Game: Metropolis

Thread: Re: Building size compared to Big City's buildings?

Phoenixgeek — 2008-06-04T08:16:40+00:00

I have recently picked up both of these games and I can confirm that the buildings in Metropolis would not fit Big City - they are bigger and based on rectangles rather than squares. Plus they are nowhere near as nice as the Big City buildings!

Image

Itiac Nolcin — 2008-02-22T12:43:51+00:00

Thread: Re: Building size compared to Big City's buildings?

NateStraight — 2007-09-07T03:20:41+00:00

It does kind of seem that way from the pictures. There aren't nearly as many buildings, and the board seems at least as large as a typical Big City setup.

Thread: Re: Building size compared to Big City's buildings?

tool — 2007-09-07T03:17:39+00:00

My recollection is that the buildings in Metropolis are significantly bigger than those in Big City.

Thread: Re: Building size compared to Big City's buildings?

NateStraight — 2007-09-07T03:00:48+00:00

Hmmmm... looking at the pictures of Metropolis' buildings and board more closely, it seems like the buildings are based on a rectangular rather than a strictly square grid. It doesn't seem like they would fit well on Big City's board, then. If anyone has both games, it would cool if they could pull them out together and see if anything fits anyway.

Thread: Building size compared to Big City's buildings?

NateStraight — 2007-09-07T02:47:35+00:00

Hey. I'm wondering if someone out there who owns both this and Big City could tell me whether the buildings from Metropolis are based on approximately the same grid size as those of Big City. The question behind the question is whether the buildings from Metropolis could be used as "expansions" for Big City (and vice-versa, I suppose). Thanks in advance.

-Nate

Image

Rsilva — 2007-07-12T13:01:46+00:00

Metropilis, Origins 2007

Thread: Sid Sackson's original values

chris00 — 2007-06-22T12:11:27+00:00

Hello,
can you tell me these values or where I can find them?

Thanks in advance
Christwart

Thread: Review from modern perspective

curtc — 2007-05-02T21:51:30+00:00

I think after 23 years, this game deserves a review. It probably already had one, but none show up under the Reviews section here, so...

I tend to like to play new-to-me games. Given that, I tend to play games significantly newer than the mean age of games I've played. As a result, it's not uncommon for me form similarities to other games. I.e. the new game is derivative of one or more older games. It's much less common that I play an older game, and then recognize how games I've already played are derivative of that older but new-to-me game. But this is what happened with Metropolis.

What games spring to mind when you think about an empty city that you build on, with numbered plots, and cards or tokens that correspond to those lots, which later get built on, with various bonuses for certain buildings being by certain other buildings? Big City anyone? How about numbers for lots, where the lots get reserved, but you can trade the reservations around before building? Chinatown anyone? These are games that I enjoy a lot, and both clearly are derived from Metropolis. I didn't even notice until just now, but right under the description of the game here on the geek, it says: "Re-implemented by: Big City
Chinatown". There ya go. And although ultimately I think they both succeeding in taking the idea farther, I have respect for what came first, and can still enjoy Metropolis in that light.

Just like Chinatown, the building lots in Metropolis are broken up into blocks. Likewise for everyone getting the same opportunity for number of plots to build on. But Metropolis tries to avoid all players from playing in the same block. New lots in a block with five or more existing claims may not be claimed by those without adjacent claims. This has a nice effect of making neighborhoods limited to two or three players.

Ultimately in Metropolis, you're trying to build buildings either in the type of area that they like to be in (e.g. office buildings and hospitals downtown, factories on rivers, schools by houses and apartments, houses and apartments with a park view and near shopping, etc.). These buildings are of varying tetris-like shapes, and are quite limited. Thus timing is an important issue; players find themselves wanting to build something, only to find it gone before they can get the right shape of lots claimed. Also, what gets built first on a block dictates what other players will want to build.

All of the different combinations of building types (eight if I recall correctly) combine in enough ways that you really need the player aid and the charts that go with it. This can be a bit daunting on the first play. But basically you can just try to think about what goes well together, and what doesn't go well together (e.g. factories reduce the points of everything in their block, with the exception of other factories).

The choices facing each player on their turn are very simple: choose one of the 4 available lots, claim it by putting one of your markers on it (unless there are none claimable by you, due to reservation mentioned earlier, which is annoying because you still have to pick a lot, and then give it to someone who can legally claim it), and then optionally build a building. There is no cost to building a building, as there is no money in the game. Just points at the end.

The only thing that I am not really fond of about the gameplay is the idea that if none of the four lots up for grabs on your turn are claimable by you, you have to pick one and give it to someone else. I think you should at least be able to pass, making someone spend their own turn for it. It essentially is advantageous to have more claims on the board. It is a minor point, though, as it is possible to win without having the most claimed lots. But still, it's a poor get poorer issue which I have a general aversion toward.

