Howdy, pardner. Let’s head out west to the land of opportunity and build a fortune for ourselves. Hop aboard as we make our way to Capital City!
Gameplay:
Capital City is made by Calliope Games, created by James Ernest. It plays 3-6 players, and lasts 30-50 min. Designed for ages 8+. The game includes Character cards (54), Building cards (36), and oodles of cardboard money and victory point tokens. The game takes place over 4 rounds, 1 for each season. In each season you will:
- Bid money to see who gets priority.
- Draft Character cards. (in priority order)
- Purchase Buildings. (in priority order)
- Attach Characters to Buildings. (in reverse priority order)
When setting up, you’ll lay Character cards face down, creating the train. Lay down Character cards equal to the total number of players, plus 1. The Spring and Fall season cards specify to lay down 1 train, but Summer and Winter specify to lay down 2 trains. The picture to the right is the beginning of Summer, so you see 2 trains of face-down Character cards, both equal to the total number of players (6), plus 1. The season cards will also specify how many Buildings to lay down each season. This will also be based on the total number of players.
Each Character has a specific icon that corresponds to icons found on Buildings. So only certain Characters can occupy the Buildings you have. You also have to keep in mind, that whenever a specific color of Character is assigned to a building, all other players get to activate a building of their own if they have that color of Character assigned to it as well. (Character cards that share a color are considered to be from the same Family). So, there’s definitely an importance put on getting your Characters put in to Buildings as early as possible to reap those rewards as often as possible. At the end of the 4th season, the player with the most victory points wins. You can also exchange money for victory points at the end, but the exchange rate is does not promote hoarding up money to just buy victory points. That’s pretty much it. It’s simple enough that by the end of the first season, it clicked for everyone. But even after we all began to form a strategy, it was incredibly hard to pull it off. I was able to play this with 6 players, and we all had an absolute blast. After slowly walking through the first season of bidding, drafting, purchasing, and assigning, the next few seasons flowed very smoothly. I will say the person that won our game had the last priority in 3 of the 4 seasons. She just made the most of what was passed to her, and continued to take advantage of other players activating the rewards on the buildings she already had in play. By the time we realized how much money and victory points she had rolling in, it was too late. There was nothing we could do to not trigger her rewards.
Impressions:
What could be better?
- I wish there was a 2 player variant. I understand how that wouldn’t work with bidding and drafting. Personally, I know it would reach the table a lot more if it were playable with just 2 players.
- During the last season, we pretty much knew who was going to win before it finished playing out.
- Some of the players had a hard time reading some of the fonts from across the table. Especially the Deed price on the Buildings.
What we liked.
- The speed of the game. Very fast paced.
- The learning curve. We had all hit the ground running by the end of the first season. I love games where I can give a player the basics and just say “Let’s play through the first round, and it will make a lot more sense.” Capital City is a perfect case for this.
- Replayability. With all the variables of bidding, the citizens, and deeds, there’s a lot of different ways each game can play out. As soon as we wrapped up that first play through, I couldn’t wait to play it again. Days later, as I write this review, I still feel that way.
- It plays very well with 6 players. Some games don’t scale well with more players, but that isn’t the case here.
Final Thoughts:
Capital City is a fantastic game that compounds elements that veteran gamers are familiar with (priority bidding, drafting cards, etc) and puts a thematic sense behind them (cities investing money in specific citizens and kinds of buildings) in a race to end the game with the most points. It comes in a small, lightweight box and requires very little setup: about 5 minutes. Yes, there are some things I wish were different, but they pale in comparison to the fun we had. The game isn’t perfect, but I feel like the ways it could be improved seemed a bit nitpicky. Our oldest daughter turns 7 next month, so I think we might have a while before this one comes out on family game night. She has some time before understanding bidding and priority and the gravity of those choices. But when that time comes, I think this one will see a lot of play in our house. Until then, it will be a stowaway to every game night I go to. All aboard!