![]() ![]() I’d love to see deluxe player aids with indented slots for tracking these things in the future. The nature of scoring in Suburbia is such that attempting to rebuild this from the board start can be very, very hard towards the end. More than once I played games that ended acrimoniously with some debate about whether a player had ten reputation or eight. The tracks for reputation and income are made of a thin card and use wooden pieces that are easily knocked, which is a shame. Money is represented by circular coins in various denominations - the printing is unexciting, but clearly colour-coded by value. The fairly prominent 1950’s inspired artwork that features on the box isn’t seen anywhere within the actual game and I think if an alternative print run was made now, it might well appear on these two boards to enliven the game a little bit. Other components like the score track and the slightly odd triangle piece that tracks the current building marketplace and any public objectives are also a bit dull to look at, but they do their job. The player board that the opening city tiles slot into is a bit ugly, but it’s a useful way of making the building tiles fit snugly together in a way that prevents them being knocked around the table. It’s more or less impossible to misinterpret the information that each one provides thanks to clear, well placed iconography. Aside from having fairly dull rear sides, the building tiles are well made and very clear. There are several cardboard components, the most prominent of which are the building hex tiles and the player boards that form the basis of each borough. Where the components in Suburbia are concerned, I guess you might say that the design is showing its age a little bit, but it is nonetheless entirely functional. Each objective is worth about ten percent of an average score, so taking one or two of them can often swing the game in your favour. Each player also has their own secret objective that will be worth a certain amount of points, and there will also be at least two public objectives to score against. The borough with the highest score will win, but this isn’t only down to population. Ultimately the winner will be determined once the final round has been played and scored. As the lines between housing, industrial and commercial districts become more and more blurred, the players will need to keep a close eye on changes to the scoring tracks, which also become more complex. As the game continues on, the bonuses for certain buildings become more and more powerful, but so too do the possible negative consequences of placing buildings in suboptimal locations. Suburbia is not a black and white game however, and choosing which buildings to invest in and place into your city, as well as where to place them, is absolutely key. Both of these tracks are affected by how tiles are placed in your city, with things like parks and pleasant spaces increasing reputation and unpleasant things like dumps or airports potentially decreasing it, whilst usually adding income. Depending on your reputation, this score can go down as well as up - so balancing reputation and monetary income at different stages of the game is key. Population level is the equivalent of victory points in Suburbia and a separate board is used to track current score. ![]() Each player takes control of their own borough, and from a humble beginning - featuring just three of the basic building tiles - must increase their income and reputation tracks to bring in people and wealth so that the cycle can be repeated. Whilst it remains more or less impossible for a board game to replicate the scope and expansiveness of a game like Simcity, Suburbia is nonetheless one of the more ambitious board games that I’ve seen. ![]() Even at over six years old, Suburbia remains a firm favourite - let’s talk about why. On the tabletop, few games capture this same feeling to the extent that Ted Alspach’s classic Suburbia does. From Simcity to Cities: Skylines and even recently into space, thanks to games like Surviving Mars, there’s nothing more satisfying than planning and laying out streets and buildings, then watching them fill with people. I find that one of the most enjoyable concepts in video games is that of building up your own city. Race to build the most efficient and well-organised city in Suburbia, an old classic which continues to give and give even after 6 years. ![]()
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