The building cost of the tile is shown on the left and you also have to pay the market premium if it’s not in a $0 slot at the bottom of the market. The most likely action is to take a tile and build it, placing it adjacent to an existing building in your Borough. It calls for a low cost strategy!Įach turn’s play is pretty simple and will always involve removing a building tile from the market (and doing one of four things). On the other hand, yellow buildings tend to reduce reputation so that should stay high. Going for the “fewest yellow buildings” goal thus means it’s harder to increase income. For example, yellow (industrial) buildings generally increase income. However, players need to balance the points available from achieving a goal with the cost of going for it. The goals do provide a strategic element to the game. Any player can get a public bonus – but a tie means nobody gets it – while only the owner can achieve their own goal (again, they need to do better than tie). Goals are generally achieved by being the player with the most or least of something at the end of the game. Second, each player gets two goal tiles and chooses one to keep.
First, as many random goals as there are players are laid out for all to see. There’s one other thing to do at the beginning of the game: pick the circular goal tiles that will give bonuses at the end of the game. The only purpose of this is to make sure that all players get the same number of turns. Players also get some cash and decide who will start the game (a copy of Ted’s Start Player might be useful here!). The symbols on these tiles show how their starting income, reputation and population are arrived at. Players add their starting building tiles alongside their Borough board.
(The idea is that suburbs become less attractive as more people move in.) Each red line reduces the player’s income and reputation. As markers move along the scoring track, they pass red lines, which get more frequent as the score rises. Players also have a square marker that goes on the separate “Population” score board. Players’ markers – a cylinder and a cube – go onto these tracks to show their current levels. This has two tracks, one of circular spaces for income and the other of square spaces for reputation. Players start with a “Borough” board each. The winner is the player with the most points of course. They then score any bonuses that they can and convert money to population/points. When it is drawn, the players complete the current round and then play one more. It’s unlikely that tiles with a big premium will be bought (certainly in the early stages of the game when money is tight), so this does give players some warning of what tiles may come into play.Ī special tile, the “1 More Round” tile, is shuffled into the middle portion of the C stack. As tiles are bought, those remaining in the market are moved along and a new tile goes into the most expensive position. As well as the purchase price printed on the tile, buildings after the first two in the market cost a premium. To start the game, tiles are set out (face-up) in the “market” and are available for players to buy. The overall effect is to make the game more tactical than strategic. A second effect is that it also stops players planning for a specific building as they cannot be sure it will appear – even if there are three of them. One effect of this is that the game will be different each time you play, as a different assortment of tiles will emerge. Even in a four-player game, only about two-thirds of the tiles will be available during the game. There are three sets of these and, in time-honoured style, the A tiles are available first, then the B’s and, finally, the C’s. The key component of the game thus comprises the hexagonal building tiles. At the end of the game, the player with the highest population + bonuses wins. Throughout the game, they buy more tiles to expand this, increasing or decreasing their income (which provides the money to buy more buildings) and reputation, which attracts population. Each player starts with the same buildings in their Borough. However, a new printing is now with us and I’ve been able to catch up.Īs the name suggests, the game is about developing a city’s suburbs, or “Boroughs” as the rules call them. Mind you, it was my own fault as it wasn’t until the Sunday that I got to Bezier’s stand as I worked my way round the halls. It’s taken me a while to get to Suburbia as Bezier Games sold out at Spiel ’12 – good news for designer and publisher Ted Alspach, but bad news for me. (Beziar Games, 2-4 players, ages 8 and up, about 90 minutes, $59.99)