Player interaction is entirely within negotiation. Negotiation is explicitly condoned, primarily for lot claim exchanges. Since you need specific shapes to build buildings, it is often the case that you can't get the right shape on your own. That's where lot exchange comes in. Given that there are no fungible resources, it can be a bit more difficult to form a perfectly balanced trade, than in, say Chinatown, but that also makes negotiating a little quicker I think.

The other aspect of negotiation is negotiating a collaborative building effort. Buildings do not have to be built by a single player. Two players may jointly build one of the large buildings (but not the small ones) that together they have the right shape of lots for. Then they simply share the resulting points at the end, proportional to the number of lots each player contributed to the building. You simply put 1 or more tokens on the completed building to indicate ownership proportions.

Pacing seems about right, with the first part going pretty quickly as players were mostly just getting lots claimed, and then slows down slightly as buildings get built, and negotiations are made to consolidate claims among players, trying to build the good buildings before they're built somewhere else.

The game ends when all lots have been claimed, or all buildings that can be built (due to shape constraints and remaining available lots) have been built. And here is the main drawback to the game. Scoring the end game is a pain. For each player, you have to look at every building they own (fully or partially), and then figure out what it's real value is (location, other buildings in same block, fractional ownership), and then add that up for each of their buildings. Like I said, it's a pain. But I do like the aspect that it's complicated enough that unless you put a lot of effort into it--something I'm not willing to do with a game of this weight--you don't really know exactly who's winning during the game, or who won at the end, until you've calculated it all out. This encourages players to play for themselves first and foremost.

If I would have known about this in 1984, I probably would have played it like mad. I'm very happy to have it in my collection, and expect to play it with folks who might benefit with an on-ramp to Big City or Chinatown (e.g. my family), but ultimately, with experienced players who have already played Metropolis for the historic experience, I would prefer playing Big City or Chinatown. But Metropolis is great for everyone to play at least once.

Thread: Re: About owning the squares

Jonathan Degann — 2006-09-01T20:34:25+00:00

Yes, but this is not based on a strict interpretation of the rules. The rules are vague. However, the rules only talk about plots, not buildings. Now either that's a huge oversight, or maybe it never occurred to anyone to include buildings.

As I say, the restriction on buying plots seems more relevant to a group of undeveloped plots than to buildings.

Finally, I'm considering adapting the rule to say: the restriction applies only when *half of the undeveloped plots* in a block are owned. So if a block has five owned plots - further ownership is restricted. If a player takes two of them and creates a building, now there are 3 owned plots out of 8. It's unrestricted. But it takes one more plot to make it restricted again. This is definitely NOT in the rules - it's a proposed rule choice I'm suggesting.

I think that this can actually add some difficult decision to the game. There are 6 plots owned. If you build, you open it up to other players. If you don't, you risk getting shut out of your building type.

Thread: Re: About owning the squares

martin47 — 2006-09-01T14:33:19+00:00

Greetings Jonathan.

So, you think that once a building is placed, those squares should be considered as thay have no owner?

Thread: Re: About owning the squares

Jonathan Degann — 2006-09-01T06:17:56+00:00

The short answer is: I don't know. However we played last night and did find it confusing. This was especially the case when two people shared a building. Can both people now play adjacent to any square in the building? Certainly there is no record keeping of who owned what square.

On thinking about it, I'd like to play again with the rule that only undeveloped lots are owned for the purpose of restricting future purchases. If five lots are owned, and then a player builds, then purchasing again becomes unrestricted until there are again five owned, undeveloped lots.

This actually makes sense. Part of the rule, I gotta think, is designed to prevent such fragmenting of ownership that would sometimes make it impossible to develop adjacent lots. However, there is no reason that an already developed lot should influence this.

Image

skelebone — 2006-03-02T04:12:11+00:00

Image

skelebone — 2006-03-02T03:52:11+00:00

Image

martin47 — 2006-02-17T12:49:46+00:00

Summary page with info on buildings in spanish

Thread: About owning the squares

martin47 — 2005-11-24T15:17:07+00:00

Greetings. Does anybody know if when you place a building, the squares you occupy still belong to you? I get confused with this because it influences deeply the capability to claim cards.

Image

klellingson — 2005-09-09T12:20:54+00:00

Game in Progress at ConQuest SF 2005

Thread: Re:Session Report

Bearcat89 — 2004-11-24T21:02:42+00:00

Dan Bosley (#17022),

Try playing the exact opposite of your "neighboring lots" rule interpretation and you will find that the unusual monopoly that you encountered will not happen. Once you build on a lot, it cannot be used with any adjacent lots for bigger building projects and you no longer have rights to it.

Image

seppo21 — 2004-10-10T00:58:15+00:00

Thread: Re:General Comment

pepzaza — 2004-09-13T08:18:18+00:00

Well, I just thought the same. Big City looks like an advanced version of this game. I haven't played Metropolis, but when I saw the photo's, Big City came immediately to mind.

Thread: Session Report

seppo21 — 2004-08-26T20:32:12+00:00

My wife and I have slowly been indoctrinating our families into German Style games. For the most part, we have been quite successful. Since most of them live nearby, we've instituted a Monday gaming night for family and friends. This was our fourth gathering.

