Machi Koro
| Machi Koro | |
|---|---|
| Game data | |
| author | Masao Suganuma |
| graphic | Noboru Hotta |
| publishing company | cosmos |
| Publishing year | 2012 in Japan, 2014 in Europe |
| Art | Card game |
| Teammates | 2 to 4 |
| Duration | 30 minutes |
| Age | from 8 years
|
| Awards | |
|
Game of the Year 2015: nominated |
|
Machi Koro ( Japanese 街コロ , City dice ' ) is a card game from the type of construction of the game , the 2012 by Masao Suganuma in Japan and 2014 in Games Publisher Kosmos was published for Europe. In the game, each of the two to four players builds their own city, whereby the first four so-called major projects are to be implemented.
The game is a classic family game with a duration per game of around 30 minutes and is suitable for players aged eight and over.
The jury of the game award game of the year justified its nomination in 2015 with the fact that "with" Machi Koro "[...] the players [make] decisions with political and economic implications on almost every street corner. This is what urban planning should look like! ”And“ The number of strategic possibilities is large and ranges from peaceful to brutal. ”
Theme and equipment
The players build a city by buying building cards. There are fifteen different structures and four major projects. Every building has a purchase price between one and five, or six, seven or eight coins in the case of three special buildings. The four major projects cost four, ten, sixteen and twenty-two coins.
The total of 108 cards are brightly colored, the motifs are reminiscent of tiles in computer games such as SimCity or The Settlers . This is a deliberate reference, since the game designer Masao Suganuma has only designed computer games so far, Machi Koro is his first board game.
The various dependencies between the buildings are marked by clear symbols on the maps. Each building card has a purchase price, one or two neighboring dice values, a class symbol, a symbol for the type of rating and a text with the income or other rating.
There are also monetary units with the values one, five and ten, as well as two wooden dice.
Gameplay
An erected structure is assigned to one or two neighboring dice values from one to twelve points. The die value decides which structures are scored. At first only one die is thrown, so that only values one to six can be achieved. As soon as a player has set up his smallest major project, the train station, he can decide on each turn whether he wants to throw one or two dice. So he can also reach the higher values.
There are structures that only count for the player's turn, others that always count when their die value falls, regardless of which player, and there are two structures that only count for one player if another player rolls their die value.
The ratings bring income that either comes from the bank or is drawn from the generic players. After the income phase, the funds can be used or saved to buy a new building or to implement one of the major projects. The game ends as soon as a player has implemented his four major projects.
Several buildings have relationships, so some of the expensive buildings score depending on the number of assigned cheap buildings that the same player has already built: If the dairy is scored with purchase price 5 and die value 7, the player's turn receives three monetary units per farm with purchase price 1 and dice value 2. The furniture factory (3, 8) also refers to the forest (3, 5) and the mine (6, 9).
Because the values of the dice directly determine income, Machi Koro is a fast game. Since some dice values can trigger ratings even for players who are not on the move and in some cases the player on the move has to pay to his opponents, there is interaction outside of one's own moves.
Strategy and target audience
Since all structures only serve to raise funds for the major projects, there are no absolute goals in dealing with them. One strategy is to get into the scoring with as many dice values as possible, i.e. to erect all building types if possible. Or a player tries after an introductory phase to optimally fill the results 7, 6 and 8, 5 and 9, which are more frequent when thrown with two dice, and not only the directly corresponding buildings, but also several of those dependent on them (farm to dairy, forest and mine to the furniture factory) and, in the event of a hit, to score multiple times.
Since the large projects also influence the ratings after their construction, it can make sense not to erect them in the order of their value, but to save money in order to build one of the more expensive large projects as early as possible.
The game is designed for families with children from eight years of age, the many dependencies require several steps to learn despite the clear symbols. Since the amount of money is always very tight at the beginning and far into the game, there are almost always only a few options available. These are influenced by the fact that when you save there is always the risk that you have to give your money to an opponent if you roll the dice unfavorably. If one or more players can get higher income per round, the game will soon be over.
The luck portion of the die roll is countered by the many options, either to use many dice values for yourself or to achieve a particularly high income with certain roll values.
Variants and extension
In the 2015 edition, the rules of the game include a variant “Come what may”, in which not all structures can be erected at the same time. Instead, cards are placed from a shuffled pile of all buildings until ten different buildings (instead of fifteen) are placed on the table. Only the structures on top can then be bought and built. If there are only nine types left on the table, it is turned over until ten types are revealed again. In the course of the game, all structures come into play, but you don't always have the optimal choice.
In Japan, the expansion Machi Koro Plus ( 街 コ ロ プ ラ ス ) was released in 2012 and Machi Koro Sharp ( 街 コ ロ シ ャ ー プ ) in 2014 , which were published in German as a city expansion in 2015 . This is where new major projects came into play. The also new tax office collects "taxes" from the players depending on their savings. With the additional cards, a round with the expansion takes about 45 minutes.
In 2018, Machi Koro Football, a new version of the game with the same gameplay, appeared. Instead of a city, it's about building a football club .
A computer game implementation of the game can be played as a browser game on yucata.de.
Web links
- Machi Koro in the Luding games database
- Machi Koro at Kosmos
- Machi Koro at BoardGameGeek (English)
- Machi Koro urban expansion in the Luding games database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Game cult: Machi Koro
- ↑ Machi Koro on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV
- ↑ H @ all9000: Machi Koro
- ↑ Pöppelkiste: Machi Koro
- ↑ Machi Koro on yucata.de; accessed on May 20, 2020.