Between Two Cities Board Game Review

gamesreviews.com:

A while back, we had the opportunity to review Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, and although we admitted that it is much better with more people, we really enjoyed the game and everything it brought to the table. Between Two Cities Essential Edition is going to give you the exact same feelings, with similar goals and scoring opportunities, but in the context of a city, not a castle. Is it worth having both of these games on your shelf, or does one outshine the other? Let’s take a look!

In Between Two Cities, players will be working on building two cities, one to the left of themselves and one to the right. On their turn, players will choose two tiles to place, and will then decide which city they should play their tiles in. As you can expect, you won’t be building your city alone – instead, you are working with the people siting beside you to create the best city possible with the knowledge that your final score will be the LOWER score of the two cities you are working on.

The above video from fellow Canadian Rodney Smith outlines how to play Between Two Cities. We are reviewing the Essential Edition as opposed to this one from 8 years ago, so take that into account when watching! We do feel Rodney does the best job explaining games, so for a more fulsome overview of how to setup and play, we suggest watching his channel! For an overview of the Essential Edition, we suggest watching this video from Jamey at Stonemaier Games!

There is more to it than that, of course. You will be using terrain boards that will have certain hinderances that you will need to work around, and trying to get as much as possible in your 5×5 city is a lot harder than you would think. Each piece you choose will require a lot of thought and discussion with those around you. There is no easy turn in this game, at least not in my opinion, because very single tile really does matter. Some people like this type of game, where one or two poor decisions could remove you from winning