Magnate – The First City

---

---

Gameplay

In Magnate: the first city you are a real estate manager where you build a city with your fellow players. You do this in a neighbourhood around the centre, and the goal is to earn as much money as possible. You are going to buy lots and build buildings. You can choose from different types of buildings that, depending on the neighbourhood and facilities nearby (shops, parks, hardware stores), will provide you with income. You need that income to continue investing and to grow your real estate. But watch out; you cannot keep growing indefinitely. You will have to sell buildings to generate more money. And, as soon as the market collapses you have to sell your buildings for much less money and you miss out on income. The player who has the most money at the end of the game after the market collapse wins the game.

How are you going to do this? At the start of each round, you determine the first player of that round by bidding money. The highest bidder may start. Then tenants come into your buildings. How many there are is determined by rolling a number of dice. This is again determined by the number of tenants in the immediate vicinity of your building. Then you will perform three actions. You choose between buying land, building a building, advertising to attract extra tenants (thus rolling more dice and more chance of income), generating extra income or selling a building. You choose the actions in random order and when everyone has performed the actions you start looking at the influence of your actions on the market. You may have taken an extra risk and have to draw risk cards as a result or the value of the land will be increased. If you take too much risk or the country becomes too expensive, the market collapses and the game ends. Any assets you have left must be auctioned off at a much lower market value and the player with the most money wins.

---

---

Review

To start; the quality of this game is really very high. The box is huge and completely filled with great game material. Take a look at the first player token, for example, well, token.. a real excavator completely in the style of the game.

The game is very good and realistic. It plays easy; for your first game, there is a tutorial deck that guides you all the way through the game. Super easy and clear.

The mechanism works well, it really feels like you are a real estate magnate building his empire. All factors influence each other so that the game is different every time. The game is great fun solo, as well as with 2 (and more!) players and also comes into its own with 2 players. In short: recommended this one! A real must-have in your collection.

---