Glasgow

In Glasgow, players travel the city (in an abstract manner) to collect resources, take special actions, and most important of all construct buildings. Build a factory, and you’ll receive more goods from it when other buildings are constructed in the right areas in relation to it; build a train station, and you may or may not score from it depending on what else you build; build a monument, and you’ll merely collect a lot of points — and in the end, points are what matters.

In slightly more detail, to set up the game, lay out a ring of town figures at random, with two of them being removed from play each game. Whoever is farther behind in the circle around town takes the next turn, advancing to whichever town figure they want to visit. Most of them give you resources — brick, steel, or money — and you have a limit on how many resources of each type you can hold. Some figures have two random building plans at them, and if you visit one with the right resources, you can pay them, then build something. If you pay extra, you can then build something else, too!

The first building is placed anywhere in the midst of play, then each subsequent building is placed adjacent to something already built, with the buildings eventually filling in a 4×5 (or 5×4, determined as the game progresses) grid of the players’ own creation. As soon as the twentieth building is erected, the game ends and players score points for what they built. Who has contributed more to the current state of Glasgow?

Glasgow is a quick tile laying and resource management game by designer Mandela Fernández-Grandon. Two players of ages 10 and up compete to become the most successful merchant in the city of Glasgow. A variable setup and, at least in the beginning of the game, an undefined placement grid promise a lot of replay value. After approximately 30 minutes, the players score their buildings and the player with most points wins the game.

Players start the game with just one stone and one steel in their warehouse. The “game board” is a circle made of variable action tiles in the center of the table. They depict the river Clyde, or more precisely the architects and contractors who use the river to ship, sell and buy goods. Both players start with their merchant figure on the architect starting tile. Like in Patchwork, the player who is last is the one who does the next turn (or turns if the player stays last in the circle). The player takes the turn by moving their figure to a free action tile, using its action immediately. Contract action tiles offer different kind of actions, e. g., getting or trading goods, activating factories, or doubling the next action.

Architect action tiles feature the central build action, which is used to build the city center. In order to build, the player needs to pay the depicted goods of an available building and then place that building in the middle of the circle. New buildings have to be orthogonally adjacent to already-placed buildings. In the beginning of the game, the city grid is undefined and players can add buildings wherever they want. Once the dimensions of the grid are either 5×4 or 4×5, the city center is defined and players can only fill out gaps until the 20^thbulding is built and the 4×5/5×4 grid is complete. Afterwards both players count their victory points and the player with the most points wins the game!

Comments

Glasgow — No Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply