Carson City (2nd Edition)

Customer Reviews

5 Star game where it counts....lots of fun to play Review by Austen

Price
Value
Quality

Carson City is a game that I have had my eye on for a while as it is a different theme than other worker placement games and there is lot of potential conflict that is fun conflict.

The only reason why I haven't give this game 5 Stars is that I feel they cheaped out a little on the components. They only give you 2 player aids even though it is a 5 player game and the quality of the chipboard is a little suspect. My main issue is that you can tell the chipboard wasn't kept under weight while the glue dried which has resulted in the warping of the player aids. At first I questioned the thickness of the board, but after a few plays you realize that if the tiles were thicker that they would be cumbersome as you place them on top of each other.

So aside from my minor issue with the quality of the components this is a great game and that is what matters. Every time you play it there is a new starting setup which gives it a lot of replayability. Another great feature is that they made the board double sided which allows you to play a totally different style of game.

There are 4 rounds to the game in which you are trying to lay claim to territory around Carson City and build buildings to generate money. In a new twist on the standard worker placement game Carson City has a Dueling mechanism. This is a cool feature as if someone take a spot on the board that you really want you can fight them for it. There is a fair amount of interaction in this game which is fun.

Another unique feature that Carson City has is the way the building tiles work. The tiles are double sided and each side has a different value. There are rules for each building that effect the output of that building. So the value of a building may change several times during the course of the game. I really like this feature as it adds another level of strategy to the game as you can reduce the value of other peoples buildings by buying up land around them or by placing certain buildings near others.

The rules can be a little confusing at first so I recommend reading through them a few times and then checking out the Rules section on Board Game Geek to answer any questions you might have. I found that it was really helpful and answered most of the questions I had after reading the rules.

All in all I am super happy that my wife bought this game for me for Christmas. Weight wise I would say it is similar to Stone Age and also have similarities to games like Cuba or Puerto Rico in the sense that you choose roles each round.

(Posted on 12/29/10)