Board Game Review: Suburbia

The recent launch of the latest entry in the much-beloved SimCity computer game franchise was an unmitigated disaster.  Server issues combined with an always-on Internet connection requirement prevented thousands upon thousands of city planners from playing the game for days.  Cities were deleted through no fault of the player.  Electronic Arts refused to offer refunds.  Once the dust settled, many gamers found that they were disappointed with SimCity 2013 as it was meant to be anyway.  City sizes seem way too small, city optimization requires the cooperation and active participation of other players, and there has proven to be serious issues with the supposedly realistic simulation of urban life (your city dwellers always take the shortest route somewhere regardless of traffic, and tend to go home to different houses every night).  Wannabe mayors should fret not, however, for if they can unplug for a while, there is a great board game alternative to SimCity.  Not only is it cheaper, it's guaranteed to always work.

Suburbia was released in 2012 by designer Ted Alspach, who openly admits that he drew inspiration from Maxis Software's city-building classic - and it shows.  Players construct their individual boroughs of some great metropolis by placing tiles depicting various city building types - residential, commercial, industrial, and civic - and must balance their income and reputation in pursuit of the highest population possible (which determines the winner).  The tiles and graphic design are crisp and attractive, the rules are fairly simple with underlying complexity, and the player interaction is relatively high for a tile-laying game.  That's the short version - I'll give you the details on a Sunday drive out to the 'burbs.

The actual gameplay in Suburbia is deceptively simple.  On your turn, you will usually first acquire a tile.   You can either buy one of the basic tiles of each type (suburb - residential, park - civic, heavy factory - industry), or you can buy other tiles, which are revealed as others are bought, and priced according to a sliding market scale (usually this is where you'll be going).  Each tile has a name in addition to type (other examples: mobile home community - residential; landfill - industrial; office supply store - commercial).  Once you decide what tile you want, you pay its price and then put it in your city anywhere that you like, just so that it touches at least one side of a tile that's already there.  Once placed, you determine what effects this placement has.  There could be effects just from placing the tile, from what you placed it next to, from other tiles in your borough, or even according to what tiles other players have placed in their boroughs.  These effects could be positive or negative (or both), and tend to tie in well with the theme.  For example, placing a factory might bring you more tax revenue, but plop it down next to a residential area and the pollution will make your reputation suffer.  Placing an international airport will reap benefits to every regional airport in play, even those of other players.  Like any good urban planner, you must carefully consider the benefits and costs of your tile placement, and choose accordingly.

A growing city, with income and reputation above.

Once your tile is placed, you make any necessary adjustments to your income and reputation.  Then you collect your income (or you might have to pay, if your city has turned into a money sinkhole) and you increase your all-important population by your current reputation score.  (So if your reputation sits at 4 for three turns, you would increase your population by 4 each turn.)  However, there is a slight catch in scoring that really makes Suburbia stand out.  At various points along the population score track there are red lines that basically represent milestones in population growth.  When your borough crosses one of these lines, you must reduce both your income and reputation by one each - your city is growing, but it's losing some of its small-town appeal.  This makes for excellent strategic decisions as you must carefully decide when and how much to score, evaluating whether you have the money and reputation to support a larger population.  Once the tile supply is exhausted, whomever has reached the highest population is Suburbia's victor.

Suburbia reminds me of a Reiner Kinizia game in that the gameplay, which boils down to "get a tile, place a tile" is very simple, but the complexity comes in the scoring and effects of your actions.  This does lead to the game's one drawback - it can be difficult to ensure you are accounting for all possible effects when you place a tile.  There simply can be a lot to keep track of.  However, the iconography and text are quite comprehensible, and the process will eventually become routine the more you play - I was feeling very comfortable by the middle of the game, even as my borough grew larger and more complex.  The upside of this is that the possibility of triggering effects in other players' areas increases player interaction and decreases boring downtime, as you must be paying attention to what your opponents are doing.  Without this element, Suburbia could easily fall into the "multiplayer solitaire" trap.  Also, as this game revolves around open information, there is no harm in helping other players make sure they have taken all effects of their play into consideration.

Although it's a fairly abstracted derivation from its PC ancestor, Suburbia's connections to SimCity are clear.  You must balance acquisition and placement of different building types as well as watch your budget to avoid overextending your resources.  The basics are simple but hide an underlying system that is complex and rewarding when you unlock its potential.  Plus, you can probably fit in an entire game of Suburbia while waiting for an open SimCity server.  Those who feel burned by the computer game's troubles should really consider going cardboard and taking a trip to Suburbia.