Age of Industry wins IGA and some (unfounded) rumours

Congratulations to Martin Wallace for the IGA award to 'Age of Industry' - a very good game from a great designer. I am slightly surprised that it won because of its close resemblance to Brass, however in pure gaming terms I prefer it to most of the other games on the short list.

I was hoping that Dominion : Prosperity was a later September release - it looks like it might be as late as Essen, or even later. This is a shame because there is a pre-Essen gap for great game releases and it would have filled the slot nicely.

The rumour that I am most excited about is that Sid Meier's Civilization the board game might be a late October / early November release. For me, 'Civ' realised as a board game is the holiest of Holy Grails and the Upcoming Fantasy Flight release it number one on my wish list by some margin. Whilst I want this to be released yesterday a late October date is problematic; how am i going to fit in the time to play the other 40+ games arriving at Spiel?

A couple of Essen games will be in my hands before Spiele. 'London' by Martin Wallace (number 2 on my wishlist) will be sent out to arrive before the show and the new Kramer/Kieslng ; 'Asara' is out in Germany (without an English rules set unfortunately)