OUR REVIEW

Expanding a town

Suburbia

inTo a metropolis

In Suburbia you impersonate the Mayor of a small suburb and try to expand and develop this suburb into a huge metropolis. Simulations on that subject are a favorite topic in computer games and have of course also infiltrated the board game sector. You try in your game to create a better town than your fellow players in order to secure a win.

Before the contest for the best metropolis can begin you must of course, as in any other game, busy yourself with preparations. The most important of those are that each player receives a so-called town district board and that you place one basic tile of Suburbs, Community Park and Heavy Factory next to it. This ensures that all mayors start with the same conditions for trying to do their best.

The assigning of goal tiles is of equal importance. Those goals can be, for example, “Who has accrued the highest income at the end of the game, or most town elements?” and will earn you additional victory points. It is important that the goal tiles are shuffled and that each player receives one and – after looking at it – places it face-down. In addition to those secret goals you place open goals on the board, their number relates to the number of players; those goals can be completed by anybody to score points for their towns at the end of the game.

The starting player of a game is determined randomly. The mechanics of the game are very simple, but all the same each player is given a summary for the actions in his turn and their effects. In his turn the active player implements four actions in a given order: First, you must take a tile from the Real Estate Market and use it, that is, place it into his town borough, or he must take one Investment Marker and place onto a tile already in his borough. The second action is monetary; you either pay money or receive money, this depends on your income. In the third action the population of your town is adjusted on the victory point track, the changes in population numbers depend on the reputation of the town. The final action in your turn is to draw a tile from the stack and place it into last position of the Real Estate Market and advance all other tiles by one position.

Well, that was the general flow of the game, let’s now take a closer look on the individual actions. A point of information at the beginning, victory points and population are identical, which means, you will be the one with the best metropolis at the end if you have the highest population count.

In your first action you choose from two possibilities: Take a tile or place an Investment Marker.

If you as mayor decide to expand your town by taking a tile from the Real Estate Market you have to pay the respective cost for this building. The costs are the total of the basic price for the building and a surcharge of between 0 and 10 Dollar. The exact surcharge that you have to pay depends on the position of the tile in the Real Estate Market.

After you have bought the tile you must construct the building in your town, that is, place it in a way that it touches at least one tile already in your town. You must remember that adjacent tiles do influence each other in many cases, and this influence can be positive or negative. When you place the tile into your town you also activate the instant effect of this tile and it is implemented.

If, for instance, you place a Suburbs tile next to a Heavy Industry tile, the reputation of the town falls by one point – which of course, is only natural, what citizen wants to live in an industrial zone. Would you place the same tile next to a Community Park, the reputation of the town would rise by one point – which is equally clear, as Community Parks next to suburbs are always loved by residents and represent good quality of living. Should the newly placed tile be adjacent to more than one tile, you have of course to deal with several effects, so you need to choose the place considering tactical and strategic effects.

Instead of buying a tile from the Real Estate Market you can also acquire an additional basic tile. This choice can be of advantage if you do not have sufficient income and the buildings on the Market are therefore too expensive for you. Those basic tiles are, in comparison, very affordable, because Suburb and Heavy Industry do have a price of 3 Dollars, while the Community Park has a price of 4 Dollars. Due to this advantageous price those tiles are only available in limited quantities and – should they be all taken – this option is no longer available. After acquiring a basic tile you must discard a tile from the Real Estate Market and pay only the surcharge stated above the tile. Of course you will remove tiles that have no surcharge, because usually, when you have chosen that option, you are low in funds anyway.

Should it happen that you run out of money, which unfortunately can happen – as in reality you can end up with speculation losses – you can acquire a Lake tile. Those Lake tiles have two advantages: On the one hand, they are for free – you must pay the surcharge, though – because you simply take a tile from the Real Estate Market and turn it over to show the Lake side, and on the other hand this tile earns you income, because by placing it next to a tile you receive 2 dollars for each adjacent tile. There is an exception here, too – if the Lake tile is adjacent to another Lake tile, you do not get 2 dollars for this adjacent tile. So, in an ideal case, nothing turns into 12 Dollars, which you can use for further investments, but of course only in the following round.

