With there being eleven of us this week, we decided to split into three groups with my group of three starting off with the Harbor Expansion to Machi Koro. This adds a load of new establishments, a starting landmark that comes already built, and two new landmarks so you are racing to build to seven landmarks (including the free starting one) rather than four in the original. This makes the game last a bit longer but not markedly so in our experience. The other thing that changes in gameplay is that the establishments are not all available to buy at any time. You shuffle everything together and deal out just ten different ones (duplicates are added to any already dealt out). This means that games will play differently depending on when certain buildings become available. There are also more nasty red and purple buildings which makes money move around the table more regularly. This certainly affected me as I was slow to get buildings built and Nicky's and Beth's red buildings kept my money depleted so there were several turns I was unable to build anything. Nicky managed to build three mines and they hit two or three times, netting her $15 each time. As a result, she became unstoppable and cruised to a relatively easy victory, although Beth did at least push her - my pathetic buildings only let me get to three landmarks. We all really enjoyed the game though, especially Nicky getting her first win of the year. |