The first time I played Tempus (at BGG.CON) I thought “The Emperor has no clothes!” But I kept such heretical thoughts to myself.  As you say, Tempus is an area majority game.  The difference here is that it has a “Civilization” theme pasted on.  It’s not really a “Civ” game, but it pretends to be one.  Is it a good game?  One play isn’t enough for me to decide, but one play was enough for me to dicide that I didn’t absolutely have to have the game.  (A good thing too, given the delivery delay...) Tempus is not a bad game, but coming from Martin Wallace, it is something of a disappointment.

Well, that’s disheartening… As a fan of Civ style games, the political/diplomatic maneouvering isn’t my favorite part of the game, so I won’t miss it that much.  However, the scariest comment I read was “The problem is, all players will always obtain all technology"… if there isn’t an opportunity to specialize in some way to gain an advantage for a given style of play, I will miss it.  Not exactly a huge strike against the game, but more of a failure to earn a bonus in my book.

Maybe the “I already do Civ” audience isn’t the one this game is aimed at.

People who don’t play civilization games on a regular basis seem pretty happy with Tempus (based on BGG.CON).  People who are civ fans---I could see them being less happy.  The game doesn’t follow the typical “rules” of that genre.

I was pretty happy with the game (my one play at BGG.CON).  I followed up later with Antike, and am pretty happy with that game as well.  Both are games that civ fans seem to snub, but they are both very good games nevertheless.

Are they real civ games?  Well, what is the definition we’re talking about here?  As far as I’m concerned, as the theme and the mechanics are both about civilization, they are civ games to me.  Whether there are tech trees or diplomacy doesn’t really matter unless you’re talking about a very well-defined subset of games that use the same skeleton.

It’s the same argument that people use to say that Ticket to Ride is not a “real train game”.  To people in general, it doesn’t really matter.  They’re about trains.  They have mechanics that make sense when applied to trains.  Whether they really stick to the 18xx framework is another question entirely.

If Civilization didn’t exist and 1876 was never made, would people diss them as not following the Tempus or Ticket to Ride frameworks if they showed up later?  Yup.  Silly humans.

As for the Tempus version of technology and everybody reaching it.... knowing when to make the leap and when to hold back is important.  You want to make the most of the leap---and the fact that everyone catches up later means that you can’t monopolize your footing for very long.  You have to keep moving.

And really… that’s very civ-like to me.  Once you discover paper, a century passes and everyone else will have it.

Tempus is not a traditional civ game---and I don’t think it was ever meant to be.

Going into any experience with the wrong expectations can be disappointing.  I played Tempus recently with very little in the way of expectations, just that Rick thought it was good, and it was civ-ish.  I have never played a civ game, so the fact that it was civ-ish by reputation meant very little to me, and gave me no undue expectations.

From this point of view, the debate seems to be missing a crucial point.  The reason to mention civilization seems to motivated more from theme than mechanics.  The real meat of the civ game mechanics are abstracted out, and hence largely enter the picture as thematic content.

That’s not to say that there are no civ-like mechanics, as noted by PK there are --at least-- some, but by design the game does not endure the usual maelstrom of mechanics found in a civilization game.  Instead you have a clever area majority game, with some notably expensive options for combat, and a very solid civilization theme.

Ava-
I understand your desire to argue semantics, and I agree with just about everything you said, but I feel the need to examine one thing you said:
“To people in general, it doesn’t really matter.�

While I agree with this statement, it really doesn’t address PK’s concerns, this forum is by no means frequented by ‘people in general’.  In fact this particular site feels more like a club house for the elite gaming geeks (myself excluded) than anything resembling an open public forum.  This feeling is further enforced by the membership fee required to post comments here.
I know I am straying far from your comment, but when Rick states that “Tempus is a conquest game.�, and “This is a civilization game stripped down to the basics� it stands to reason that a fellow geek might have expected more from the game.

As far as analogies go I would say this is similar to the debate over Memoir ‘44 being a war game or not…

Jonathan, I hope this site is being read by more than just the elite geeks (I could argue your terminology, but I know who you mean, so I won’t).  True, the vast majority of the comments are made by a handful of people, but that doesn’t mean those are the only people accessing the site, particularly since a subscription is necessary to do it.  The letters written to the old Games Journal website only came from a few sources, but the readership was much larger.  From what Rick has told me about hit statistics, there are many more folks checking this site out than just the ones making comments.  I’d be pretty disappointed if I thought I was only writing for a couple of dozen people.

As far as game categories go, everyone seems to have their own opinion about them and most of them are different.  Suffice it to say that I think “train games” covers more than just 18xx and crayon-rail games, but it doesn’t include every game that deals with choo-choos.  So I consider Stevenson’s Rocket a train game, but not Ticket to Ride.  With luck, there might be one person out there who agrees with that.

Don’t pay too much attention to me Larry, I mostly just like the sound of my own voice… or the sight of my own words…

In the spirit of Colbert I would like reiterate two things:

“this site feels more like a club house for the elite...”

“This feeling is further enforced...”

It doesn’t matter if, in fact, there are millions of common folk coming to this sight in droves to marvel at the minute distinctions we geeks like to make between a train themed game, a game with trains, and a train game.  The truthiness of the matter is that it feels like a geek club. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it is a bit intimidating.

If there is one thing you should know about me it is that my tongue is permanently lodged in my cheek, and I only ever agree with half the things I say…

-JonBen

I have a quibble with applying the term area-majority to Tempus.  My concept of area majority is that many people could have presence in an area, but the more you have relative to others, the more privileges you have.  This privilege is typically VP, but it could be voting or other benefits.
Using this definition, Tempus is not an area majority game.  It is really a wargame, IMO. 
As to the tech tree or lack thereof, I really like the catchup mechanism.  It keeps people in the game and it feels authentic.  It doesn’t serve to allow players to differentiate their empire.

I am starting to feel like I should throttle the next person who says they dislike Tempus “because it fails as a Civ Lite game”.

Who in tarnation cares if it is a “Civ Lite” game, an area control game, or a game of ping-pong as long as it is fun?  I sure as heck don’t.  I think it is a terrific game, and I couldn’t give a rats’ behind what genre it’s in.

If you don’t think it is fun that is one thing but I think the poor game has really suffered for people’s totally screwed up expectations of it.

(Note: This isn’t aimed at anyone in particular.)

Excellent point, Anye.  I was excited by the term Civ Lite as I would enjoy a game of that sort.  However, Tempus is not that type of game (by my criteria).  Thus I am less excited by it, but will have to judge it on its own merits.  Many people were initially excited by its similarties to a Civ-Lite type of game, and that got me excited until I realized it really isn’t that type of game.

It is now in the general category of “game” in the large sea of new games out there, so we’ll have to see if I am able to find the time and opportunity to try it out.

The dream and promise of a “Civ-Lite” hangs over a bunch of us who were fans of the classic Civ.  It’s become good marketing to pitch a game as such, although it can certainly backfire.

While many games may not be intentional attempts at a Civ-Lite, there are always expectations that this or that game will be it, the grail: Civilization, with diplomacy, trading, conquest, various paths of Civ advances, and a sneaky calamity here and there-- that can be played in under 3 hours, with up to 8 players, and a free chocolate cake delivered by Knizia to your home on your birthday.

Is it just me, or is the trading and set collection in the old Civ still pretty unique, especially with the risk of calamity cards.  That was one of the funnest aspects of the game, along with the various Civ advances.  It seems that a lot of games that people hope are Civ-Lite end up being more an area control game moreso than anything else.