“Develop future cities on the seafloor through politics, production, and science.”
Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/247763/underwater-cities
Playing Time: 80-150 minutes
Weight: Medium-To-Heavy
Genre: Worker Placement
Designer: Vladimir Suchy
Players: 1-4
Vladimir Suchy is one of the industry’s most promising new designers, and so far, Underwater Cities is his most resilient and successful design. In this city, players will compete to build a network of cities, connect them to each other, and construct farms to earn more resources to further expand their empire. Fairly straightforward, although I do love the little domes that represent your city.
The engine of the game is a worker placement engine, unsurprisingly, but with a nice twist. At all times, players have a hand of three cards, representing crew members of three different colors. Worker placement locations also come in three colors. When you place a worker, you toss a card away. If the color of the card matches the color of the placement location, you get a bonus action as represented in the card. If not, the card does nothing (the worker you placed lacked the skills to go above and beyond the call of duty.)
Taking a lesser space may be worth it if the auxiliary action on the card. Conversely, somebody blocking you out of a color entirely may unknowingly hose you out of a key secondary action. The end result really muddles with the formula of a worker placement game, in the best brain burny sort of way.
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