One thing first: A family game, it is not, it is rather addressed to high volume players. In order to teach a newbie, you have to approx. 1 hour bring "Explain time". But what is a necessary then is really hard to beat. Who Civ. still knows from the computer that is certainly a lot of them will find here. Of course you can not convert a PC game one on one in a board game, but I can say with certainty that it is the best board game of Sid Meier's Civilization implementation. The manual is very well done, but all items are not cleared properly. I would recommend on the HDS-Fantasy page read in the forum, or to ask your own questions, which you have not yet looked. From the time you can play about 2 hours per player. Expected. This can already put off one or the other player, but who will bring a lot of time very well maintained. The possibilities are very diverse. One must consider his train very well and watch his teammates well. No nation has the same abilities. Each plays its own tactics are most likely to achieve victory for his people. Because there are 4 ways to win the game: military victory, economic victory, victory technology or culture victory. You can actually not even have to fight the game win. You explores new territories, tries to find the best place for his city to the raw materials that can reduce required builds and researches new building, is with other players, explore new technologies, fighting barbarians and protection against enemy troops. Whoever finds this all very interesting should risk a look. For all those for whom this is too much, you should put your fingers let it, because you need the right players for such a game. But if you even one knows something of the likes to play, you should strike. The game is also quite worth playing for 2 players. At 4, it is of course more interesting again. For me, the game already gets full 5 stars alone for the beautiful game material is hardly any space in the box but. One perhaps should buy a small sorting at the hardware store, so that all small parts find their place. This saves a lot of time to build.