City Blocks (2013)

Overview

Metro City is redeveloping an old industrial district for mixed use (residential, commercial and industrial) and the mayor is offering bonuses to two developers for aesthetic completion of key streets. Can you win greater bonuses than your competitor by strategically building homes, offices, stores, courthouses, parks and malls in ways that upset your opponent’s plans for the city?

The city district is a 6 x 5 grid with 11 named streets. Each street has a mayor's bonus associated with it, from $1 to $15, drawn randomly at the start of the game. Players try to develop each street better than their opponent to claim its bonus.

Each player keeps a hand of 5 Building tiles out of 20 available to them. When placing a tile on an empty city block, if the tile completes a street (a row or column) they compare the value of their Buildings on the street to their opponent's Buildings to determine who wins the bonus. A straightforward comparison simply involves adding the number of each tile: Residential Buildings count from 1 to 5, Commercial Buildings count from 2 to 6 and Industrial Buildings count from 3 to 7. However, four types of special tiles change how the bonus is determined: a Park or Mall prevents either player's Industrial Buildings from counting towards the bonus on a street; a Power Plant or Mall prevents Residential Buildings from counting towards the bonus. Finally, the Courthouse allows the player to switch the bonuses of two streets.

Instead of placing a tile on an empty block, a player can discard a Currency token and build over a block they have already developed.

Whoever has the most money wins, and earns a key to the city from the mayor!