So there I was, first time opening My City with the campus board game club and feeling pretty smug since I had destroyed everybody at Tetris in high school. I mean, it’s just fitting pieces together, right? How difficult can it be? Fast forward three episodes and I am looking at what can only be described as the urban planning version of a train wreck. Sarah from the board game club was doing victory laps around her perfectly organised city while mine looked like someone had just thrown buildings at a map and hoped for the best.
That’s when it hit me — this is not just any board game. This is a legacy game, which means that every silly choice I make will be able to mock me for the next twenty-something sessions. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
I’ve guided probably six different groups through My City campaigns (occupational hazard of being the leader of the campus board game club) and I can assure you that watching people make the same poor decisions I did is never enjoyable. Actually, that is a lie — it is painful every time because I have to hold my tongue and prevent spoilers while someone gleefully puts a building down that will destroy their life in episode twelve.
However, here are some things I’ve learned from those campaigns and trust me when I say that if you are a new player or considering purchasing the game for your group, you will want to read this:
Firstly — and I can not stress this enough — the river running through your board is NOT decoration. It is NOT simply there to add visual appeal. During my first campaign, I used the river as an obstruction to my construction plans. I crowded structures right up against both sides of the river, using every available inch of real estate. At the time it seemed genius. However, by episode eight I wished I could go back in time and slap myself.
The river is essentially the backbone of your overall city planning strategy. You need to create space around the river to allow yourself to grow, to adapt, and to work within the limitations imposed by the game as it progresses. I’ve seen countless players fall victim to the same error I did — they focus solely on solving the puzzle presented in front of them without thinking about what their future self will require.
We have a fellow named Marcus who occasionally plays with us. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Urban Planning (I know — cool, right?) and yet, he fell prey to the same trap as I did during his first campaign. One would assume that someone who studies urban design would understand the concepts of this game, but not the case. He became so enamored with optimizing his placements based on theory that he forgot to provide himself with flexibility in the future. While his girlfriend Emma (who had never played anything more complicated than Monopoly) was placing her buildings in locations that “felt right”, she ended up creating a beautiful, practical, and adaptable city that responded wonderfully to all challenges presented throughout the campaign.
This leads directly into my next point — organising your buildings into clusters by type immediately upon the start of the campaign, regardless of whether there are immediate benefits or not. I know how that sounds — why cluster your residential buildings together when the current scoring mechanism does not reward proximity? Trust me on this one — just trust me. Think about real world cities for a moment. You do not put a factory near a school, and you do not put a shopping centre in the middle of a quiet residential area. The game rewards similar forms of logical planning that you may not realise will be beneficial as the campaign unfolds.
During our second campaign as a club, I realised this lesson the hard way when I saw Jenny (who is not really a fan of board games) naturally develop these distinct districts. She did not over analyse the placement of each building; she did not attempt to optimize for maximum points per location — she simply built a city that made sense. And guess what? Her natural ability to build a cohesive city paid off greatly as the campaign progressed and the scoring mechanisms changed in a manner that rewarded her logical planning.
I’ve begun referring to this concept as the “Flexibility Tax”. Essentially, every building you place costs you not only the physical space it occupies, but also some of your future options. The tighter you are able to pack your buildings early on, the higher the cost of that flexibility will be. I have started to intentionally leave a lot more space in my builds to allow for greater flexibility in the future. Yes, sometimes I will earn fewer points in individual episodes due to my less-than-optimal placement, however my end-game has improved significantly.
The worst part of My City is how the small building stickers will forever serve as reminders of your questionable life decisions. Unlike other board games, you will make a poor decision and it will remain as a constant reminder for the remainder of the campaign. In typical board games, you make a poor decision and then you quickly forget about it after the game is over. Not here. That poorly placed commercial building from episode four? It will be sitting there judging you for the next 16 sessions. We had a running joke during one of our campaigns about Tyler’s “Monument to Regret”. This building that Tyler placed created problems for him literally every single episode thereafter.
One of the toughest aspects of learning to play My City is developing the ability to sacrifice short term points for long-term strategic positioning. This runs counter to almost every aspect of gaming instincts, particularly when playing with friends and wanting to appear as though you are not intentionally throwing games. However, sometimes (and this is extremely difficult to accept) you need to deliberately make a non-ideal placement today in order to maintain your options for tomorrow. I recall specifically one instance during episode six of our latest campaign where I chose to pass on four guaranteed points because taking them would have resulted in a three space gap that I knew would plague me. Everyone thought I had gone crazy… until episode nine when that flexibility allowed me to place a critical new building type while my opponents were struggling with their constrained boards.
The weather system is another common source of frustration for inexperienced players. You know that it will change between sunny and rainy episodes, correct? Use that knowledge! Do not merely optimize your placement based solely on the current weather, but rather consider how your placement will affect you under the opposing weather conditions in the next episode. I’ve seen far too many players execute a perfect rainy episode placement, only to find themselves in disaster mode when the sun comes out.
Something that I found truly interesting while watching different groups of people play My City was the unique personalities that each player’s city developed throughout the campaign. By the conclusion of the campaign, you can often determine the player’s decision-making process based on their city’s layout. Some players have cities that are well-balanced and flexible, others have cities comprised of brilliant individual decisions that fail to cohesively work together, while risk takers tend to have cities with incredible neighborhoods adjacent to complete disaster zones where they took risks that ultimately did not pay off.
I enjoy introducing My City to new players because it teaches this valuable lesson about long-term thinking that applies to a much wider scope than simply board gaming. Each permanent decision affects your future options, and you may not always recognise those relationships until much later. It is actually somewhat profound when you think about it — which I probably do too much, but whatever.
My greatest piece of advice to anyone considering playing My City is to acknowledge that you are going to make mistakes. Those poor decisions that you make will become a part of your city’s history and honestly some of my fondest gaming memories stem from the collective “oh no, what have we done?” when someone places a building that will doom their existence in episode twelve.
Do not worry about creating the ideal city — there is no such thing. Similar to real-world urban planning, you will have constraints, unexpected opportunities, and the cumulative effects of previous decisions to deal with. The beauty lies in seeing how the unique combinations of your decisions result in a city that is uniquely yours, even if it is not the absolute best.
Well, if you are thinking about starting a new My City campaign with your gaming group, go ahead and do it. Just remember what I have learned the hard way — treat that river with respect, plan your districts, leave space to breathe, and sometimes opt for the long game, even when it is difficult to stomach. Your future self will likely appreciate your foresight, possibly while everyone else curses their episode-three placement decisions.
Okay, I need to get ready for tonight’s game night. We are starting a brand new campaign with some new players, and I am already mentally preparing myself to watch them make all the same mistakes I did. It never gets easier, but at least I will have good company in my misery.
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