The players: Stephen (Myself), Christine, (longsuffering wife), Maria (my sister), Matt (Maria's husband), and Philip (my brother).

Second Game: Metropolis

Philip had arrived at the end of the second round of Manhattan and was patiently waiting to join us. Metropolis was the second of the city building games for the night. In Metropolis, you have a city divided into blocks, which are divided into lots. You are randomly dealt several to start and then each turn are allowed to choose one from a selection of four that are face-up. Each turn you may also build one building--either on your own or with a partner for large buildings. The trick is each building is worth a different number of points, which can change depending on its location (on the park, on the river, downtown) and what other buildings share its block. So, a good idea early in the game may end up costing you points in the end. This game would be much less interesting except that you are allowed to freely trade lots with other players. The game ends when all lots have been distributed, all the buildings are built, or no further buildings can be built. Again, this was a first time play for all of us.

We all started prettty spread out, the exceptions being Matt holding several lots in the NE corner and Maria holding several in the SW corner. For the first few rounds, I didn't really build much of anything Everyone else, however, built all of the shops and houses they could. The result is that we were out of houses and shops early in the game. Along with some apartment builds, this left some pretty odd-shaped, non-buildable areas on the board. Things then began to slow down as we tried to gain / share the lots needed to build the remaining buildings. It looked as though this was going to be a long, non-interactive game for a few rounds, but then everyone discovered the points they could get if they shared / traded, and things openned up a fair amount. I was the first, putting a school downtown on the East side. Maria and Christine managed to get a Hospital built in the North central area. This was quickly followed by a pair of factories in the central block. Another coalition wanted to build a hospital in the South Central block, but I managed to get a factory put in first. They did not much like that Matt and I finally got the Mall in play in the South East corner. The game pretty much wound down from there.

Final Scores: (fractional points are due to shared buildings)
MAtt -- 56
Stephen -- 47 2/3
Maria -- 46
Christine -- 42 2/3
Philip -- 30 2/3

This game was pleasant, and everyone had fun. However, it was not really enjoyed as much as Manhattan. I think they probably did not much like that they had to depend so much on trading in order to do well. I think it unlikely I will get them to play again soon since they know I have Manhattan. Total time to play was about 90 minutes.

As an aside, Matt attributes his success in the previous two games to many hours of Sim City

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2004-07-15T15:35:42+00:00

When I first played Metropolis, I was so enamored by it that I sought out a copy of the out-of-print game and ultimately obtained a copy due to the efforts of my good friend Ty Douds (of Victory & Honor fame). I subsequently played it many times and always had a grand time.

However, this time it just fell flat. Really flat. We used the rules as tweaked by Andy Merritt, but there seemed to be little excitement in the game or incentive to formulate clever deals. The main problems seemed to be:

1) Several players did not like the rule which forced a player to GIVE a lot card away if he could not legally take it. According to the rules, if a player cannot legally hold one of the four face-up lot cards, he must take one of them and GIVE it to an opponent who can legally hold it if no deal can be struck. We had quite a few situations wherein only one player could legally hold a particular card, so a deal would be impossible as that player would get the card for free anyway.

2) This problem goes hand-in-hand with the rules pertaining to taking a card. According to the rules, a player may only take a card if there are four or fewer OCCUPIED lots in a neighborhood (block). If there are five or more occupied lots, the player can only take the card IF:

a) All lots adjacent to the new lot are vacant; OR
b) The player already has a lot adjacent to the new lot; OR
c) The player immediately gives the lot to someone who is adjacent to it.

The rules are unclear as to whether constructed buildings affect the lots next to it. If someone builds a building, is he still considered to “control” or own the lot(s) upon which the building is located? Andy’s suggests that the answer to this be “no”; i.e., once a player constructs a building, he is no longer considered to own that lot.

Played this way, it makes it very difficult for most players to be able to take a card in a neighborhood once a building or two has been erected, or once several lots have been claimed. This really limited player options as usually only one or two players could legally take a particular card. This really made the game unexciting.

I remember these problems being present in our earlier games, but it just didn’t seem to be as prevalent as it was this time. I’d be interested in hearing the thoughts of others about these aspects of the game.

The end result was, as mentioned, an unexciting game that saw many cards being given to other players and few deals being struck. A shame, as my earlier experiences with Metropolis were all favorable.

Finals: Greg 68, Dave 50, Keith 37, R.J. 29, Spouey 26

Ratings: Keith 6, R.J. 6, Spouey 6, Greg 6, Dave 5.5

Thread: Session Report

clearclaw — 2003-10-21T13:05:05+00:00

Larry was unfortunately feeling a bit over medicated (he recovered
later), so Greg, Roy, Tami and I sat down to Metropolis. I hadn't
played Metropolis before. Roy had, and possibly Tami or Greg as well.

