Cities of Splendor has finally arrived! The much awaited expansion to the hit game Splendor has gotten us all excited to bring it out again. Let's take a look at what new experiences await us as we explore Cities of Splendor.
A Token Detour
Cities of Splendor comes with a first player token to remind players who started the game. This is important as every game of Splendor should end with each of the players having an equal amount of turns. There have been countless of games where players have forgotten the turn order and this little token remedies that small issue.
Cities
The namesake of the expansion, the Cities expansion changes Splendor's victory condition by requiring players to have cities to be eligible for winning. Cities act like noble tiles and can only be acquired if both the bonus gem and minimum VP requirement are met. These tiles replace the noble tiles but are still acquired at the end of the turn. One more thing to note, there are always three cities regardless of the number of players.
Trading Posts
Designed to speed up the game, Trading Posts give players the ability to gain bonus powers and points. Similar to the Cities expansion, whenever a player meets the requirements, they can claim the power by placing their coat of arms on the trading route spots. The powers range from having an extra gem to earning victory points for every one of your coats of arm placed on the route.
The Orient
The Orient adds 30 development cards that can be bought like the regular development cards but offer different bonuses. These new cards form two new columns, giving players more to choose from.
Strongholds
Strongholds gives Splendor a tactical dimension as the expansion allows players to block out and claim development cards out of turn. Whenever a player purchases a card, they have to either put a stronghold on a card, effectively blocking other people from getting the card or remove any other player's stronghold. Collecting the three strongholds on one card also allows players to purchase that card at the end of turn.
Cities of Splendor is now available at Gaming Library. Follow Sounding Board for more on board games, RPGs, and other aspects of tabletop gaming. For review requests, submissions, and other board game related content, contact Duane at gl.duanebanzon@gmail.com
