Tag: City Building

In City Building games, a player acts as the planner and leader of a city and is responsible for the city’s growth and functionality.

Dice City

| T3d-1978
Dice City

Dice City

The Kingdom of Rolldovia is in turmoil. Her royal highness, the Queen, has decreed that there will be a new capital after the old one was sacked by hordes of barbarians and bandits from the south. As leaders of one of the country’s influential noble families, players vie with each other to establish their provincial city as the best home for Rolldovia’s new capital. You must choose your city’s path in gaining the approval of all others in the kingdom.

Dice City is a “dice-crafting” game in which the locations in your city act as the changing faces of your dice each turn. Use tactics and strategy to press your claim!

You each have several ways to promote your city; create strong armies; construct wondrous buildings; or open up trade routes. The secret is to manage your city and its natural resources carefully to make the best of your fortunes.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.03

Cleopatra

| T3d-1978
Cleopatra

Cleopatra

Designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is a fun and engaging game that includes a three-dimensional palace that players compete to build. Players strive to become the wealthiest of Cleopatra’s architects by constructing the most magnificent and valuable parts of her palace.

Players, however, will be tempted to trade in materials of dubious origins in order to build faster. While these corrupt practices might allow an architect to stay a step ahead of the rest, they come with a high price: the cursed corruption amulets honoring Sobek, the crocodile-god. When Cleopatra finally reaches her new palace at the end of the game, she punishes the most corrupted architects (i.e., the ones with the most amulets), depriving them of riches or giving them as a sacrifice to her crocodile! The wealthiest architect from among those still alive wins.

This new edition of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects has a new graphic design by Miguel Coimbra, a free-standing 3D palace, and rulebook updated by the designers for simplicity and fluidity, which incorporates these gameplay changes:

  • The combinations of resource cards to discard in order to build pieces of the palace have been reworked.
  • The player rewards for building the palace’s pieces have been recalculated.
  • The consequences of corruption have been reviewed.
  • The Great Priest is no longer activated in the same way.
  • The player count has changed from 3-5 to 2-4.
  • There is a new specific system to manage the character cards, which are no longer part of the deck, and are instead handled separately.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.28

City Builder: Ancient World

| T3d-1978
City Builder: Ancient World

City Builder: Ancient World

City Builder: Ancient World is a tile-laying game for 1-4 players, which can be played competitively, cooperatively or solo. Players are magistrates sent to a newly conquered province to build cities and help spread Roman influence in the area. By employing clever planning, they must grow their cities to meet the demands of incoming settlers, as well as build imposing Monuments to please their emperor.

Competitive Objective:
To win, players must build impressive Monuments and fill their city with incoming settlers. Monuments have unique scoring bonus that will only apply to the city they are built in, while claiming settlers unlocks the point value they are covering.
At the end of the game, players will add up their scores and the player with the most victory points is declared the winner. This player is awarded governorship of the province with their city being named its new capital.

Cooperative Objective:
The emperor wants to increase the efficiency and profit of each of his provinces. As a group of magistrates you must work together to ensure your province doesn’t displease him, which would result with you losing your position—and your possibly your head.
Follow the emperor’s Edict, complete his preferred Monuments, and plan carefully to make sure you all stay off the chopping block!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Cooperative
  • Tile Placement
  • Tug of War

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Citadels

| T3d-1978
Citadels

Citadels

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects his/her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Bluffing
  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Deduction
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.01

Chinatown

| T3d-1978
Chinatown

Chinatown

This is a negotiation game in the truest sense of the word. In it, players acquire ownership of sections of city blocks then place tiles, representing businesses, onto the block-sections. At the end of each turn, each tile you’ve laid gives you some sort of payout, but completed businesses (formed of three to six connected tiles of the same type) pay quite a bit better. All these resources are dealt to the players randomly, however, so players must trade to get matching businesses and adjacent locations.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Negotiation
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.26

The Castles of Tuscany

| T3d-1978
The Castles of Tuscany

The Castles of Tuscany

The beautiful Tuscany region, in the 15th century, is the home of the Italian Renaissance. As influential princes, the players make creative decisions to build their region into a flourishing domain.

By supporting towns, villages, and monasteries, or by extracting marble and delivering goods, players see their lands grow, earning them victory points. Each round, players use cards to place useful tiles to expand their regions and gain new opportunities.

The winner is the person who has the most victory points after three rounds of play.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Grid Coverage
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.20

Cape May

| T3d-1978
Cape May

Cape May

In Cape May, players traverse the city streets as entrepreneurs, developing property while building wealth over four seasons to earn prestige.

Build cottages, develop them into Victorian homes, and upgrade them into historic landmarks. Establish shops and grow them into profitable businesses. Carefully move around the city, and make strategic use of activity cards. Complete bonus goals, then take some time to relax and spot wildlife in the best place for birdwatching in the Northeastern United States.

Whoever best balances their income, development, movement, and personal goals will go down in history as the most successful developer of Cape May!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Bunny Kingdom

| T3d-1978
Bunny Kingdom

Bunny Kingdom

Peace has come at last to the great Bunny Kingdom! Lead your clan of rabbits to glory by gathering resources and building new cities across the land!

Draft cards and pick the right ones to position your warrens on the 100 squares of the board, provide resources to your colonies, build new cities to increase your influence, and plan your strategy to score big at the end of the game. Settle in lakesides or fields to collect water and grow carrots, gather mushrooms in the green forest, and climb the highest mountains to discover rare and precious resources… Secretly rally rabbit lords and recruit skillful masters to make your cities and resources even more valuable at the end of the game.

After each turn, your groups of contiguous warrens grant you points depending on the cities and different resources they include. The game ends after 4 rounds, and the player with the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Grid Coverage

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.27

Brian Boru

| T3d-1978
Brian Boru

Brian Boru

In Brian Boru: High King of Ireland, you strive to unite Ireland under your domain, securing control through might, cunning, and matrimony. Join forces to fend off Viking invaders, build monasteries to extend your influence, and gather support in towns and villages throughout the land. To become High King of all Ireland, you need to navigate a web of shifting alliances, outmaneuver your enemies, and grab history by the reins.

The success of the historical Brian Boru rested on three pillars: his victories against the Vikings, the favor he managed to garner with the Church, and the alliances he forged through political marriages. This became the foundation of the game, with each pillar becoming a suit in the trick-taking that forms the core of the mechanisms. Win a trick and you gain influence in a town, which, in turn, gains you majorities in the regions; if you lose the trick, however (deliberately or otherwise), you instead take an action corresponding to the suit of the card.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Trick Taking

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.41