City of Iron: Second Edition

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. ajewo

   Deck building game with area control by Ryan Laukat. + Artwork + Components + Action selection (build, draw, store, attack, research, tax, expert action) + Deck building for 2 different decks: economy and military + Cards are used to match certain symbols to do actions like claiming land or building a building + A lot of control over decks: discard cards in any order, draw deck can be looked at every time + Area control (attack neutral lands to claim them, can be attacked by other players as well, but it is harder) + Lands grant end game scoring objectives # Tight economy requires focused play (all about efficiency, each resource and each turn counts) # Players draw from their own draw pool and can choose any of the 21 cards

2. 7 out of 10

   djberg96

   A couple plays in, I can say that I've enjoyed it. It's unusual to have a deckbuilder with two separate decks, though some find it too much of a hassle. Overall a solid deckbuilding game that's mostly a euro, but also includes the ability to directly attack other players, which again may be a turnoff for some of the euro crowd. I really like the initiative system for this game, too. Update: Ended up selling it. I tried playing this with several different groups. While no one disliked it, no one was particularly thrilled with it either. I get the impression that the two separate decks per player, which you must order, combined with the ability to purchase anything from your pile, both felt too clumsy and created too much downtime. I'm a bit disappointed as I thought there were some cool mechanisms here, but it seems most eurogamers just aren't into it.

3. 7 out of 10

   Ezren

   Positives: Superb art, solid mechanics, good choices for actions, ideal duration for a medium strategy euro, almost asymmetrical factions. Negatives: The rulebook belongs to the shredder. It's unacceptable for a game that easy, wasting hours searching the web for answers that should have been included in the rulebook. Also after so many years there are no official answers to many questions here. Nor an official f.a.q. The iconography is confusing when it comes to income and scoring. Some components are of poor quality. All in all I ended up enjoying my first play and this is why I give it a 7. Otherwise this game would be an easy 8.5 for me.