The initial numbers came out in a fairly wide spread, leaving most city
blocks under the critical 5-token point for placement. Early play
proceeded with a lurch, tho this perception may have had a fair bit to
do with my getting used to the mechanics and value trade-offs. In
particular the values involved in the trade-offs between the following
pairs weren't at all clear to me:

0) In selecting cards to modify initial placements, concentrate on
widely scattered placements or go for larger percentage ownerships of
fewer city blocks?

1) Trade tokens towards maximal fractional ownership of big buildings
or scheme for exclusivity?

2) Build as soon as possible or carry on hoping for "better" while
sustaining the chance that the building type will be exhausted
(there's a limited supply or each type)?

Post-game I'm not certain that there are clear answers to any of them,
as they depend on both other player's positions and the specific set of
cards which are up on your turn. It seems a learned pattern space built
on probabilities rather than subject to a recipe.

Greg and I bought the building bug first, plopping the department store
down just to the east of the centre of town. Tami and Roy soon
followed, building schools and stores. The map proceeded to fill in
rapidly.

At a tactical level luck factors started to show strongly and a little
distastefully. In refilling the available pool of cards, a card would
frequently come up which (someone) desperately wanted, but which they
would have no chance at because it would be taken by someone else before
it got to them. Of course the same event could be viewed positively by
the earlier player as "getting that lucky card first!" However the
random production order of cards combined with the severe tactical
significance of particular card values to particular places in the turn
order was disconcerting and jarred my playing experience. In particular
this seemed a perfect opportunity for an El Grande/El Caballero-style
turn order mechanism to more evenly spread and allow attempted control
of card distribution.

I chewed up both left bend apartments, preventing Roy from building one
by his store/school. Tami and Greg set up rafts of houses, turning the
center of town into a residential section. Greg and I successfully
protected all the empty lots by our department store. Roy successfully
blind sided us and traded for entire ownership of two city blocks, but
then stumbled getting the right cards to fill them out for valuable
buildings. Tami and I fought for points differential to the north,
south, and south east of the park with the fight finally ending on that
corner when Greg and I popped a hospital down just south of the park,
Tami devalued my apartment complex north of the park with a factory and
she successfully grabbed a tile I needed to build a school near my
apartment/house complex, leaving me to build a store instead. Roy's
desperately needed 33 card turned up just early enough in the turn order
to allow him to build a final school rather than us running out of cards
first.

During most of this time Roy seemed strongly in the lead with me
not-so-close behind. I thought Tami was not too far behind me with Greg
bringing up way in the rear. Certainly Roy and I seemed to have the
most tokens on buildings and nobody bothered to count up the exact
positions during the game. This disjoint between apparency and fact,
and the difficulty of calculating true score positions is a curious
disjoint in the game. You either spend the noticeable time and effort
to know exactly or you work on knowingly vague perceptions. There
didn't seem much "good enough" middle ground in reasonable reach, or
good estimating factors.

Final scores:

Greg: 61
Roy: 54
Tami: 41
JCL: 55

Tami then had to leave, but pointed out that I'd made errors in
calculating the values of some buildings (I know I used the German
Ravensburger values instead of Sid Sackson's more balanced original
values at least a couple times), so Greg and I sat down and
re-calculated the scores, double checking everything. It turned out to
be quite easy to overlook modifying factors to building values (park,
housing lots, river, etc). The final, double checked scores were:

Greg: 57
Roy: 55
Tami: 41
JCL: 54

Now to find a copy of Big City....

Thread: Session Report

Smullster — 2003-08-29T12:39:08+00:00

Metropolis: Allan, Larry, Roy and Greg:

Larry brought Metropolis to the table as a possible candidate for a Face 2 Face Games reprint. If it does make it into their ‘to-do queue’ I hope they redo the bits and board. The French / German version that we played was very pastel and bland. (As, I think are a quality of most of Sackson’s games. They play fantastically, but the artwork is very utilitarian.)

I don’t think anyone had played this game before so we were making mistakes right out of the gate. Seeing, though, that each of us had no idea what we were doing, it didn’t make all that much of a difference.

The game revolves around the players acquiring vacant lots within a small city and eventually developing them into profitable (read scoring) properties. During play there is opportunity to negotiate with fellow players. Deals can be over exchanging lots between players or even to partner in building structures. For instance Greg and I went halves in constructing a large office building and a factory.

Surprisingly, Roy and I tied for first place. I was shocked because Roy had carved out a nice piece of the board for himself. He had sole control of a city block and would have certainly pulled into the lead if he had the opportunity to build more residential buildings. Unfortunately for him, I put a dent in his house building by developing my own residential section of town. Larry gave me the needed boost in points for the tie by also constructing shopping centers in my section of town. I’m of the opinion that if Larry hadn’t done that Greg would have come in second, or possibly even taken the lead, seeing as he became the Shopping Mall King.

Final outcome was Roy and myself tied for first, Greg, and then Larry. I really enjoyed this game and look forward to playing it again. Next I’m sure everyone will pay more attention to the scoring card. This time around we only had a hand written (in Sid’s handwriting no less!) scorecard… the ones that came with the game were in German and French, which weren’t much help.

