Expancity

EvEvanstar0,9

What a beautiful looking game. In this game players get a hand of two tiles. On your turn you place one, then take three actions, then draw two more tiles, keep 1 put the other back in the bag. The actions you can take are, add a level to one of your buildings by placing a plastic piece on top, or get new plastic pieces from the supply to your available area. When you finish a building you can score it. It scores 1 vp per piece, but this can be multiplied by placing special modifier tiles orthagonally adjacent. These modifiers aren't claimed by anyone, so other players can get the benefit of them if you aren't careful. After completing a building you get to draw 2 bonus scoring cards, and keep 1 return the other. The first problem is the way the scoring scales. The base value is only 1, which means a single +2 tile next to a stack triples the score, and a single -1 tile next to a stack reduces it's value to 0. This is far too swingy. Second, the bonus scoring cards are wildly different in value and in difficulty. Some, don't even require you to do anything, they just need a certain board state to exist. Many, require a specific situation to exist next to a type of tile that may have only two or even only one copy in the game. Since the game ends after all tiles have been played, you run into situations where players won't play these special tiles if they can help it until the very end unless they are the ones with the matching secret goal card. Third, the spread of tiles is mostly blank residential and blank commercial, which means often times on your two tile draw, you draw the same two tiles, very much limiting any interesting choices you might have had on your turn. There's also a limitation on building where you can only add 1 height to each stack per turn, which means many of your turns are place 1 piece, get 2 more or place 2 pieces get 1 more in alternating patterns. Very disappointed. The stellar component quality and the look of the game had me excited for a more 3d version of many similar looking city building games I enjoy, but this was not up to expectations. Additionally, one minor quibble after all that, the bag you draw tiles out of is oddly small with no room to shuffle the tiles around. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :nostar: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :nostar: Multiple plays stay interesting :nostar: Low or mitigatable luck elements :nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment