Big City

And that's almost a month of inactivity. It appears that this blog may have been ineffective. Half of the summer is left, but the amount of free time I have is probably going to take a downwards turn in the near future.

Updating to say that Astoria's already made- Big City (boardgamegeek is down, or I would link to it), or Metropolis (I played the first and found the second looking it up). There are a lot of design choices that they made in Big City that I disagree with:
Parks and factories can be placed anywhere, instead of just land you control. Their primary function appears to be screwing over other people- "oh, you want to build a large business section? Parked!" Factories are worthless except for their blighting effect, which I find a bit offensive.
You have two real resources- your turn, and your plots. Plots are pretty much random- instead of being a game where the primary action is auctions and trading, the primary action is just the placement of buildings and the race to place special features. Anyone can spend their turn to place city hall, which benefits all the buildings around it- but there's only one. Anyone can start the streetcar line, which benefits all buildings connected to it- but there's only one, and further streetcars have to be adjacent. Anyone can place unplaced neighborhoods- but there are only 2-3.

So, to get a good score you need to have plans that span several turns- but no real way to pull them off, except for luck.

The primary thing that Big City did well was neighborhoods- you place down 2x4 lots or 3x3 lots and get a city center/outskirts, which will change when more neighborhoods are added.