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2002-10-31T15:32:40+00:00

First up on the old gaming agenda was Metropolis, a Sid Sackson game from 1984. A game of urban planning, and a grandfather to later games like Big City and Chinatown.

Metropolis was a recent acquisition of Keith’s, and NONE of us had played it before. So this was our inaugural game with 5 players (Yahu, Sean, Keith, David, and myself).

I had printed out English versions of the building scoring charts before we started playing - without them, the game would have been nearly impossible (“what does that mean again?”). But the charts really helped.

The board consists of a series of neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood consists of a 10-space grid. One neighbourhood goes from 10 to 19, the next neighbourhood goes from 20 to 29 and so on. And there are 8 neighbourhoods all together.

On one end of the board, in the centre of that end, is a park. There is also a river that runs along some of the neighbourhoods. Both the park and the river are important, because they can affect the value of some of the buildings that get built in the adjoining neighbourhoods.

In the 5-player game, each player starts the game with 5 randomly drawn cards (there is one card for each building lot, numbered 10 to 89). Each player then places one of their coloured markers on the corresponding building lots that match their initial cards.

Then the game gets going. On your turn, you must choose one of 4 face-up cards from the deck and either:
A) place your ownership marker on it, or
B) give it to another player for them to put their ownership marker on it in exchange for whatever deal you can work out with them.

Now, as long as any one 10-space neighbourhood has less than half of its spaces available for ownership markers, there are no restrictions at all. So basically, one always chooses option A above in the early part of the game.

But where things get interesting fast is once a neighbourhood already has 5 or more lots claimed.
Once that happens, YOU can only claim a lot if:
A) the lot has NO horizontally or vertically adjoining lots owned by any player, or
B) YOU have a horizontally or vertically adjoining lot.

In other words, building sites with no neighbouring claims can be claimed by anybody; sites that do have neighbouring claims can only be claimed by those players that have those neighbouring claims.

Once you’ve made a claim, or given it to another player in exchange for some sort of deal, you may construct a gorgeous plastic building if you so choose, (provided you have building lots in the same configuration as the shape of the building you are trying to build). Once you build a building, you mark it with one of your ownership chips - you will be the player who scores the points for that building at the end of the game.

This is where it’s a bit confusing at the very first. As I said, the game is not scored until the very end. At that point, every single building on the board is scored. And the buildings are worth different amounts of points depending on what OTHER buildings are built in the same neighbourhood as them, and for some buildings, WHERE they are built also affects their scoring.

There are 8 different types of buildings:
1) house
2) apartment
3) factory
4) office
5) shop
6) school
7) hospital
8) mall

Each building has a different size and shape, and with some buildings, a different orientation depending on their shape.

As far as what buildings can be built where, there is only one restriction: a factory may NOT be built in a neighbourhood that already has a school or a hospital. And vice versa. Other than that, any building can be built in any neighbourhood.

The building lots are NOT squares, but are rectangles. As a result, the buildings can only be built with two possible orientations (north-south, or south-north). Because the lots aren’t square, the buildings simply won’t fit in a west-east orientation). So you really have to also be aware of which way the building will fit on the board. Accumulating building lots is all fine and dandy, but if you get confused and set things up sideways and the building you wanted suddenly doesn’t fit - then too bad for you.

The scoring sort of reflects common sense urban planning rules.

A single house is worth a single point.

But a house that borders on the park is worth 2 points.

If there is a factory in the same neighbourhood as the house, then that house is worth less.

If there is a shop and/or a school in the same neighbourhood, that increases the value of the house.

An apartment works the same way as a house, except it takes up 3 spaces, and is worth considerably more than a house.

A factory is worth more if there is another factory with it, or if it is built on the river (close to shipping).

An office is worth less in the same neighbourhood as a factory, but it’s worth more if it’s in the downtown core (two of the neighbourhoods are considered to be “downtown” for game purposes).

Both shops and schools are worth more for each extra house in the same neighbourhood.

Both hospitals and the mall are worth more for each EMPTY building lot in the same neighbourhood (they need parking spaces, after all!)

And that’s it.

We did have a problem with the rules. The rules we had were unclear. Once a building was erected, did the abutting claim ownership rules still apply? We played it they did, but there was a lot of discussion about it.

The game also allows for two players to share the wealth in the values of the biggest buildings - so two players can form a consortium to build a large building on their lots. (So if you can’t get control of all the lots you need to build a large building on your own, then you might be better off sharing with someone else rather than not scoring at all.)

The game we played was unusual. (Keith sent an e-mail to Bob Claster of the Sid Sackson website, and Bob indicated our situation appeared quite unusual - I got the impression that Bob had NEVER encountered the situation that we did).

What happened in our game is that for at least half the game, 3 of the 4 face-up cards (and occasionally ALL 4 of them) could only be claimed by David. When it was anyone else’s turn, they had to deal with David. They had no choice.

