are three holes which marbles can escape from down into the Blender Base when it is placed on the Base. These holes are normally blocked (marbles cannot escape) by a spring-locked sliding trap door mechanism. Pressing the "MIX" button slides the trap open, releasing all of the marbles through the three holes.

[2] The Blender sits on the Blender Base, which has three reservoirs for catching marbles (these are labeled "GOOD", "BAD", "RETURN FROM BLENDER"). Inside the Blender, funnel shapes lead into the holes which roughly distributes the marbles so that 1/2 go to the "GOOD" reservoir, 1/4 go to "BAD", and 1/4 go to "RETURN FROM BLENDER".

[3] The Infatuation Line looks like this:


[4] There are two types of Potions: "move X Spaces" and "Move to Color."
Examples:
"Empathy Elixier. 2 red/1 yellow. move 1 space."
"Howl at the Moon. 1 red/1 yellow/1 green/2 blue. move 2 spaces."
"Sweet Clementyne. 4 blue/3 red/1 yellow. move to Purple."
"Chocolate High. 4 green/2 yellow/2 blue. move to Yellow."

[5] Clear marbles are added to prevent suspicious shaking in the hopes of getting more marbles to fall into the "GOOD" reservoir.

[6] Odds are, many GOOD marbles will be unused when matching to a potion.

[7] Any potion is only used once during the entire game. Pat becomes immune quickly.

[8] There is no 10 space colored potion; a potion that "moves X spaces" would be required to move there.

[9] Markers from potions are not removed when a new round starts. More complex potions will be used during later rounds. Likewise, storehouses are not "reset."

April 2006 - Tune it Up!

Since BGDF has moved over to a new server, they will eventually lose all of their old posting. So now I have to keep a record of my showdown entries somewhere else. Well, at least the ones I find to be viable...

Tune it Up!

Who will own the most prestigious tuner shop in town? And have the hottest collection of illegal street racers?

THINGS:
Money.
Deck of Parts. This deck has cards showing various Street Racing Tuner Parts. Each Part has a value of Prestige Points (PP).and has 5 duplicate cards in the deck.
Deck of Costs. These cards show a large money value the Owners must pay after submitting a winning bid, and a small money value to buy a Prestige Cube. Cost cards also have a reduced Cost rate list, under a heading called "End of Year Sale!" There are also 4 Change of Season cards in this deck.
Bag of Colored Prestige Cubes in Black, Orange, Purple.
Plastic Colored Cars in Black, Orange, Purple.

SETUP:
Shuffle the Cost deck and Parts deck. Place decks facedown. Place Cars and bag of cubes off to the side.
Every player gets $5000 in cash, and draws 5 Parts.
Randomly decide the first Customer.

WINNING:
A player’s score is determined by:
1) SEASONAL POINTS: Players score PP from Unique Parts held in an Owner’s “shop” in hand during a Change of Season. Shops who have Unique Parts are more Prestigious than those who carry Parts that everyone else has.

And at the end of the game:
2) OWNER POINTS: Players score PP from each Car he has worked on as an Owner. Owners open the Car hoods to reveal the Prestige Cubes. Owners score 10 PP for each Car plus 4 PP for each Cube that matches the Car’s color. This represents the reputation on the street that a player’s shop has for rigging cool cars.

3) CUSTOMER POINTS: Player score PP from the Parts cards he has collected as a Customer. These indicate how cool his street racers are. Also, Cars without Prestige Cubes in them subtract 5 PP for having a non-tuned stock car.

At the end of the game, each player announces that he will double the value of either his Customer Points or Owner Points. Whoever has the most total points of Seasonal, Customer, and Owner Points wins the game.

GAMEPLAY:
The Customer reveals one of his Parts and asks all the other players, the Shop Owners, how much they will charge to ”install the Part.” All Owners look at the top card of the Cost deck (but not the Customer).

If the Cost Card shows a “Change of Season,” gameplay stops. All players reveal their current Parts held in hand (in their “shop”). Players who have Unique Parts (Parts that no other player has) score the PP shown on the Parts cards. If the fourth Season card is drawn, the game is over. Otherwise, all Parts cards are discarded, and Players draw a new set of Parts cards, equal to the amount of Parts they had plus two. All players get an additional $1000 in cash, and the Customer now starts the phase again.

If it is a Cost card, the large value is Owner must pay (for parts, labor,etc) if he wins the negotiation with the Customer and gets the job. The Owners state their initial bid with the Customer, and can freely change their bids as they all negotiate the price with the Customer. The Owners may offer bids less than or greater than the Cost card value. The Owners may also add Part cards from their own hand to try and sweeten the deal. (“Hey, I’ve got a Mega-Spoiler in the shop, I’ll add it for an additional $100…”). The Customer will have to determine which, if any, bid to take, and agree to a deal from an Owner.

