Thames & Kosmos My City | Family – Friendly | Legacy Board Game | Kosmos Games | 2 to 4 Players | Ages 10 and Up | Award Winning Designer Reiner Knizia , Blue

I love this polynomial game that offers an eternal option besides the legacy board where you can see the gradual changes to your personalised board. The rules are ever changing which refresh the gameplay.

Like most legacy games, this has the obvious disadvantage of the learning process built into the game. Even if you get crafty and don't modify the playing pieces "permanently" as directed, you'll still have the KNOWLEDGE of what comes next the next time you play the game, if you try to play the legacy version a second time.So you might say, well, this is an expensive game that you only get to play 24 times!Um yeah, some people play their games more than 24 times. But it turns out that is pretty rare. And should you wan to play more, there is a perpetual version included, too, that you can return to again and again.But really, the legacy functionality is what puts this game over the time. Think you got it all figured out? Well, the foundation of what matters and how you play is going to change a little (or a lot) between each play of the game. So you gotta be on your toes, ready to learn and incorporate a little something new each time, and enjoy the learning as you go process.This has a few cool features:You don't need to learn the whole game at once. You just need to learn the rules for the basic game at first, and then you need to learn or unlearn one or two pieces of the rules each game thereafter.You never get bored with the game playing the same or the same player using the same strategy every time because it plays differently each time and the strategy that worked best the last time may not work best or even at all the next time.--And what about the game play itself? It is smart. Like lots of other games from this designer, sometimes it feels so abstracted from the source (city building in this case) that it is a puzzle and optimization game and not just thematic. But not in a bad way. It is FUN and the theme works well, and players that don't care about the theme can treat it as a very smart abstract game if they want.

I bought this game because I thought it would be like a Sim City version of Agricola. Then I read the instructions and was intimidated by the 90 minute game play time. It doesn't really take 90 minutes, especially in the beginning and for the "eternal" game play. Here is the game play without giving away any spoilers (I hope). The game is on a grid pattern with tetris shaped buildings. The object is to place all the buildings on the grid in a pattern that leaves the least amount of "green space". This is the "Tetris" part. There are color groups along with shapes, so there are bonus points for grouping the colors together. This is the "Dr. Mario" part. Along with this there are "chapters" and "episodes" - each episode adds a new challenge that builds on top of previous challenges, meeting these challenges gives additional bonus points above the colored buildings and the least open green spaces. Each episode takes 15 to 20 minutes, this is mostly due to the length of time you allow the players to place the buildings. So it could be fast or long depending on how strategic everyone is and how long it takes people to be strategic.The best part is this game is designed to be played over 8 or so chapters and at the end of each episode the winner is given 2 tokens and the 2nd place a single token. What about the 3rd and 4th? well - they are given stickers to place on their board that may provide additional points in later game play. For example - you lose points for open "green space" so in some cases the 3rd and 4th may be given stickers the cover the green space so they have less chances to leave them open. In another example, some challenges provide 3 points, the 3rd and 4th were given a sticker that enabled them to get 5 points for meeting the same challenge in later episodes. This has the effect of not allowing a single person to run away with all the points on every episode, which keeps it challenging even if you are an adult playing with teens and pre-teens.I would totally recommend the game as it takes about 5 minutes to learn the mechanics and is an easy 20 minute game for whenever, like Blokus.

I like to play games with my kids and this game was fun. The only downside is remembering what rules are what when you take a break between playing.

We are a board game family and this is among our all-time favorites. My City has two clever play options—legacy and eternal.Legacy is an ongoing campaign (preferably with the same set of players) that builds in complexity revealing new and exciting game elements over multiple play sessions. This option is only played through once because the players’ boards are incrementally, somewhat permanently customized along the way. The legacy game has 24 episodes that will take about 18 hours to complete at 45 minutes per game.In contrast, the eternal option is a stand alone game that has most of the game elements of the legacy option and is played as a single game in one sitting. This option can be replayed over and over—hence the name eternal. An eternal game takes about 30-45 minutes for 4 players.Essentially, the game is a Tetris-like strategy where your lay different shaped and colored pieces to maximize board coverage and configuration for max points. One of the coolest elements of play is everyone plays on their respective boards at the same time so it’s equally fair (i.e. their isn’t any disadvantages to order of play like in most other games).Setup, play, and scoring are all very straightforward. Replay ability is high.Bottom line: Massively fun strategy game that essentially removes getting lucky/unlucky and rewards planning and forethought.