Overview

Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Card Game is a card-based adaptation of the Civilization video game franchise. Players build civilizations by collecting resource-producing plot cards, growing their population, constructing wonders, and discovering technologies. The game distills the civilization-building experience into a streamlined card game format where resource management and timing are key to victory.

Components

• Plot cards (resource-producing lands showing Coins, Hammers, or Wheat)
• Population cards
• Technology cards
• Wonder cards
• Action cards
• Resource tokens

Setup

1. Shuffle each card deck separately.
2. Deal starting plot cards to each player.
3. Place Technology and Wonder card decks in the center as shared markets.
4. Each player begins with starting resources as specified.
5. Determine a starting player.

Turn Structure

On your turn, perform the following phases:

1. Production: Collect resources from your plot cards. Each plot shows a resource type (Coin, Hammer, or Wheat) and a yield number.
2. Action: Spend resources to acquire new plots, grow population, build wonders, or research technologies.
3. End: Discard excess resources if over hand limit.

Actions

Acquire Plot Cards

• Spend resources to claim new plot cards, which represent land your civilization controls.
• Plots produce resources each turn: Coins (commerce), Hammers (production), Wheat (food).
• More plots = more resource production.

Grow Population

• Spend Wheat to place population cards on your plots.
• Population cards on a plot increase that plot’s yield.
• Population is required for building and expansion.

Research Technology

• Spend Coins and/or Hammers to purchase technology cards from the shared market.
• Technologies provide ongoing abilities, unlock advanced actions, and score victory points.
• Technologies must be researched in a general progression.

Build Wonders

• Spend Hammers (production) to construct world wonders.
• Each wonder can only be built once across all players.
• Wonders provide powerful bonuses and score victory points.

Scoring / Victory Conditions

The game ends when the final Technology card is purchased. Players score victory points:

• 1 VP per Wonder built
• 1 VP per Technology researched
• 1 VP per Population card in play

The player with the most VP wins. Ties broken by number of technologies, then number of population cards.

Special Rules & Edge Cases

• One wonder per game: Each wonder exists only once; first player to build it claims it permanently.
• Technology progression: Some advanced technologies may require prerequisite technologies.
• Resource flexibility: Some cards or abilities allow converting one resource type to another.
• Game pacing: The Technology deck acts as a timer — when it runs out, the game ends, so players must balance long-term investment against the game clock.
• Player interaction: While largely a parallel development race, wonder competition and market contention create interaction.

Player Reference

Resource	Symbol	Used For
Coins	Commerce	Technologies, trade
Hammers	Production	Wonders, buildings
Wheat	Food	Population growth

Scoring: 1 VP per Wonder + 1 VP per Technology + 1 VP per Population

Game ends when final Technology is purchased