Underwater Cities (2018)

“In Underwater Cities, Vladimír Suchý has achieved something masterful. Every decision matters. Every Era flows by smoothly. There’s nothing clunky to be found anywhere. Everything is well balanced.”

“The game is captivating in its decisions, in its trade-offs, in its combos, and in its opportunities for clever play. It is tense and interactive, and despite the long playtime, in my estimation it justifies every minute it’s on the table.”

The reviewer highly praised Underwater Cities, considering it one of their top favorite games for its engaging gameplay and overall experience.

The reviewer highly recommends "Underwater Cities," calling it a modern tabletop triumph that excels in blending original and accessible gameplay with satisfying depth, while also offering excellent replayability.

The reviewer, Paul from The Dicey Review, highly praises Underwater Cities, describing it as a perfect game for his style due to its worker placement and engine-building mechanics, which offer many fun and satisfying combos. He also highlights its fantastic solo variant.

The reviewers consider Underwater Cities a "must-play" and a modern tabletop triumph, praising its unique blend of worker placement and card play, high replayability through varied player boards and scoring goals, and overall satisfying gameplay, despite acknowledging that games can be relatively long and production phases a bit fiddly.

The reviewer was highly impressed with Underwater Cities, praising its strong, satisfying, and engaging gameplay, particularly highlighting its excellent engine-building mechanisms and high replayability, despite minor aesthetic concerns.

“Underwater Cities is a modern tabletop triumph, blending original and easy to teach gameplay with satisfying depth – no pun intended.”

“The end result really muddles with the formula of a worker placement game, in the best brain burny sort of way.”

The reviewer highly praises Underwater Cities for its clear graphic design, intuitive iconography, and well-scaling, complex gameplay that offers significant strategic depth. While acknowledging minor drawbacks like thin player boards, some 'awful' tokens, and a longer initial playtime, he finds the game to be a highly engaging and enjoyable worker placement experience.

The reviewer expresses strong enjoyment for Underwater Cities, noting that both he and his wife thoroughly liked the game and he was not disappointed with his purchase of it.

The reviewer expresses strong enjoyment for Underwater Cities, noting its engaging worker placement and engine-building mechanics, which are complemented by strategic card and action combinations.

The reviewer highly praises "Underwater Cities" as a captivating and truly wonderful worker-placement game, highlighting its thematic depth, engaging mechanics like card and action slot alignment, and minimal player interaction, which also makes it suitable for solo play. They also note the game's high replayability due to double-sided boards and varied cards.

The reviewer holds 'Underwater Cities' in high regard, evidenced by its inclusion in a curated list of top solo board games, suggesting it is a highly recommended and enjoyable experience.

“All of this is why Underwater Cities is in my Top 20 games played of all time. And it’s why I highly recommend at least giving it a try if you are able to.”

Rahdo praises Underwater Cities as an awesome and rock-solid Euro game, highlighting the constant engaging and challenging decisions players face throughout due to the unique worker placement and card-matching mechanic.

“Board Game Halv describes Underwater Cities as a very intense tableau builder featuring action drafting and worker placement, distinguished by its strong engine-building mechanics and the engaging tension created by competing for key action spots.”

The reviewer praises "Underwater Cities" for its innovative card-action and worker placement mechanics, offering significant strategic depth and balanced pathways to victory, despite some minor drawbacks in component quality and game pacing.

The reviewer highly praises 'Underwater Cities' as an engaging and highly variable worker placement and engine-building game, noting its unique card-driven actions and strategic depth, though they point out that the components for player boards are somewhat flimsy and the game might be overwhelming for casual players.

“afterwards, I almost always remark on how much I enjoyed the experience and wish we played them more often. But I like the card/action slot mechanic of Underwater Cities the best.”

The reviewers find 'Underwater Cities' to be a highly tactical and rewarding strategy game that presents a fascinating puzzle through its action selection and resource management, despite acknowledging some minor drawbacks in player scaling and the abstract nature of its core mechanics.

“I’m going to say that I enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I would. The action selection with card selection is super fun and interesting and the cards themselves have interesting abilities.”

Tom Vasel highly recommends "Underwater Cities," praising its strategic depth, replayability due to varied card play, and the engaging challenge of discovering optimal strategies, despite minor component issues and longer playtimes with more players.

Underwater Cities is an amazing and thoroughly engaging engine-building game with better components and art than Terraforming Mars; though the reviewer personally prefers Terraforming Mars' gameplay, he would happily play Underwater Cities any time.

“Underwater Cities is a solid game that I enjoy more each time I pick it up. There are so many options and strategies to take.”

The reviewer highly recommends Underwater Cities for fans of heavy Euro games, praising its engaging card play and worker placement mechanics, which create a compelling experience despite a weak theme. While enjoyable with two or three players, they note that the game can become quite long with four unless all players are experienced.

“I think that’s why I love Underwater Cities. It makes me want to keep playing, keep trying new strategies.”

“Despite initially being overwhelming for new players, this worker placement and economic development game was surprisingly enjoyable for the reviewer, who found the mechanics worked well. While not a personal must-buy, they would readily play it again if suggested.”

Nersi Games found Underwater Cities to be an intriguing blend of worker placement and engine building, offering strategic card interactions but noting that the growing tableau and numerous decisions can lead to analysis paralysis and a slower pace for some players.

“To conclude, Underwater Cities is a game with more than solid foundations. The worker placement mechanic combined with card play is excellent and offers players plenty of brain puzzles.”

“But, this game is OK I guess. You’re just gathering stuff to do things.”

“While acknowledging an impressive tactical puzzle, the reviewer found Underwater Cities to be too long, lacking in player interaction, and suffering from sub-par components and uninspired artwork, ultimately concluding that its combined mechanics do not cohere effectively.”