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.

Santa Monica

| T3d-1978
Santa Monica

Santa Monica

In Santa Monica, you are trying to create the most appealing neighborhood in southern California. Will you choose to create a calm, quiet beach focused on nature, a bustling beach full of tourists, or something in-between to appeal to the locals?

Each turn, you draft a feature card from the display to build up either your beach or your street. These features work together to score you victory points. The player with the most points wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.16

San Francisco

| T3d-1978
San Francisco

San Francisco

For San Francisco, the first half of the 20th century is an era of dynamic growth and new opportunities. It’s also a chance for you — junior urban planner — to take part in a contest for the most amazing reconstruction plan of the city. Sit down with your sketchbook and create a project that will make you stand out from the competition. Design a beautiful city in this game by Reiner Knizia, world-famous board game designer.

In the board game San Francisco, you become an urban planner whose goal is to create the greatest redevelopment plan of the famous city in California. Design districts in each of the five types, racing against all the other planners. Choose the right moment to take on new projects — but be careful, if you take on too many projects it’ll be harder to gain more. Earn more prestige by cleverly designing a system of cable car connections. Lay foundations and carefully design the nearby landscape, allowing you to build new skyscrapers. Create a new vision of San Francisco that will gain the most rewards, and win through fame and recognition.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Queendomino

| T3d-1978
Queendomino

Queendomino

Build up the most prestigious kingdom by claiming wheat fields, forests, lakes, grazing grounds, marshes, and mountains. Your knights will bring you riches in the form of coins — and if you make sure to expand the towns on your lands, you will make new buildings appear, giving you opportunities for new strategies. You may win the Queen’s favors … but always be aware of the dragon!

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.06

Quadropolis

| T3d-1978
Quadropolis

Quadropolis

Each player builds their own metropolis in Quadropolis (first announced as City Mania), but they’re competing with one another for the shops, parks, public services and other structures to be placed in them.

The game lasts four rounds, and in each round players first lay out tiles for the appropriate round at random on a 5×5 grid. Each player has four architects numbered 1-4 and on a turn, a player places an architect next to a row or column in the grid, claims the tile that’s as far in as the number of the architect placed (e.g., the fourth tile in for architect #4), places that tile in the appropriately numbered row or column on the player’s 4×4 city board, then claims any resources associated with the tile (inhabitants or energy).

When a player takes a tile, a figure is placed in this now-empty space and the next player cannot place an architect in the same row or column where this tile was located. In addition, you can’t place one architect on top of another, so each placement cuts off play options for you and everyone else later in the round. After all players have placed all four architects, the round ends, all remaining tiles are removed, and the tiles for the next round laid out.

After four rounds, the game ends. Players can move the inhabitants and energy among their tiles at any point during the game to see how to maximize their score. At game end, they then score for each of the six types of buildings depending on how well they build their city — as long as they have activated the buildings with inhabitants or energy as required:

  • Residential buildings score depending on their height
  • Shops score depending on how many customers they have
  • Public services score depending on the number of districts in your city that have them
  • Parks score depending on the number of residential buildings next to them
  • Harbors score based on the longest row or column of activated harbors in the city
  • Factories score based on the number of adjacent shops and harbors

Some buildings are worth victory points (VPs) on their own, and once players sum these values with what they’ve scored for each type of building in their city, whoever has the highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Hand Management
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.21

NEOM

| T3d-1978
NEOM

NEOM

NEOM is a modern city-building game featuring simultaneous drafting and tile placement that takes inspiration from games such as 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, and Sim City. Players compete to build the most impressive city utilizing a tree of 17 different goods (from three different tiers) that can each be unlocked, allowing the placement of increasingly powerful tiles as the game progresses. Tiles also feature roads which must be connected without being rotated, meaning that players must always plan their city layout with an eye to the future.

At the start of each game, players draft cornerstones — powerful, unique tiles that heavily change what is most valuable from game to game.