Now, hats off to David. He clearly played to help create that situation and it worked VERY strongly to his advantage at the end of the game. I think the rest of us didn’t fully appreciate how powerful blocking off others from making claims on building lots was. And likely the fact that there were 5 players playing helped a bit. With fewer players, each player would have more choices as to where to place their ownership tokens. But David had a pretty good monopoly on the building sites, and it won him the game.

I started off the game early with building some houses and a shop in one neighbourhood. That gave me an early lead (although not much of one). It wasn’t long before everyone had some buildings built - EXCEPT David. He was still claiming building lots left and right.

But once he got going, he steamrollered us.

And speaking of steamrolling, I got squashed by Keith. There are only a limited number of buildings of each type. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

The card I had been waiting for finally came up. No one else could claim that card except me. Once I got the card, I was already to build an apartment in the neighbourhood that would have earned me 11 points.

But it wasn’t my turn when the card came up. First Keith came, then David, then me. And Keith chose to build an apartment. My apartment.

Now.....there are 2 orientations of the apartment buildings. One fits one direction, the other shape is the mirror image of it. And guess what? I could no longer build an apartment on my building lots, because the apartment building piece that was remaining didn’t fit right. And since I couldn’t build the apartment, that knocked me down from what would have been 2nd place to last place. Sigh....... thanks, Keith!

Anyhow, the game was David’s through and through. The other 4 of us were just putty in his hands. So to speak.

David - 61 (winner)
Yahu - 43.5
Sean - 42
Keith - 38.5
Dan - 37

Why are their fractions in some of the scores? Some of the buildings were owned by 2 people (for instance, 25% by one player, 75% by another player). And say the building was worth 14 points.

There is NOTHING in the rules about rounding up or rounding down if the points don’t divide up equally. So we just split them exactly, fractions and all.

I definitely want to play it again. Jeremy (Yahu) rode a rollercoaster of love it - hate it towards this game. It was going great guns for him until the David steamroller with the available cards kicked in. Then he felt the game was broken.

I don’t think it’s broken. I think David took the initiative and started creating monopolies with his building lots that the rest of failed to do (at least anywhere near as well as him) - and the net effect of that was indeed similar to the game “breaking” - as far as the other 4 of us were concerned.

The game definitely needs more playing - and I think it might play better with less than the maximum 5 players.

Also, Sean had a suggestion. Much like in Showmanager, we thought it might be an idea to “clear the board”, and put all 4 cards back into the deck and deal out the next 4 cards. That might solve things temporarily, but I don’t know if it would do anything else but delay the inevitable. If a player has set himself up to get control and block out other players, as David did, then all he has to do is wait. Eventually, all the cards come up. The only possible drawback is that the longer you wait, the fewer buildings there are to choose from being left.

We didn’t rate the game.

I think Keith is bringing it back next week, so we’ll give it another go then!

Image

2002-07-18T23:14:08+00:00

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

The similarities with Frank Benno-Delonge's Big City (1999) are striking.
They're not quite the same game but it is hard to believe Metropolis didn't influence Big City.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Sorry, make that Franz-Benno Delonge.

Image

2001-07-15T08:06:58+00:00

Thread: Session Report

derk — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Neil, Elizabeth, Tim, George, Derk

I wasn’t really planning on having a group of people over for dinner on Thanksgiving, but Neil and Elizabeth’s plans fell through at the last minute. So we decided to get together for an impromptu dinner. As I scurried around the kitchen finishing the last little details, the rest of the crew played Chronology, which a party game about putting historical dates in the sequence they occurred. They seemed to enjoy it and I’m fairly sure that Elizabeth and George each won one game. When I was finally finished, we began the dinner proper. The turkey and all its trimmings were pretty darn good, but the bird wasn’t my best effort. An oven bag will never be able to compete with a bird cooked on a gas grill.

Anway, after the meal (and before everyone drifted off to sleep), we tried Metropolis, an older German title by the venerable Sid Sackson. I explained the game ala George style, that is I explained the game as I read through the rules. I’d thought that perhaps I’d be able to feel my way through the sparse rules quickly, but that was only half right. The interesting thing about this game is that the reference cards are in four different languages, but none of them is English (granted, it’s not really surprising). We eventually figured out the in’s and out’s of the game.

The game is actually a combination of Big City and Chinatown. There are sections of properties which become available through a queue of cards. Players take their turn by picking a card and then possibly build a building on a property (or collection of properties). The buildings themselves are the typical combination of apartments and housing, schools and stores, factories, hospitals, government buildings and the single mall. Each building will score a given number of points based on conditions of the block it’s located in at the end of the game. For instance, an apartment building is decent if it’s got a view of the park, but even better if there are good schools and a store nearby (and vice versa, the school’s and store’s owners earn more points for housing in close proximity). Players are forced to make deals to complete the buildings, however only one person can own a given building. So to close the deals, players exchange ownership for a portion of their points at the end of the game. This makes things interesting because deals can be made when the points are low (before certain bonus conditions are made), and the earnings swell later.

