civilization basic: why coins can win so fast?

By yaoyi, in Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game

sad.gif far more fast than other winning-ways.

Coins cannot be harvested, you get a coin from techs or other cards, for each square depicting a coin in your outskirts and from a scout standing and staying on a coin square. But you only get one coin as soon as you arrive on that square and lose the coin when you leave the square. But this coin you only get it once, not every turn you stay there.

If you play it this way than you're doing it wrong ;)

In the base game, coins were the fastest way to victory as they couldn't be burned. Even though you cannot harvest coins like HarveyWalters said.

With the expansions however, coin victory becomes a lot harder. So much so that culture victory becomes most likely (at least in our games). There are investments where players can spend a coin token to invest in boosting military, making culture cheaper, boosting production or giving tech. In addition there are cultural events cards that force opponents to discard coin tokens.

So, in our games there are always people who go for military thus boosting your own military power is crucial. And culture helps in military too giving cards that destroy army figures or let you build an unit when a combat starts. So, if everyone manages to build a decent defense, cultural victory is what follows.

We've actually made a house rule that advancing on the culture track costs 1 more culture on second age cards and 2 more culture on the third age. Trade costs stay the same.