NEOM has been in development for seven years and the rules and tile set have been iterated on over the course of more than 3,500 games logged in a custom online prototype, leading to an exceptionally well balanced game with a wide variety of viable strategies.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.60

Nanty Narking

| T3d-1978
Nanty Narking

Nanty Narking

Immersed deeply in the world of Dickens’s and Doyle’s literature, Nanty Narking moves you into the realities of the myths and legends of the Victorian era. The events in the game are tied to real and fictional characters and places in Victorian London The same London which inspired so many stories…

The action takes place on the city map, with players placing their agents and buildings on the board through card play. Every card is unique. The cards bring the game to life as they include most of the famous characters who have appeared in the various books. The rules are relatively simple: Play a card and do what it says. Most cards have more than one action on them, and you can choose to do some or all of these actions. Some cards also allow you to play a second card, so you can chain actions.

At the beginning of the game, each player draws a secret personality with specific victory conditions, which means that you can never be sure what the other players need to do in order to win. You need to fulfill your goal while also trying to prevent others from winning!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Bluffing
  • City Building
  • Deduction
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Hidden Roles
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

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

My City

| T3d-1978
My City

My City

My City is a competitive legacy game in which you develop a city on your own playing board through the ages.

The game consists of 24 episodes, beginning with the development of a city in its early preindustrial stages and progressing through industrialization. During each game, players customize their experience by adding elements to their personal boards and adding cards to the game. Players’ choices and action made during one session of gameplay carry over into the next session, creating a personalized gaming experience.

For players who do not want to experience My City as a legacy game, a double-sided game board offers an alternate set-up for repeatable play (some elements from the legacy experience are needed for the repeatable play game, players can unlock these elements by playing through the first 4 episodes).

Game Mechanics:

  • Bingo
  • Campaign
  • City Building
  • Grid Coverage
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.02

Montana: Heritage Edition

| T3d-1978
Montana: Heritage Edition

Montana: Heritage Edition

Halfway through the 19th century, the first permanent settlements appeared in Montana. After this, many fortune seekers traveled to this region with their caravans in search of work in order to build a better future for themselves — and there is an abundance of work as in the mountains precious metals are to be found and on the fields a lot of manpower is required. Meanwhile, the number of settlements is growing and the demand for goods is rising. Recruit the right workers, deliver goods on time, and choose your settlements tactically. Only then you will have the biggest chance of winning Montana.

In more detail, on each turn players choose one of these three actions:

  • Recruit: Use the spinner to get new workers.
  • Work: Send your workers to one of the different locations to get resources or money.
  • Build: Spend your resources to build new settlements.

The first player to build all of their settlements wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • City Building
  • Racing
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.28

Lords of Waterdeep

| T3d-1978
Lords of Waterdeep

Lords of Waterdeep

Waterdeep, the City of Splendors – the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms, and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings. In this game, the players are powerful lords vying for control of this great city. Its treasures and resources are ripe for the taking, and that which cannot be gained through trickery and negotiation must be taken by force!

In Lords of Waterdeep, a strategy board game for 2-5 players, you take on the role of one of the masked Lords of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city. Expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board, and hinder – or help – the other lords by playing Intrigue cards to enact your carefully laid plans.

During the course of play, you may gain points or resources through completing quests, constructing buildings, playing intrigue cards or having other players utilize the buildings you have constructed. At the end of 8 rounds of play, the player who has accrued the most points wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Hidden Roles
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.46

Lords of Vegas

| T3d-1978
Lords of Vegas

Lords of Vegas

You and your opponents represent powerful developers in a burgeoning Nevada city. You will earn money and prestige by building the biggest and most profitable casinos on “The Strip,” the town’s backbone of dust and sin. You start with nothing but parking lots and dreams, but from there you build, sprawl, reorganize and gamble your way to victory. Score the most points investing in the most profitable development companies and putting the best bosses in control of the richest casinos. Put your dollars on the line . . . it’s time to roll!

The game board is broken into 6 different areas, each consisting of a number of empty ‘lots’. Players build lots by paying money and placing a die of the value matching the one shown on the lot’s space onto the lot, along with a casino tile of one of 7 colors. Adjoining lots of the same color are considered a single casino. The casino’s boss is the player whose die value is higher than any other in the casino. On each players turn, players turn over a new card representing a new lot they get. The card also is one of the casino colors. Any built casinos of the matching color will score both money and points. Money is earned for each lot in the casino, where each lot may be owned by a different player. Points go only to the casino’s owner. Players can expand their casinos; try to take over casinos owned by other players; make deals to trade lots, casinos and money; or gamble in opponents’ casinos to make more money. Ultimately, though, only points matter, and that means making yourself boss of the biggest casinos.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Tile Placement
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.34