Micropolis: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Drafting, Tile Placement, Set Collection
Player Age: 8+ Player Count: 2- 6 PlayersTime to Play: 30 Minutes
Game Designer: Bruno Cathala, Charles Chevallier
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Bruno Cathala, Charles Chevallier
Objective:
It’s time to put your ants to work by developing and scoring the most advanced ant hill possible.
Game Anatomy:
Foundation Tile:
This is what you will create your anthill around, as well as being a central storage space for your soldier ants.
Soldier Ants:
These little guys will be used in two ways. Firstly, during tile choosing. Seven tiles are lined up linearly. Each turn, the first tile is free to take but if a specific tile is wanted then it will cost ants to obtain. If a player wants a tile other than the first, they must place a soldier ant on every tile before the select tile (this includes the free tile). So if the fourth tile is chosen then it will cost three soldier ants to get it.
Secondly, these ants can be placed on a tile in that player’s anthill that contains a barrack. The ants must be placed on the turn where the barrack tile is added to the anthill and enough soldier ants need to be added to it in order to fill the barrack. These ants will give an equal number of points during end of game scoring.
Ant Hill Tiles:
Each tile will have burrow art and connected burrows will now be described as a gallery from now on. There can be multiple galleries in an anthill but the longer the gallery, the more points that can be scored for it. Each tile will usually have worker ants pictured on them, each onr will score one point at the end of the game. Some tiles will have other features such as fruit, barracks or special ants. Fruits will score based on the amount of the unique fruits in each gallery.
Some of the special ants will give you different scoring opportunities such as:
- The queen ant who will score for the number of tiles that her gallery is composed of. There can only be one ant queen per gallery, if there is two in a gallery then they cancel each other out and nothing is scored.
- The nurse who will give you soldier ants equal to the number of ants the nurse is pictured holding.
- The architect who will give you a special architect token that can be used on a future turn to select any tile without having to pay soldiers.
Set up:
- Each player takes a foundation tile and places five soldiers on it.
- Place the rest of the soldiers and the two architect tiles to the side for easy access.
- Shuffle the anthill tiles and reveal seven in a line in the middle of the table.
- The youngest player will be the first player and will gain the red army token.
How To Play:
Players take turns in a clockwise fashion. On a turn, the player will select a tile by paying the cost in ants then place this tile in their anthill. The first one can go anywhere but going forward new tiles will have to connect to a previously played tile, directly to the left or right.
The line of tiles will refresh whenever there are fewer tiles than the number of players. When this happens the oldest tiles will shift to the start of the line and new tiles will be drawn to replenish the seven. Now, whichever player has the most soldiers on their foundation tile will gain the red army token. This is relevant for when the special ant recruiting sergeant is activated as this player will have to discard one solider ant on their foundation tile.
Play continues in this way until the anthills are completed and scoring begins.
End of game scoring:
- One point for every ant in your anthill.
- Five points for whichever player has the largest amount of ants in one gallery.
- Each gallery will score based on the number of unique fruits they have. This will range from one unique fruit being worth 2 points and ranges up six unique fruits being worth 25 points.
- Each gallery with only one queen will score one point for every tile the gallery exists on.
- Whichever player has the largest amount of soldiers in the foundation tile will score five points.
- Each completed barrack will score what is written next to it on the tile.
Final Thoughts:
Pros:
- Ant Mini's are fantastic.
- Many ways to score.
- Good midweight family game.
Cons:
- At two players the game can feel too quick for the weight of the game. This is addressed with a variant that has players creating two anthills instead of one.
- Not a lot of depth in decisions.
Micropolis is a great family game with good components, especially the amazing ant soldier miniatures. The game is best played as a family game as it does not have enough depth for hobby gamers and the game can feel too quick at times. However, in a family setting this game would excel as it would have enough decision to keep the adults and children involved the entire time. If you are looking for a game to play with your younger family then Micropolis is a great drafting game to be added to your collection.
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