The City of Paris was the place to be in 1889, hosting the World’s Fair. Here, there wow-ed the world with the introduction of electric public lighting.
Paris is a two-player tile-laying game that plays in around thirty minutes. You take on the role of a city planner, ensure each building is bathed in as much light as possible, inspire artists and surprise Parisians and visitors with the wonder of the Citys new lighting system!
In the box you get:
- 1 game board (incorporated into the box - how cool!)
- 14 Chimneys (7 in each player colour)
- 8 Action Tokens (4 in each player colour)
- 16 Player Tiles (8 in each player colour)
- 12 Building Pieces
- 12 Action Postcards
9 ‘Special’ Pieces: Painter Pawn, Dancer Pawn, Mixed cobblestone space, Fountain tile, Statue Tile, Streetlight tile, Large Streetlight tile, Annex piece, Botanical Garden tile.
Place the board-box in the centre of the table, randomly choose eight of the twelve action cards to play (there are eight marked with a star that are recommended for your first few games) Place the special pieces on the corresponding cards and put all other special action pieces and leftover action cards to one side. Place the building pieces next to the board.
Each player takes the corresponding pieces - tiles, chimneys and action tokens in their colour. Shuffle up the tiles and draw one into your hand.
The game is played in two different phases:
Placing of tiles and awarding buildings
Beginning with the start player and taking it in turns, players may place their cobblestone tiles onto the game board or take a building tile. There are sixteen squares marked on the board and all tiles must be placed covering exactly one square with no overlap. After placing your tile, draw the next one ready to place next turn. Instead of placing a tile, you may choose instead to draw a building tile and place it in your reserve. Once all sixteen cobblestone tiles are placed and the board is full, this phase ends.
Place buildings and take actions
The first player who placed their last cobblestone tile in the last phase will be the starting player in this phase. Once again, players take turns and again, they have two options each turn. They may place one of their building tiles onto the board. It must only occupy squares of their colour or purple squares. It may never be built over a streetlight (they are far too important!) When you place a building, put one of your chimney tokens onto it. Alternatively, players may choose to activate an action postcard. You may use any face up postcards next to the board, use the action shown then flip the card face down and place one of your action tokens on top of it. This action may not be used again. These actions place streetlights, extend buildings and other rule breakers.
When neither player can place any more buildings and all eight action cards have been used, this phase ends.
Once the second phase is complete, players score their points.
Each player gets points for Illuminated Buildings. Multiply the size of the house (the number of spaces it occupies) by the number of streetlights illuminating it. A streetlight illuminates the four squares around it (not the diagonals) A streetlight may only be counted once per building, but may illuminate more than one building. A building that is not illuminated does not score anything.
Each player gets points for their largest building. Building tiles connect if touching another tile owned by the same player (diagonals do not count) It does not matter if this building is illuminated or not.
Each player then loses three points for each unbuilt building tile in their reserve that was taken in the first phase and not placed in the second.
Don’t forget any extra points from action cards!
The player with the highest wins!
Paris: La Citie de la Lumiere is another polyominoes game, but this time with a difference - you are building your placement area. The initial tile placement phase can be tricky as you obviously want to grab the building tiles you’ve planned for but it’s easy for your opponent to scupper your plans! Just how many buildings should you go for to maximise points but not get stung when you can’t place them? This is a very neat puzzle game and playing in the box is a really unusual idea. Great, quick two player game!
Review copy was provided by Devir.
