Two years ago, a few of my closest friends introduced me to the board game Splendor by Asmodee and Space Cowboy Games. I was immediately intrigued by its colorful artwork, 20-30 minute playtime, simple rules, and deeply varied strategy. Do you play a strategy with breadth? Depth? Opportunism? Splendor has room for all styles and enough luck to change the win conditions every time. The game is quite easy to learn, but offers engaging and addictive play where folks of all ages can compete for resources and prestige, often surprising the other players.
Splendor is most definitely a “Euro” board game, meaning that everyone playing is involved until the very end. Even if there seems to be a clear winner, through some combination of luck and strategy someone unexpectedly may steal the win...something intriguing that many simple classic games don’t have...often the winner is easily predicted far sooner, which frequently leads to bored players waiting to lose.
I was initially quite surprised when I’d heard of the expansion(s) Cities of Splendor in late 2017. As it turns out “Cities” is actually a box set of four (yes, count them... four) expansions that interestingly change the play style of a Splendor match without detracting from the enjoyment of the basic core game. Many games develop wonderful expansions (take the board game The Settlers of Catan or countless computer RPGs like Diablo 2 for example) that become so enjoyable that it is often quite difficult to throttle back to the original game without feeling let down or that the game has somehow become quite lackluster. Thankfully in the case of Splendor, Cities of Splendor offers 4 interesting variants that are fun to play while keeping the enjoyment of the original game fully intact...playing Splendor each time simply becomes a choice of what variant you’re in the mood for, much like changing the wild card rules or variants of a poker game. You still understand what’s there to play, but mix it up in a slightly different way that isn’t too hard to learn, but usually requires some change in tactics.
I often enjoy gaming not for winning (and will remind others of this often), but for the sake of hanging out, and the tactics/strategies/ideas others employ while playing. Good table gaming should be an interactive, intellectual, social and pleasant exchange. In the case of the “Cities” box, each expansion offers something uniquely fun and interesting that I will elaborate. I’ll also explain how the expansions change the game while explaining what I like or dislike (there isn’t much) about each. The rules clearly state that only one expansion should be played at a time, but it’s up to you if you see fit to create your own house rules. There are many games where you can mix and match expansions as you see fit, but mechanically Splendor is only meant to be played with one expansion at time. Again, this is another first for me, but in this case because of how Splendor is played it makes total sense, and isn’t a gripe for me. In a world where gaming is often made better by complexity, it’s refreshing in the context of Splendor that the expansions add minimal complexity and make it fun while keeping the overall play simple enough to learn quickly but strategic enough to take a while to master. The four names of the expansions are: The Cities, The Trading Posts, The Orient, and The Strongholds, each of them quite unique.
You can find an official pdf of the rules here: https://www.asmodee.us/en/games/splendor/
The Cities expansion is by far the easiest to learn, and like the rules, I too recommend trying out first. The rules state:
We recommend that you play first this expansion. It modifies the goal of the end of the game and stirs the players’ competitiveness.
The game essentially plays the same except that there are no nobles; instead one gains a city card when they meet the prestige and gem requirements listed on the card. As soon as you gain a city, similar to the way you would gain a noble, your turn ends and the other players have one more turn to attempt to gain a city. If they cannot gain a city, the first player to grab one is the winner, but if other players gain a city, the winner is determined by the highest point total among those in possession of a city. It feels a lot like the classic game, but focuses a bit more specialization on land resources and sometimes ends earlier due to the less than 15 prestige point requirement to obtain certain city tiles. I find it enjoyable, as a slight twist on the core game, but not so exciting that I feel it’s the only way to play. All in all it’s balanced, simple, and reasonably well done.
Secondly is the The Trading Posts expansion, and the rules state:
This expansion slightly shortens the game time, and grants you twisting powers. Keep a close eye on your adversaries!
I love this expansion because you have the potential to gain additional rewards beyond nobles for meeting specific requirements, which shortens the game, but with extra combinations. Like The Cities, you must have a certain number of gems or nobles to unlock something specific, in this case a trading post among the 5 available. Once you meet the requirements you place a shield that indicates (for the rest of the game) that you have gained access to an option such as gold tokens effectively being worth 2 gold, or 5 additional prestige points.
The Orient is the 3rd expansion in the rules, and mechanically it feels a lot like the commodities in The Cities & Knights of Catan expansion for The Settlers of Catan, yet easier to grasp. I feel like it would actually go really well if combined with The Trading Posts, despite the rules saying you can only use one expansion at a time. There are more cards and some of them act as wild cards or double land cards, plus other new cards have different requirements to obtain them. The extra cards add a bit of complexity and make certain strategies to obtain nobles more efficient, as stated:
There are new cards in this expansion and nobles are placed at the heart of strategies: find the way to get them faster, or to reserve them, or to make your cards profitable once they are gone.
This personally is my favorite of the expansions because I like playing around with the different ways to obtain lands/resources and the extra complexity is fun yet approachable. Arguably it’s the best expansion in the box, even if it is harder than The Cities expansion.
I stand with the majority of reviewers regarding the 4th expansion, The Strongholds. It is the most lackluster of the four and doesn’t offer anything particularly amazing or interesting, yet unnecessarily prolongs the game with a senseless feeling of playing whack-a-mole with little return. The basic game theory and mechanic is that each player has three tower shaped “stronghold” pieces. When players purchase a card they have the choice of either placing a stronghold on another card to block other people from obtaining it (as long as it has a stronghold there) or removing another player’s stronghold. If a card has 3 of a player’s strongholds on it, that player is allowed to purchase the card as an extra action during their turn at the cost of the card, which then returns all 3 strongholds from the table to the player. I see how the game developers’ intentions to structure the game as a more selective variant that allows more control of what cards a player wants to obtain, but it falls short of being as enjoyable as the basic game or any of the other three expansions. The Strongholds is like bad pizza...you still can enjoy it to a degree, but there are better options.
Three out of four well made expansions in a single box is a pretty successful turnout for a game that already plays well and stands alone with its most basic core rules. You don’t need to have the Cities of Splendor expansions box to enjoy Splendor fully, but gives a lot of extra variants that are enjoyable. For people that like variation without completely learning a new game, the Cities of Splendor expansions are a welcome addition to any gamer’s shelf.