If a deal is reached, the Customer collects all Part cards of the deal and places them to the side, and pays the winning Shop Owner from his cash. The Owner reveals the Cost card, pays the Cost shown to the bank. The Owner then selects any colored Car. The Owner may then “go the extra mile” on the car by spending the small money amount on the Cost Card to draw Prestige Cubes. He can make multiple payments for multiple Cubes. Regardless of money spent for Cubes, the Owner gets one free Cube. The Owner blindly draws the amount of Cubes owed, and hides them in the hood of the newly “worked on” car.

If no deal is reached, the Customer collects a Car without placing any cubes in it and discards his Part.

The player to the left becomes the new Customer.

After the third Change of Season card has been drawn, the Cost values used are the ones listed under "End of Year Sale!"

Oh, sweet Oni

I've new a powerful new use for Oni, the rather large, somewhat more powerful than it should be city in Samurai. The game ends when one type of tokens is removed from the board. So, unlike almost any other city on the board, Oni MUST be captured to end the game. So, control Oni, but don't finish it, and you get to decide when the game is over, unless someone else wants to schlep you tokens. SWEET!

The more i play Samurai, the more I'm convinced that the game isn't about capturing things, it's about setting things up for other player's to capture things for you, ala my Oni-ownage in this game. If you can get a ratio of only using 2 tile to capture a token or better, you are having a rockin' time.

Oh Yeah, By the Way

While wandering around at the local Gamers Paradise, I was surprised to find that Deflexion, otherwise known as the game with the frickin' lasers, has somehow made it out as a mass market game. I was sort of under the impression that this was a garage shop, internet-order-only kind of thing. Maybe it still is, but kudos to getting shelf space.

One of the real nice things about Deflection is that the rule set is EXCEEDINGLY simple. You either move or rotate a piece, and then fire off your laser. That's it. There's an additional rule that allows a certain type of piece to swap positions with another piece. It's not quite an "Oh yeah, by the way" rule.

What's an "Oh yeah, by the way" rule? Well, it's my definition for some kind of rule that magically happens in the middle of a game when explaining the game to someone for the first time, that makes sense to sort of omit during the initial rule explanations, often because it has a tendency to be "broken" with regards to the rest of the ruleset, or because you don't want to swamp the other players with additional, one-use info. The classic example of this is the "en passant" rule in Chess. Why a pawn can suddenly move and capture completely differently from the rest of the world only in a very specific instance makes no sense. Well, until you want to use it. I'm not even sure why that rule exists. Castling in chess also falls into this category. A weird, one time only, not quite a swap, of a rook and king only permitted if the king hasn't moved yet. Why add that? At least, thematically it sort of makes sense; watch the king RUNAWAY! to hide in his castle while his peons fight on.

OYBTW rules are one of the reasons that Tigris and Euphrates bugs me to no end, even though I think it's a pretty good game, which seems to have a countless amount of them.

Or maybe the special powers of colors should be just thought of as that, special powers. But, I hardly consider "can only be played on the river" to be very special, versus Red's "I take control if there are no others power", or Green's "I take the goodies" power. And I don't even remember what black's power is, but I'm sure it's special.

In gerneal, I think OYBTW rules should be kept to a minimum; if the rule is so specialized that it only occurs under very specific circumstances, it shouldn't be there at all.

June 2006 -Hoe! Hoe! Hoe! Migrant Green Giant

Since BGDF has moved over to a new server, they will eventually lose all of their old posting. So now I have to keep a record of my showdown entries somewhere else. Well, at least the ones I find to be viable...

Hoe! Hoe! Hoe! Migrant Green Giant!

Each Round has four different phases:

WINTER:
With FarmBucks (the local currency), players may buy new PARCELS OF LAND and/or pay to SWITCH TO A DIFFERENT PLANTING CROP from the previous Round. Each Round, the price to do either increases.

There are four different Crops (Corn, Soybeans, Cotton, and Rice). There is no charge to plant the same Crop as last Round. Players only have 1 Planting Crop per Round.

Parcels are land areas on the board; some have a RIVER running through them, others do not. Each Parcel can potentially produce 2 different Crops (however, only one may be produced per Round). Each Parcel shows a CROP TRACK of the amount of a particular Crop that will be produced on the parcel, if that Planting Crop is selected. Parcels also show a VP amount (the larger the VP, the smaller the values on the Crop Track).

When a new parcel is purchased, a player places a BARN of his color on the center space of the Crop Track. The cost to buy a new Parcel next to a previously owned Parcel is reduced slightly.