The aspect of the game that really dominated this playing was the property availability rule. The blocks of properties represent a way for players to get a majority of a block of properties by restricting who can select a particular property card. The sixth section of property in a block can only be taken by a player that has a property adjacent to that property, which makes the blocks tend to fill with the same players. Through this, George and Tim were able to stake out almost an entire corner of the board in the early part of the game. Later as the game wound to a close, Neil and I were able to duplicate their feat in two different corners of the board.

On the first turn, George saw that four of them could make a deal for a factory right on the bank of the river. Mind you, I said the four of ‘them,’ which was not me. Anyway, it was very early to be making deals, but it was completely equal point sharing. This early building was followed quickly by an almost monopolistic growth of Tim and George’s interest in that same corner of the board. Within the first half dozen turns, Tim and George put up two more factories for an even split, and for the most bonuses available for those structures. Growth on the rest of the board was slow at best, but there was one notable occurrence: Elizabeth was able to square away three contiguous properties for a solo apartment building on the corner of the park.

As the game entered the next period, the area around the park started to get well-developed. A couple apartment buildings showed up and the schools and stores were quick to follow. In one block, all four of us had a small share of the land. Tim and George started off with an apartment and a school, which complimented the apartment that Neil and I had split. Elizabeth finished off the section with a small house. The block next to this nice neighborhood was similarly inclined, only Elizabeth and I were the big landholders. We closed a couple of deals for an apartment and a school, but George and I couldn’t seem to come to a mutual agreement on the store for the region. In the end, I built the last available store on two of my properties with my next turn, which left George for the solo high-point house.

The odd thing about the last part of the game was how the property cards did (or in this case didn’t) come out. The central block was still very disjointed because none of the properties were being drawn. Whereas the remaining three blocks were becoming increasingly dominated by single colors. Neil and I struck a deal that more or less decided the game. He and I seemed to be sharing plots on two different blocks, so he suggested a four property swap which would give both of us a complete lock on our respective sections. I quickly took the deal, and a couple of turns later quietly put up a hospital by myself in the corner of the board. The amazing thing was that only one other single property was owned by another player (George), so the plots remained empty for the rest of the game (giving a significant bonus for the hospital). About three turns later, the final deal was cut and the points were totaled.

Derk: -4 –4 +6 –1 –1 + 5 = +1; 1 + 8 + 9 + 18 + 9 + 24 = 69
Elizabeth: +3 +5 –6 –5 –5 = -8; -8 + 8 + 20 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 12 = 52
Tim: +3 +4 –5 +5 –3 –2 = +2; 2 + 1 + 18 + 1 + 6 + 4 + 12 = 44
Neil: +4 +4 + 8 +5 = +21; 21 + 21 = 42
George: -10 –5 +3 –6 +1 +1 = -16; -16 + 1 + 18 + 14 + 1 + 18 + 5 = 41

I think the scores were a little skewed because of the confusion of the traded points and ownership points. The first group of numbers describes the number of points that a player traded to another player in a deal. Most of the early deals were straight-up point divisions. It wasn’t until a little later that deals were struck on the houses, stores and schools that the points really started to add up after the deal. This was mostly because the players (myself included) didn’t really consider what a building would be worth if certain future conditions were met (bonuses). So the biggest amount of point profit were in the second-tier deals. Another thing that was very odd was that the central block, which I didn’t own any interest in until the very end of the game due to some incredible card order. This didn’t allow George and Tim, the owners apparent, to close on a deal until the very end, when building selection is very poor. If the cards had come out differently, either Tim or George could’ve built a hospital, mall or government building for some fairly decent points (being on the center block).

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

I was finally able to secure a copy of this thanks to my good friend Ty Douds. I picked it up at Gulf Games and was eager to have our group try it. This is another Sid Sackson gem.

The game does suffer greatly, however, in that the score charts, which are vital during play as players must continually consult them to determine the best plays, are in a variety of foreign languages ... but no English! This is VERY confusing. I absolutely MUST design some sort of layover or another chart in English. This will aid the flow of the game immensely.

Another problem is that the various buildings (which are really cool!) aren't labeled as to what they are (hospital, store, administration building, etc.). This, too, was a source of confusion, but will be easily rectified by pasting the identity of the buildings on their bases.

In spite of this confusion, the game flowed fairly smoothly, especially for our first outing. We did miss a rule wherein players could not share in the value of a building which is less than four lots in size, but the game still worked fine. Quite a few deals were struck, and we had eight separate joint ventures with various percentage splits amongst the partners. This resulted in some interesting scores as fractions do count ... and are vital. I lost my first game of Metropolis at The Gathering by 1/2 point!

There was one sour note, however. Several players did not like the rule which forced a player to GIVE a lot card away if he could not legally take it. According to the rules, if a player cannot legally hold one of the four face-up lot cards, he must take one of them and GIVE it to an opponent who can legally hold it if no deal can be struck. We had quite a few situations wherein only one player could legally hold a particular card, so a deal would be impossible as that player would get the card for free anyway. It was this one rule which caused John Moore to give the game a poor rating. He did claim that if this rule could be corrected, his rating would likely raise to at least a '6'.

