The suburbs are an idyllic slice of American life. With the charm and the simplicity of the country and the resources and connections of big cities, the suburbs truly are the best of both worlds. But as the city manager of your little suburban town, it’s your job to turn this meager little neighborhood into a sprawling metropolis!

Suburbia is a fun city-building strategy game in which players collect building tiles in an effort to build the most thriving and populated borough. One of the most dynamic features of the game is its inclusion of secret bonus objectives for each player, which change every game and ensure you’ll never play the same game twice. Suburbia is definitely one of those board games that stands up to repeat playing, as you’ll never get bored of its many twists and turns.

Building Income and Reputation

The goal of Suburbia is to plan, build, and develop your small town into a bustling metropolis. Players are given their own playing board that they’ll populate with hex-shaped building tiles. These building tiles represent different residential, commercial, civic, and industrial areas. You can buy generic buildings like factories or suburbs or buy a new building from the market with a special ability that you can take advantage of.

The more buildings you add to your board, the more income you’ll take in. This is the amount of money you receive each turn, which allows you to then buy even more buildings from the market. The longer a building is on the market, the cheaper it will be, so you may want to wait for the price to drop. Just make sure someone else doesn’t steal it out from underneath you first!

You’ll also build your reputation whenever you buy buildings, which earns you a certain number of victory points each turn. These victory points move you along the victory track and develop your community. However, you’ll encounter certain speedbumps on the victory track, which can negatively affect your stats and reduce your reputation and income.

Bonus Objectives

Suburbia has both public and secret bonus objectives that you’re trying to reach in order to earn points. Bonus objectives usually require you to have either the most or the least of a certain kind of building, which forces you to closely watch your opponents in order to see what they’re building. This makes the board game much more competitive and ensures the players are interacting a bit more.

In addition to adding building hexes to your board, you can also add lake hexes. These will earn you cash based on how close they are to other pieces on the board. Lastly, you can use investment markers to repurchase buildings you already have in order to reuse their special ability. You’ll have to navigate between buying building hexes, lake hexes, and investment markers if you want to win the game.

Suburbia Expansions

Suburbia comes with several expansions that move you out of the suburbs and into uncharted territory. Suburbia Inc allows you to define your borders in a new way, earning you additional benefits that can help you jettison ahead in the development of your metropolis. The expansion also comes with over a dozen additional buildings that you can buy as well as new Bonuses and Challenges to boost your income and reputation.

Suburbia 5 Stars turns your bustling town into a tourist destination, allowing you to build landmarks, monuments, and tourist traps in your city. These 50 new building tiles can all increase your reputation and income, while having an additional resource to manage can make the game more complex. This expansion to the original board game also allows an additional fifth player to take part in the fun.

Suburbia

Suburbia is playable by 1-4 players, which is perfect for either small families and friend groups or single-player fun. It’s suitable for ages 8 and up, so younger players can learn more about resource management and set collection with this fun board game. Playing time lasts around 90 minutes, so it’s definitely the kind of game you’ll want to make the centerpiece of any game night.

Buy Suburbia today and enjoy the power and fun of city management!