PocketCiv

Single player Civ-lite board game with no AI or other factions to compete against. It’s just you against a deck of event cards that can spell disaster on every turn. The game is broken into 8 eras, divided into turns. One of the phases has you turn over the top card in the event deck, which will have 6 events corresponding to one of the eras. If the card you flipped has an event that takes place in the current era, it activates. Events happen in a particular province (there are only 8 of them on the map) but can spread to others if certain conditions are met. All of the events are nasty, ranging from fire, flood, and earthquakes to bandit attacks or civil war. There may even be locusts in there somewhere. The goal is to survive through the 8 eras (make it through the deck 8 times). In my best game so far I almost made it through 3. There is a tech tree, with most mitigating one or more event somewhat, as well as reducing the cost of improvements, leveling cities, etc. Some actually make things worse. Researching Roads, for example, allow your tribes to travel farther in a single turn, but also allows something like an Epidemic to spread to multiple provinces. Two other elements differ from a typical 4 X-ish game. Money is not only hard to come by (no taxation) but also isn’t persistent. If you are fortunate enough to get your mittts on some, if you don’t spend it in the same turn you lose it. There is a tech to negate that, but you have to have money to get it, so it’s tricky. Also Tribes, in addition to just being pawns to push around the board, are a resource. Everything you do in game, from building farms and cities to researching tech, costs Tribes. Fortunate there is a growth phase where some are replenished. If you’re not allergic to Early Access, it’s definitely worth your $10.