New York 1901 the game where you build skyscrapers and hope to God other people do not take the land you need and want, because they will and you will hate them for that.
Now let's cover the basic;
Players: 2 - 4
Age: 8+
Time: 30 - 60
Inside the beautiful box
Inside the box, you get one million rule books which is not what you need, unless you are bi-lingual. Plus I love the fact the game comes with such a good game piece storage solution. LOVE IT!
In the box you get;
1 million rule books in different languages
1 game board
5 game character cards
5 bonus cards
5 bonus challenge cards
65 lot cards
4 skyscraper score trackers (1 per player)
16 workers (4 per player)
4 king tokens (1 per player)
12 action cards (3 per player)
76 skyscraper tiles (19 per player)
4 legendary skyscraper tiles
How to set up
Each player needs to collect their coloured pieces and tiles this would be;
1 king token
1 skyscraper score marker
1 starting building tile
4 workers
18 skyscraper tiles
3 action cards
These are your game starting pieces and you will need them to play the game..... I know that is a given but just in case you needed me to point it out.
Place your skyscraper score marker on the 0 score point on the board.
Next, shuffle the character cards and deal 1 randomly to each player, if this is a two-player game you remove the pink character (David Schnedider).
Next place a matching coloured two square lot card. Place this card on your character card in your lot pile section.
Then place your starter building on the 2 square lot starting zone in your colour district.
In the image above note, the blue area with the shield and raven image, my starting building tile in the photo needs to be placed in the two squares with the shield.
It is important to note that you do not need the same colour pieces as the character card you have. In the photos, I happened to get the blue character and I always play blue pieces. The other player happened to get the yellow character and they play yellow pieces. Happy coincidence! Now shuffle the lot cards and then flip over the top 4, now the stack is called the future market and the ones on show are known as the open market. Not sure if this was actually important to know but there we go.
We need to select 3 random bonus cards, to do this gather the 5 cards and shuffle them, next flip over the top 3 and this is your 3 bonus cards, the player with the most skyscrapers along each of these streets will score 5 bonus points! Well worth paying attention to these as that could reward you 15 points at the end of the game.
Now we need to select the end game bonus, simply shuffle these 5 cards and draw the top one and this will be your end game bonus! Now each card is different and you will need to check the rule book to see how to score this bonus. I found that these did not really impact the game like I thought they would and going for them hindered me in the game.
The last action is to place the legendary skyscraper tiles at the edge of the game board for all players to see. The youngest player goes first which is bulls**t.
That is the game setup and ready to go! Check out the image below to see how we set up the game.
We did make a mistake setting up the game and can you see what that was? We like idiots did not place our starting buildings in their starting positions! Idiots! We moved them when we realised!
How to win?
The player with the most VP points at the end of the game wins! The game ends by;
The lot pile having no draw pile and only 3 face-up lot cards.
One player only having 4 skyscraper tiles left, it is considered good manners for a player to announce when they only have 5 left.
Once a player ends the game all other players get one more turn to try and score some VP points.
Finally you add any bonus points collected at the end of the game from the bonus cards and see who is the overall winner! Not me, never bloody is, the stupid game with stupid none winning ways.
How do you play this game?
Good bloody question! I know I asked it myself but it is a good bloody question!
On your turn, you can do one of two actions and we will talk about them now.
1: Collect a lot card and build a skyscraper, collect a lot card or just build a skyscraper. That means in one turn you can take a lot card and then build a skyscraper straight away onto any lot in the match district that matches the colour of that card.
In the example above you can see I picked the 3 square lot card, this means I can pick one lot that is either an L shaped 3 lot or a straight 3 lot. In the image, I picked the straight 3 shaped lot, I then placed my worker on that lot to say hey this is my f***ing land, back off. Then I built the 3 skyscraper in this lot.
Let us break this down and see if we can explain it easily;
1: Decide if you are taking a lot card (if not skip to 3), if you are place it on your lot section on your character card and place a worker in the lot that matches that colour and square restrictions.
2: Are you going to build? If so build a skyscraper and remove the worker or workers.
3: Build a skyscraper in a lot you own and can place 1 in.
You need to remember that you can skip this action and instead perform the other action we will talk about next.
Now there are some build restrictions which are;
You can not build a silver or gold skyscraper (tiles have a different colour score value (Bronze, Silver, Gold)) if you have not reached or surpassed that score on the scoreboard (on the scoreboard you can see that 6 is silver and 18 is gold).
One side of the skyscraper must touch a road or a park space in the district, this means no building randomly a 2 skyscraper in the middle of a district.
Skyscrapers can span multiple lots and districts long as you own them.
Once a skyscraper is built it cannot be moved only demolished.
A skyscraper does not need to fill the lot, this can happen the empty space is still your land.
You can not demolish a skyscraper in this phase it is only in the other action you can take this.
If you build one of the legendary skyscrapers you must place your king token on this so everyone knows this one is yours!
