La Citta (Kosmos – 2000) is an area influence/city building game where players try and build the most impressive cities in order to cause mass emigration from their opponent’s cities to their own. There is a definite conquest element to the game, but there is absolutely no fighting, it is all done by influence.
La Citta is an excellent game. It is a game where there are more things available to do than you CAN do, which I always enjoy in a game. The scoring tends to be tight and although people could slow the game down by calculating everyone’s score each round, the game moves pretty quickly for a game of this weight. I am generally not a big fan of games with a set number of turns, but this game is done well so I don’t feel cheated by the artificial time limit.
The game begins by setting up the board. This is done in two different ways. There is a basic setup where the land is distributed evenly about the board, or the advanced method where the terrain is laid out randomly. The board consists of several paths of hexes of 3 different colors. Depending on the amount of players, certain colored paths are not used (the ones on the outmost edges). The paths surround triangular areas where terrain is placed. The terrain is laid out in 1 per section. The terrain can either be Farmland with 1 to 3 Food Icons on it, Mountains, or Water. The deck of the Voice of the People cards are shuffled and placed next to one side of the board, and the Political Cards are shuffled and placed next to the other side. The grey plastic Citizens are placed so that players may have access to them during the game as a pool. Each player then chooses a color and takes the 4 Castle Tokens of their color, the 4 Citizens of their color, and the 3 Action Cards of their color. A player order is determined. If playing with the basic setup, the starting locations of their starting 2 castles are predetermined. If playing with the Advanced Rules, things change. Beginning with the first player, each player places one of their castles. They may place it anywhere on an open hex on one of the paths in play. 3 grey Citizens are placed on the Castle. No Castle may be placed within 3 hexes of another Castle. 349
After everyone has placed a Castle, the last player to play places their second Castle and so on in anti-clockwise format. If a Castle is placed next to a Farmland tile, the number of Food Icons on it determines how many Food Tokens are received by the player who owns the adjacent Castles. If a Castle is adjacent to more than one Farmland, the total of all the Food Icons is received in Food Tokens. Food Tokens are placed in front of the Player. Each player receives 1 Gold. The player to the left of the player who placed the last Castle is now the Starting Player.
The game consists of several phases. These phases are:
1) Change Start Player: The first turn this phase is ignored, after than the previous starting player hands the Start Player Token to the player on their left who becomes the new start player.
2) Voice of the People: 4 cards are taken from the top of the deck of 27 Voice of the People cards. The first card is turned over while the other 3 cards are laid face down. The Voice of the People deck consists of 9 cards each of “Education” (black), “Health”, blue, and “Culture” (white). These determine which buildings are going to be influential this game turn. The people’s desires change each turn. After the sixth turn the game ends, so 3 cards will not be in play.
3)Income: Beginning with the start player, each player receives 1 Gold per Quarry they have built next to a Mountain Territory. If their Quarry is adjacent to more than one Mountain, a Gold is received for each adjacent Mountain.
4)Population Increase: Beginning with the start player, each player places one grey Citizen in each of their cities. If a city has 5 Citizens already and no Marketplace, no new Citizen is placed. If a player has 8 Citizens already and a Marketplace, but no Fountain or Bathhouse, no new Citizen is placed. There are no more limits after that.
5)Political Rounds: In turn order, each player takes a Political Round. This continues until 5 Political Rounds have been completed by each player. The top seven cards of the Political Card deck are turned over and placed by the deck. After the first round, the cards will already be laid out. Each player may do 1 of 2 actions during their Political Round:
Play an Action Card: Each player has 3 Action Cards in their player color. They may play one of these by turning it over. An Action Card may be used to:
Gain Gold: The player receives 2 Gold from the bank. 84