SPRING:
Players draw RAIN cards from the RAIN DECK equal to the amount of Parcels they own. Players play Rain cards from their hands at will (or may keep them for further Rounds) until no one wishes to play another Rain card. Rain cards show values from -3 to +3. Playing Rain lets a player move the CLOUD TOKEN (as indicated by the Rain card played) on the RAIN TRACK. The Rain Track runs from 0 to 20, indicating how much rain “the county” receives this year. When everyone stops playing Rain cards, if the Cloud is on space 5 or less, there is a DROUGHT, and only Parcels with Rivers will produce Crops this year. If the Cloud is on space 15 or above, there is a FLOOD, and only Parcels without Rivers will produce Crops this year.

SUMMER:
Roll (number of players+1)d6 to determine how many MIGRANT GREEN GIANTS come to town this year to work the fields. Players secretly write down how many Giants they want to hire. Players may discuss before deciding on their hire amount. Players then reveal their amounts. An additional 1d6 is rolled and added to the dice total. If the total amount of Giants all players want to hire is less than (or equal to) the total amount of the dice roll, then all players take their amount desired of GIANT FIGURES. If the total amount of desired hires is more than then dice roll, then the player (or players tied) with the most desired hires gets none (Giants abhor being forced to work for demanding land owners!). Players may discuss, barter, or trade money, Parcels, Giants, future Crops, Rain Cards, etc. at any point.

Players place 1 Giant on each Parcel they wish to be harvested. Parcels affected by Flood/Drought will not produce Crops regardless if Giants are working those Parcels.

FALL:
Players tally up their harvest. On each Parcel a player owns that has a Giant and is not affected by Flood/Drought, check the Crop Track, and if a Crop matches the player’s Planted Crop, then the players earns the amount shown in FarmBucks. Move the player’s barn one space on the track TOWARDS large Crop icon that matches the selected Crop.

Parcels which do not have the player’s selected Crop on their Crop Track do not produce anything in this Round. However, the Barn on such Parcels is moved, if need be, one space towards the center space on the Parcel’s Crop Track. Do not move the Barn on flooded or Drought-ed Parcels.

Remove all Giants from the board.

Winning the game:
After 6 cycles through the Rain deck, the game is over. The player who has the most total VP shown on they Parcels they own wins.

EXAMPLE OF A SINGLE PARCEL:


Red (with his barn) owns the Parcel above.
To produce 1 FarmBuck from Corn, Red must have Corn as his selected Crop, place a Giant on this Parcel to harvest it, and not have the Rain Track show Flood, due to the river.
Then the barn move one space over to the left. This land has been “farmed out” of Corn for now (but will produce lots of soybeans!).

To produce 3 FarmBucks from Soybeans, Red must have Soybeans as his selected Crop, place a Giant on this Parcel to harvest it, and not have the Rain Track show Flood, due to the river.
Then the barn move one space over to the right.

July 2006-THE GREAT LAKES FISH OUT!

Since BGDF has moved over to a new server, they will eventually lose all of their old posting. So now I have to keep a record of my showdown entries somewhere else. Well, at least the ones I find to be viable...

THE GREAT LAKES FISH OUT!

Wait for the right time, and you could be haulin’ in the Bass by the truckloads. But wait too long, and someone else is going to get your prime fishing spot. And look out for the Minnows; unless you get a full family of them, the judges don’t look too kindly on people catching those little guys.

For Four Players.

FISH OUT! is played in a series of games, until one player scores 50 points, who is declared King Fisher!

The center of the table is the LAKE.

The cards represent FISH.

Players “STOCK THE LAKE” with Fish by placing cards into the center of table. All Fish stocked to the Lake are played face up in any reasonable way so that card ranks and suits are visible.

Players “FISH OUT” the Lake by collecting all of the cards from the Lake which all match a chosen suit.

A game is played with a standard 52-card deck which is shuffled and dealt face-down to all players. After looking at their cards, players select three cards and pass them face down to a different player each round, as is common in Spades.

A game is played in a series of Tricks. The player with the 2 of Clubs starts the first round by playing the 2 of Clubs. A trick is defined loosely here, as some tricks will have no cards taken by players, and in others, multiple players will take up cards. Cards remain on the table until a player Fishes Out a suit.

During a trick, each player in turn plays a card face-up from their hand. Players do not have to follow suit. After all players have played their cards, players who have played the highest ranking card of each suit keep their card; all players otherwise must stock the Lake.
Cards are ranked as Ace low/King High.

EXAMPLE:
Joe plays 10 of Hearts.
Wanda plays 3 of Hearts.
Anna plays 6 of Spades.
Marty plays Jack of Diamonds.

Joe has the highest Heart, beating Wanda; Joe keeps his heart while Wanda places her card in the Lake. Anna and Marty both have the highest rank in their suits because their suits are uncontested by other players and keep their cards.

For those players who still hold their card, they may decide to either stock the Lake with it, or Fish Out all of the cards from the Lake that have the same suit of their card. When Fishing Out, the player collects all of the cards of their matching suit (including the card they hold) and places those cards face up in front of them in a stack. Each suit should be in its own stack.