Some of the skyscrapers require multiple lots to build, for these you need to build up your workers in the district by collecting lot cards of that colour until you have enough space to build the skyscraper you wish to build!
Each time you build a skyscraper score the victory points located at the bottom of the card. Also, handy tip but all the skyscraper cards show you the number of lot squares needed to build that skyscraper!
2: Demolish and build a new skyscraper
This one is pretty simple to understand you need to select a skyscraper or a number of skyscrapers and remove them from the gameboard (these are discarded and not used again!). Then place the new skyscraper in that spot, you then score the number of VP points on the new skyscraper tile (you never lose VP points in this game).
There are some rules about this;
You can only replace skyscrapers with the next generation skyscraper, this means that gold and silver can replace a bronze skyscraper. Gold can only replace silver and gold can never be replaced. The same colour can not replace the same colour, I.E a silver skyscraper can not be demolished to replace it with another silver! You can use bronze to replace your starting building though.
The new skyscraper must still touch a road or park.
The new skyscraper can be larger or smaller than the one removed, if it is smaller and a lot becomes free you need to put a worker in that lot.
That is basically the main actions you will take in the game, of course, there are the action cards and we will cover that now, or will we? Yes we will.
The 3 actions cards can be used at any point on your turn to give you an advantage but once the card is used it is discarded and can not be used again.
The cards allow you to do one of the following;
1: Gather two lots this turn but you can only still build 1 skyscraper.
2: Remove the 4 lot cards and put them at the bottom of the future market pile (draw deck).
3: Build 2 skyscrapers this turn, once again you only take 1 lot though.
Only one action can be used on your turn so you can not combine the two lots and build 2 action cards.
It is also worth knowing that at the end of the game for each one you do not use you gain 1 VP point. That really does cover how to play the game and I think I have covered that section well, I just want to go over a few more bits with you, if that is alright? Who cares I will anyway!
What is a district? Well, that is one of the colours on the board you have Blue, Yellow, Pink, Red and Green. The district is all the lots in that area.
I mentioned the bonus cards, these are the street bonus cards and the end of game bonus cards. The street ones are very important! I know I have already said this but they are so please pay attention to the streets where you will gain a bonus and where the other players are building and how many they have touching that street!
The end game bonus cards are;
Gold tycoon: Score 3 points per district if that district contains 2 or more gold skyscrapers!
Master architect: Tally up all the odd-shaped skyscrapers you have (check if the score is in a hexagon and not a circle) and score the following;
3 = 3 points
4 = 6 points
5 = 10 points
This is a lot harder than I thought it would be and really ruined my final score!
Gold prestige: This one happens during the game! When you place a gold skyscraper you score 1 VP point for each silver or bronze skyscraper it is in contact with that is owned by the other players.
Bronze baron: This is all based on your remaining bronze skyscrapers and is scored by the following;
4 bronze skyscrapers = 5 points
5 bronze skyscrapers = 10 points
6 bronze skyscrapers = 15 points
Generation king: This is very simple, at the end of the game the player with;
The most bronze skyscrapers = 5 points
The most silver skyscrapers = 5 points
The most gold skyscrapers = 5 points
The legendary tiles, once you have unlocked the gold skyscrapers you can build a legendary skyscraper, these take up a few lot squares and allow you to score a few victory points, not also that they are important if you tie for VP points at the end of the game, the player with the highest legendary skyscraper wins! The feet of the building is listed on the tile so if you can build this one!
If on your turn you can not take a lot because all your workers are on the board, you can not build a building for some reasons and finally you can not demolish and rebuild a building you must pick a lot from your pile, put it at the bottom of the future market deck (draw pile) and remove that worker. You can then take a new lot from the open market and continue your turn.
Final thoughts
When you first start playing the game you think to yourself, oh well this is pissing easy! You have a few more turns and you start to realise that you rushed into it without planning where you were going to build or what bonus cards were in play and before you know it you are in skyscraper jam city!
This game brings more to the table than I thought at first, I was pleasantly surprised with how complex it actually was. Yes, you can go in and put buildings down where ever you want and hope for the best. This, of course, will not win you the game, far from it.
You need to look at the street bonus cards, first of all, make sure you are trying to claim victory there, next look at the other bonus card and see if it is worth going for or not, some are and some just really do not make a difference to the end score.
If you are falling behind then use your action cards, you might just need what they bring to the table. Start upgrading your skyscrapers to save land and score more points for the same lot you own.
Make sure you build a legendary skyscraper and try to go for the tallest one in case it ends in a draw!
There are so many little points like this that made the game, it just works and it works well. You look at the rule book and you think hmmmm yeah this is going to be an easy game and how you will be wrong.
I enjoyed and played 2 games to make sure I was playing it right and found that during each game I was excited to play my next skyscraper and score. It had me hooked and I think this game really does make a great game to add to your collection or to teach a new player a simple but complex game.
8/10