I have proposed a variant wherein if a player cannot legally hold any of the four lot cards displayed, he can take one and discard it. This would at least allow a player to deny the card to an opponent. Any thoughts on this idea?

My fate in this game was one of procrastinating too long. I passed on several opportunities to construct an apartment or factory, holding out for the possibility of building something more lucrative, such as a hospital or even the mega department store. Unfortunately, someone always constructed the building I needed before my turn would come around again. Since I didn't notice that the hospitals and apartment buildings were not all shaped the same, I was really hammered in a land-swap deal I made with John. Convinced I could build a hospital, John promptly made the deal, built one of the two hospitals, and smugly informed me that now the remaining hospital would not fit on my land plots. He was right ... the scum!!

With such blunders, it was no surprise that I came in dead last. Eric Alleman held off a charging Lenny Leo for the victory:

Eric A. 47.5, Lenny 45.4, Eryk S. 37.1, John 28.4, Greg 17.6

Ratings: Greg 7, Eric A. 7, Eryk 6, Lenny 6, John 3

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Jerry departed, mumbling to himself about the being nauseous from the previous two games. This left five of us and Ted had been wanting to try Sid Sackson's Metropolis. In spite of the loud protests from John (who for some bizarre reason doesn't like this one), we proceeded to build the perfect city.

Thanks to Julian Clarke's excellent english charts, and the labeling of the buildings, the game flowed much smoother. We also discovered the key negotiation possibilities when selecting a lot, which really made the game much more entertaining and filled with deal-making. Finally, we did follow the rule that split deals on buildings could not be made on buildings of a size less than 4 lots.

In all, six buildings were constructed under some sort of deal. John Moore was involved in each and every one of them and so appeared to be the front-runner. The finger-pointing and cries of "he's winning .. kick his ass" echoed throughout the game, with each of us at one point being the perceived leader.

When it became apparent that Eric was getting ready to construct the massive shopping mall in the center of town, John Moore, Ted & I entered into a three way deal to build it first. This left Eric distraught, but he was still able to construct a profitable hospital.

Ultimately, when the points were being tallied, it appeared that Eric may have snuck in with the victory. However, when the points were tallied, I emerged victorious.

Finals: Greg 59.2, Eric 52, Ted 49.1, John 46.7, Darren 37

Ratings: Greg 7, Eric 7, Ted 6, Darren 4, John 4

There are still some grumblings about being unable to take certain cards. We did have several instances wherein only a certain player could use a card. Thus, it would be there when his turn came around and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I do find this a problem, but no where near as major as John seems to feel it is.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Doug writes:

Pedro and John were off at this stage, so the remaining five played Metropolis. After the mandatory confusion over what building was what again, it turned into an enjoyable game. As the game progressed, I couldn't work out who was leading out of Julian, Donna or myself - the only thing I was certain of was Alan was coming last.

I got an early factory on the river down with David and Julian, and was threatening sole ownership of a second factory in the same block, or next one down. Not to be as David grabbed the last factory. In retaliation, Donna, Alan and I combined to take the mall off him (he was about to take complete ownership of it, if he nabbed the last block he needed) which would have given him the game.

At the end of the game the scores panned out as:

Alan: 43 (I sure can call them!)
Doug/David/Donna: 37
Julian: 36

This was close! About this game, how do others who've played this make deals? Do you jot down the deal on a bit of paper or is there someother way of doing it that's a bit more elegant? This game has always possessed a rather shaky translation, hasn't it? I'd be interested to know how others record their deals.

Doug's rating: 8

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Game Description

Metropolis is a city building game, in the same vein as Downtown, Big City, etc. It is an earlier version of these games, and is now out of print. It has plastic buildings but these are not in the same class as those of big city. They are lovely however, and do a great job of distinguishing the different building classes (colour) and types (shape). The game is about negotiation at heart. Players gain control of plots of land by drawing cards (either from a face up supply or by way of a blind draw from the deck). In this way they establish control of parts of the city (which is a fixed board layout). In order to build, players usually must negotiate with other players, and make arrangement to share the points. All negotiated deals must be honoured when the game ends. The player with the most points wins.

Session Description

The plots of land acquired by players, was not well distributed, with some having 3 or 4 plots in close proximity. This was caused by the deck not being well enough shuffled. Regardless of this negotiations took place and many deals were struck. Players vied for position for much of the game until Jonathan arose as the lead player. Negotiations with him pretty much stopped until Bill was forced to make a deal due to being unable to make a play on the board. In such a case it was better for him to build with Jonathan, rather than to give land away to on of his other rivals, and maybe allow them to overtake him in points. Jonathan eventually took a well deserved victory.

Results

Jonathan took victory.

Opinion

Metropolis is certainly the best of the city building games we have tried to date. It had luck but nowhere near as much as Big City. The negotiations allow players to be involved throughout the game, and this is to be admired. Not a dull moment goes by. Now if only Ravensburger would reprint it J.