This described the three options that are at your disposal if you decide on the move of taking a tile. An alternative to this choice of taking a tile is the place an Investment Marker in the first phase of your turn. From the start of the game each player has three Investment Markers, which in the course of the game he can place on buildings already constructed in his town. If you decide on this option, you choose a tile without such a marker in your town, place an Investment Marker there and pay again the construction costs of the building. You take this option because you want to double the effect of the tile; this double effect of course is valid for the rest of the game. In addition to the building costs for this doubled tile you also must remove a tile from the Real Estate market; again, this removal only costs you the surcharge for the chosen tile. In our test games this action was done very rarely, because its usefulness is often very limited despite the fact that doubling an effect seems attractive.

After choosing and implementing the first phase of your turn you pass on to your second action. You receive or pay money, depending on the location of your income marker. If you cannot pay the total of your debts you pay as much as you still own in cash and pay for the rest of your debts by reducing population in your town by the remaining total of your debts. Even if unpaid debts remain, your population count cannot fall below Zero, it will remain on Zero. As a Mayor we do not want that result, of course, so we need to strive for a positive balance in our town.

In the third action phase you adjust your population on the track. The change in population depends on the reputation of the town. In relation to the reputation the marker moves up or down the track by the corresponding number. Should the marker cross one or more red lines in this adjustment movement, income and reputation both will fall by one point for each red line that was crossed.

To develop the town is very costly for the Mayor. If you place a tile in the first phase and red lines are crossed you you must implement the adaption instantly.

Before the next player in turn can begin his turn you as the active player must update the Real Estate Market in the last phase of your turn. You simply fill the gap that results from removing a tile by advancing all tiles to the left of this gap by one position to the right. Then you draw the top tile from the current stack and place it at the end of the line. As a consequence, the cost for individual tiles changes, as the surcharge can fall or completely disappear. The less the tiles cost the more attractive they are for any mayor.

The end of the game is signaled when you uncover the tile „only one more round“ when drawing a tile to replenish the Real Estate Market. Upon appearance of this tile you finish the current round in which the tile was drawn and then a final round is played with the starting player taking the first turn in this final round. When the last player has finished his turn in this final round, you do a final scoring.

This final scoring comprises two steps: First you evaluate and score goals and then you can change money for population. It is important that in this final scoring you ignore effects of crossing red lines.

First, you score the open goals. You check which mayor is the only one to have achieved such a goal; this mayor can then advance his population marker by the number stated on the tile. When nobody or when several players have achieved a goal no points are awarded. So, in the course of the game, you must also pay attention to those goals and try to be ahead there.

Then, in sequence of play, you reveal the secret goals of each player and score them only for their owners. Yet, again, you only score points if you are the only one to achieve the goal. Finally, all mayors can change money into population, five dollars earn you one resident.

After this final scoring you win with the highest score on the population track. Should there be a tie in population numbers you win with the better reputation. If there is a tie again you win with the higher income. Should it happen that this is identical, too, you check the remaining money in hand. And if there is a tie then even in this point, you either decide on a draw or play a deciding game.

Suburbia is a very varied game, as each round plays differently. There are several winning strategies: You either concentrate on your reputation or on your income. A deciding factor is that you must take into account the open and secret goals in your strategy, because those can instigate a turnabout in the end. Always also keep in mind the fact that a high population that is easy to achieve also has negative effects, because the faster you climb the population track the quicker you cross a red line.

Another nice thing is that you not necessarily need another player for a game of Suburbia, because there are two variants for solo play. I can only say that to win a solo game against your robot friend is very, very difficult and a real challenge for any player.

Suburbia is a lot of fun alone and also in a round of several player, as it offers a lot of interaction due to the effects of some tiles do effect not only the active players but also other players. So mayors should choose wisely which buildings they want to add to their town, because they want to achieve a better town than all other mayors.

Isabella Schranz

Players: 1-4

Age: 8+

Time: 90+

Designer: Ted Alspach

Artist: Klemens Franz

Price: ca. 37 Euro

Publisher: Lookout / Bézier 2012

Web: www.lookout-spiele.de

Genre: Urban development, placement

Users: With friends

Users: For experts

Special: 1 player

Version: de

Rules: de en it ru

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Clear, well-structured rules

Very modern, attractive graphics

Close-to-reality simulation of urban development

Solo version

Compares to:

City Tycoon and other urban development games

Other editions:

Bézier Games, USA; uplay.it, Italy

My rating: 4

Isabella Schranz:

An interesting simulation which takes into account real elements of urban development planning; citizen in reality, too, do not want to leave next to an industrial plant.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 0

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0