Sorry guys, for posting such a simple question. I think I ve read it somewhere in the rules. But somehow cannot find it again in the rulebook .

If you attack a capital city of an opponent. And the opponent wins the combat. does the defender win the game?

Only if the defender also fulfills one or more of the win conditions. They are Tech (research Space Flight), Economic (have 15 coins), Cultural (reach the end of the culture track) and Military (defeat an enemy capital).

Thus I would surmise that the only way to win a game by successfully defending your capital would be if you got your 15th coin by way of placing a coin on the tech Code of Laws. Which you would be allowed since you won a battle (but only if there are 3 or less coin tokens on it already). Not a very likely scenario but i suppose it COULD happen.

thanks a lot.

I haven t played yet and only read through the rules, which was quite time consuming. So there is a tech card "code of law" which gives you a coin for each battle won? this made me wonder: what is a battle? does a battle include fighting huts?

The tech Code of Laws allow you to place one coin on it for each battle that you win. There is, however, a limit of 4 coins. There are also other techs that allow you to, for instance, pay trade or resources to be allowed to place coins (up to a maximum of 4) on them.

As for what constitutes a battle:

Moving your armies onto huts do not initiate a battle. You simply get whatever is there. Think of it as a friendly tribe who just can't wait to be a part of your grand empire.

The villages, also known as barbarians, are a different matter though. They don't want to be a part of your empire. Thus, battle ensues.

Also, when a player moves an army figure into a square containing an enemy army figure or city, battle ensues.

As a side note: An apparently common mistake that people do is that they add any combat bonus they may have (from generals or barracks etc.) to each of their units when they are played. This combat bonus is only to be added AFTER the entire battle has been played out and you check to see whose reduced army is the biggest.

[EDIT:] Duplicate entry removed...

Thanks Fnoffen. I m just going to post another question in this thread, since i dont think its neccessary to open new threats for small questions.

Which nation/civilization is advantaged/especially suitable for which type of victory?

I guess Germany and Russia for a military victory.

China and rome for a cultural victory

maybe the egypts for an economic voctory? USA?

That pretty much sums it up, yeah. Russia could get some good tech boosts by using their racial ability as well. If the opportunity for swiping a tech arises, go for it. Provided you have room for the tech in your pyramid.

And also: any civilization who can get their hands on lots of trade early is well suited for a tech victory. If you gain enough trade to research a tech, don't spend so much that you fall below the requirement. Unless your tech pyramid is full and you can only fit a LVL 1 tech in there. If so, spend trade like there was no tomorrow. You won't keep more of your, say, 24 trade than you have coins after spending it on that LVL 1 tech anyway. Also remember that you cannot GAIN trade by researching when you have less trade than coins. You only keep UP TO the amount of coins in trade.

thanks for your efforts again.

What didn t become clear to me from the german rulebook is whether one throws a culture card away once one uses it or if you only throw the card away when you have more culture cards than you culure hand size limit and can use a culture card multiple times?

Culture cards are one use bonus "skills" so to speak so they go into a discard pile whether you use it or loose it due to going over your handsize.

the tech card that can undo an activity during city managament:

is the player allowed to do another activity during city management?

golfons said:

let me do this more precise. we had the situation that a guy was transforming 24 trait for 8 "hammers" (excuse my bad english) and than bought a wonder for 20 hammers. than opponent B was playing his tech card that can undo an activity during city management. are the 20 "hammers" gone, or can he use those with the same city for sth. else?

We had the situation that nobody could build a wonder, because there were 2 people that constantly had the ressurces to use this tech.

The trade spent to gain production this way are, unfortunatley, spent and can not be used for anything else since it is the build action that is being cancelled.

How 2 players can have a constant supply of the resources needed to do the cancelling (spy) is, to me, a bit strange since there are only 6 spies in total (3 in huts and 3 in villages) in the game. This means that Writing could only be used a maximum of 6 times during an entire game. This is due to the fact that resources spent this way (incense, iron, silk, spy, uranium or wheat) are used up.

If the resources was found in a hut or village, they are to be removed for the rest of the game and can never reappear.

If the resources was harvested by one of your cities (incense, iron, silk or wheat) they are to be placed in their respective supply pile ready to be harvested again (bearing in mind that a harvestable resource that has run out in the supply cannot be harvested again until the supply is restocked).

[EDIT] Now that I think of it, there ARE 8 more possible spy resources to be gained. From the Culture cards.There are:

3 "A Gift from Afar" cards at Culture stage I,
3 "A Generous Gift" cards at Culture stage II and
2 "A Princely Gift" cards at Culture stage III.

These are also, however, used up when spent and placed in a discard pile next to the appropriate Culture Deck and are not shuffled back until the Culture Deck is empty.

At Stage I one of the 3 cards could appear a second time if playing with 4 people and all 4 players advance to the second last Stage I Culture Track space.

At Stage II each of the 3 cards could possibly appear twice each. Again, if all 4 players advance all the way on Stage II.

At Stage III the 2 cards could also possibly appear twice.

It is highly unlikely that any of them would actually appear twice though since it's very rare for all 4 players to go for a culture victory.

Also to bear in mind is that there is a way to cancel Writing being used and that is to use the LVL 4 tech Mass Media. Unfortunatley, this ability also uses the resource Spy.