Board Game Event: Games About Building Buildings (With Very Little Building)

Join us at Pandemonium for our 3-hour, bi-weekly session to learn and play games! You’re especially welcome if you’ve never before played hobby board games (and are curious about where to start). 

Tonight’s three games are all themed around the idea of leaving behind a legacy in the buildings you build. At the start of each game, you and the other players will be able to accomplish your goals easily, with plenty of room to expand on the map. But soon enough, as land becomes limited, you’ll eventually start competing with other players in a mutual attempt to claim what is rightfully yours! Read below for more information on how each of the following games does that:

Taj Mahal (2-5 players) sees you building networks of buildings and palaces in a game that abstracts court intrigue and political influence. Each round, you’ll be competing with other players to win control over a region of the board by playing cards that increase your influence with certain factions. Along the way, you’ll be marking your claims with palaces, and linking contiguous networks of these structures to combo even more points each turn (a challenge when different regions can be on opposite sides of the map!). It’s a Reiner Knizia game, going back a little more than 20 years, so if you haven’t gotten the chance to play this classic, this could be a good night to try it!

Foundations of Rome (2-5 players) is a game that will have the least direct competition between players among the options for tonight. You are playing as a civic developer during the Roman Kingdom where you’ll be acquiring deeds to individual squares of land and constructing buildings to fill up the property; buildings fall under different types and shapes, and they all score a little differently (or give you money to buy more deeds). What makes the game interesting is that you’re working on two games at once: the spatial puzzle (where do I buy land) and the economic one (what do I put there). There’s an optional module where you can trade land for money, which we might plug in if folks feel like negotiating. Also, if you like really cool building minis, try this one out – there’s a lot of plastic!

And finally, our options round out with the somewhat deep-cut City of Remnants (2-4 players). This title combines the head games of Taj Mahal with the city-building mechanism of Foundations of Rome and puts it into a competitive turf war set within a dystopian/cyberpunk, spacefaring future. In this game, you are the leader of a gang trying to make life bearable under an alien police state, and to do this, you’ll build buildings that make you money while hiring crew to make sure those places you built continue to remain yours. Every round, the government forces randomly attack the map, so in addition to watching your competitors, you’ll need to be able to pivot quickly (because the law cracks down hard). What makes this game special is that crew lost in turf wars are removed from the game, so there are consequences to violence, even if it is sometimes necessary. If you like asymmetric player factions, and you aren’t afraid to fight, this could be a unique game to try out.

Therefore, if you ever wanted to learn these games or just want to spend time with others who like playing games, come on out! And if putting up buildings isn’t terribly exciting for you, stay tuned to our Events Calendar for future announcements on what we’ll demo next.

RULES FOR ATTENDING: 

• Proof of COVID vaccination is required at EVERY EVENT. Either the presentation of the physical card or a clear picture will suffice. Pandemonium does not keep any records, written or otherwise, of vaccination status.
• Advance online registration is required.
• Anyone not registered in an ongoing event will not be allowed in the event space to maintain capacity limits.
• No food will be allowed in our event space for the time being. Drinking is allowed.