Paris: La Cité De La Lumière and Paris: Eiffel Expansion

boardgamequest.com:

We review Paris: La Cité De La Lumière and the Effiel expansion from Devir Games. Paris: La Cité De La Lumière is a tile-laying game that will have players building out the city of Paris over the course of the game.

Bonjour! Bienvenue à Paris, la cité de la lumière! Pardon my French, but this game brings something romantic out of me. Ah, Paris, the birthplace of democracy, existentialism, and, well, other things. Maybe it’s the thought of envisioning myself in the bustling heart of Paris—home of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Serge Gainsbourg—that stirs the soul. Or perhaps it’s the idea of walking along the Seine with my sweetheart, the dulcet tones of accordion music emanating around the corner, that turns my eyes into hearts.

Or maybe the truly romantic thing about Paris: La Cité De La Lumière—a 2-player tile-laying game by José Antonio Abascal and published by Devir Games—is the idea of a new 2-player experience that truly feels fresh and invigorating and plays in 20-30 minutes. Mon amour, the thought is enough to make one’s head spin.

Paris is split into two phases. The first phase involves each player taking one of two actions. One possible action is to place one of your cobblestone street tiles and help create the landscape both players will be competing on. The other is to claim one of the polyomino buildings from the available building pool and add it to your reserve. The cobblestone street tiles are 2×2 tiles that have some combination of 4 different squares: a square in your color, a square in your opponent’s color, a purple “mixed color” square, or a street lamp. Once the final tile of cobblestone street is placed, phase one ends.

The second phase also gives players the option of taking one of two different types