We built up thriving suburban boroughs in Suburbia, the next game in our A-Z game shelf play-through.
Suburbia
Players: 1-4
Time: 60-90 Minutes
Designers: Ted Alspach
Artists: Ted Alspach, Jason Boles, Klemens Franz, Stephanie Gustafsson, Alanna Kelsey, Brett Stebbins, T. B., Ollin Timm
Publisher: Bézier Games
Suburbia is a tile laying game where each player is building up a suburban area, trying to grow their population and attract new businesses for economic growth. Players will achieve this goal by balancing popular (but expensive) attractions, essential services, and quiet neighborhoods. Whoever can achieve the highest population by the end of the game will win.
Game play
Suburbia is set up by placing out the the various shared boards within sight of all players. The tiles are shuffled separately by type (A, B, or C), then stacks of each type are placed on the their associated board, with the appropriate number of tiles for the player count. The C tile will have a “one more round” tile shuffled into tiles near the bottom of the stack. The first seven tiles of the A stack are laid out under the real estate board. Four of each of the basic tiles are placed on their associated spots on the real estate board. The goal tiles are shuffled and a number placed face up on the real estate board according to player count.
Each player takes a player board and the other pieces for their chosen player color. They place a Suburbs, Community Park, and Heavy Factory tile starting from the middle slot in their player board. Their income marker starts on the zero space and reputation on the one space of their player board. Their population counter starts on two on the shared population board.
Players also get two random goal tiles and choose one to keep (face down). Finally, they take 15 million dollars and add their 2x tokens to their personal supply.
The game is played in turns starting with the randomly selected start player and moving around the table until one full round after the “One More Round” tile is revealed from the C stack of tiles.
On their turn, a player can either take and place one tile or place an investment marker (one of their “2x” tiles).
To take a tile, the player will either select one from the available row of tiles below the real estate board or a basic tile. If taking a tile from the row, the player has a choice of using the tile as shown, paying the cost on the tile plus the cost of its position in the row, or they can turn the tile over and use it as a lake, in which case they only pay for the tile’s position. If they take a basic tile, the player must also discard one tile from the real estate row, paying the cost for its position in the row.
They then place the title in their suburb and apply any effects from that tile and others in theirs and others’ boroughs. This can include increasing or decreasing their income or reputation, gaining or losing population, or taking coins.
The player can instead use one of their investment tokens. To do this, they’ll choose a tile in their borough that doesn’t already have an investment token, pay for the base cost of that tile again, place the investment token on it, and reimplement all of that tile’s benefits. In addition, they’ll choose a tile from the real estate market to discard, paying the cost for its position in the row.
The player then receives (or pays) money based on their income and gains (or loses) population based on their reputation. As they gain population, if they pass a red line on the population board, they must decrease both their income and reputation by one. Finally, the real estate market is refilled and play moves on to the next player.
The game ends one full round after the round in which the “One More Round” tile is revealed from the C stack of tiles. Players will then do some final scoring based on the public and private goals and leftover money. Whoever has the highest population wins.
My Thoughts
We’ve had this game in our collection for a long time, and I don’t remember what prompted us to pick it up, but I enjoy tile laying and the idea of the tiles playing off of not only your own suburb, but also possibly others’ suburbs likely drew me in.
While everyone is building their own suburb, you have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing, and I think that’s one of the things I really enjoy about this game. I might build a fancy restaurant early to get some quick income, but then as other restaurants are built by anyone, including me, I take a hit to my income. It’s a really fun and interesting mechanism.
We do have trouble bringing this to the table because it always feels like it’s going to be a heavy lift to remember all the rules, but there is a very clear player helper card that goes through all the dependencies you should check as you play a tile, so it’s not actually that hard. And whenever we do get it out, I quite enjoy it.
Three Quick Questions
How is it as a 2-player game? Suburbia works well at 2. It does mean that you have more tiles that won’t ever come up, but I’m okay with that randomness and am always ready to roll with whatever comes out.
How about the art and component quality? We have the “old” edition (not the fancy deluxe one that was released just a couple years ago), and the tile and component quality is good with decent cardboard tiles and nice wooden player pieces. The art is good, and really, the most important thing is that all the symbology is clear and easy to follow (once you’re familiar with all the things the tiles are showing you).
Will this stay in my collection? Yes, this one is always fun when it comes out, and if I could just get over the idea that it’s a behemoth to get out, we would play it much more often.