However, there are three restrictions to Fishing Out:
1) If the Lake has no cards with the suit of the card played, the player cannot Fish Out and MUST stock the Lake with his card.

2) A player can only Fish Out a maximum of 4 times per game, once for each suit (check the stacks of Fished Out cards in front of them).

EXAMPLE:
Joe Fished Out spades on a previous trick in this game, all subsequent spades played by Joe in this game must be used to stock the Lake.

3) On the last trick of a game, the player does not have the option of stocking the Lake or Fishing Out. The player MUST Fish Out if the player meets the above requirements. Otherwise, he stocks the Lake.

The player who Fished Out the most cards begins the next trick. If no one Fished Out, then the player who started the last trick leads again. If there is a tie for the most cards Fished Out, then the player who tied for the most who is closest clockwise to the player who began the last trick leads.

After all cards have been played, players are scored based on the Fish in their stacks. There may be unclaimed Fish in the Lake.

SCORING (Pre-playtesting, first-guess):
Each Ace scores -9, unless a player has all four Aces, then the four Aces score a total of +18 instead.

Each Jack, Queen, and King scores +3 points.

All other cards score +1 point.

Rough Tune

Often on BGDF, you hear enough people there complaining about "I've got an idea, but I don't know where to begin." The solution to this is easy. Begin anywhere. Getting your head wrapped around ANYTHING starts fleshing out peices of other areas. There's nothing that's rocket science to this. Oh, yeah, and also be very willing to change. There's a certain amount of letting the design pull you in the direction it wants to go, as opposed to the other way around.

During the time I've spent putting together the first-pass rules of various Events in PocketCiv, it's helped me tighten up a few things, and reversed course on others. While the rules online haven't been updated to reflect this yet, I've made a choice to severely untie the Advances to the Cities. They were really knotted up together in my original incarnation; now there is only a loose association.

Originally, the main reason why Advances were tied to cities was trying to keep components to a minimum; when you bought an Advance, you wrote in down in a space on the City. However, this leads to the issue of having a City destroyed also destroys whatever Advances that had accumlated there. Well, I've decided that it's easier to collect cards for the Advances; while it adds to the component list, I get plenty of room to put the rules for each Advance on each card, making the game a lot more understandable. You won't have to contimually reference a sheet of paper to see what thye do,you just look at the card. I'll still tie the Advances to the Cities somehow; "you can have a maximum of 3 Advances per City". So they are still tied together, but much more loosely. And in un-bundling them, I can target Events more specifically to Advances or Cities.

The addition of Advance cards also doesn't add TOO much component "cost," either, I feel. I was already using cards for Events anyway. What I'm REALLY concerned with is keeping the amount of UNIQUE components to a minimum. And I'm still on track to keep the bare minimum of components on the game to a deck of cards, a pencil, and a pad of paper.

Debating

As I'm fleshing out PocketCiv, I've started a mental debate about adding something along the lines of what could be called Dictator Points. In typical Civs, you are more or less trying to create this wonderful, benevolent society as more of a peaceful overlord. But never a despotic tyrant who's skimming of the top of the till, building lavish palaces for himself, constructing grand 24k gold statues of himself (or herself) that are 500 feet tall, etc. Selfish things.

Aside from always wanting to do this, it creates an interesting alternative path for players, and makes for things like Civil Unrest more tangible, instead of simply drawing an event called Civil Unrest for no reason at all. Now, Civil Unrest would let you check to see how many Dictator Points you've piled up, and with too many, you've got a full blown situation in your hands, assuming you don't have the Military to control it.

Of course, the other aspect of this is that you are really sort of driving a Civilization over the course of many, many eons; one little Dictator along the way probably doesn't harm it in the long run. I think.

But I really want to build those Toweriing Gilded Statues of Myself Wonders!!!!

In other news, I've found it very interesting in trying to keep my Advances "ology" specific. For example, I wanted an Advance to enable you to start creating trading partners with visiting Empires, otherwise they will be pillagers. The first approach to this was simply calling the "Trading Houses." But this is something that is built, not an ideology that is developed over time in order to understand and control your environment better. In the course of the game, since you are effectively turning "bad guys" (pillagers and barbarian hordes) to your favor, Diplomacy became good "ology" to use in this situation, and becomes a learned skill, not a place that can be burned down. Civ Advances should be skillsets, not simply places.

"Food Warehouse" became "Meteorology" along these, even though the analogy isn't quite as good. I could still argue that understanding weather patterns better allows you to know when to store food for the winter, when to harvest, etc. Likewise, "Supply Warehouse" became the sort-of-generic "Management" skill.

Naturally, most of the Advances have been borrowed from the classic,Advanced Civilization. But I'm also doing some slight borrowing from Culture and Conquest, which itself borrows heavily from Adv. Civ.