Escape to Paris: The City of Lights, with this beautiful expansion
Frances & Anthony
How it Plays
Anthony and Frances have been producing playthrough and review videos since 2016, and bring to the Nexus a fun-first approach. Primarily mid-heavy eurogamers, they provide insight into the 2 player experience for many popular board games. Join them as they show you how your next game plays.
Summary
Cobblestone streets, delicate architecture, and the most delicious pastries in the world…who wouldn’t want to spend an evening in beautiful Paris? Devir Games, along with designer José Antonio Abascal, has made it possible to build and stroll Paris with one other very special person in the 2-player only game Paris: La Cité de la Lumière
How it Plays
This tile-laying game is played over two phases, giving players two opportunities to lay tiles in two very different ways. In the first phase, players take turns and choose to either draft a building, or lay a cobblestone tile. The buildings they draft will be built in the second phase, and can only be placed on cobblestone of the player’s color or the mixed color space. Strategy in the first phase revolves around choosing the right cobblestone tile placement and orientation, as well as drafting buildings the player thinks they can actually build.
In the second phase, players will either place a building, or activate a postcard for extra scoring abilities. When placing buildings, players should remember that they can only place buildings on their own cobblestone spaces, and that only buildings orthogonally adjacent to a streetlight will score.
The game ends when players cannot place anymore buildings, or activate any more postcards. Points are scored by multiplying each building size by the number of orthogonally adjacent streetlights, determining the largest building group, and finally adding any postcard benefits.
We will be playing with the Eiffel expansion, which adds 8 new postcards, and charming 3D miniatures.
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Our Thoughts
We are always looking for two-player only games, because the two-player experience feels lacking in many higher player count game experiences. When games are created specifically for two players, you can usually expect to get the intended level of interaction. We were impressed with how Paris accommodated our desire for interaction, but still allowed us to manage the outcome through the use of postcard scoring, even if our opponent blocked a building opportunity.
At first I was not sure I would like this degree of interaction. You are sharing a small board, and building space is limited. There are several instances where your opponent could block your building opportunity, or activate a great postcard you wanted to score, BUT there is a surprising amount of mitigation.
The strategy is in reacting to a changing landscape, and planning as well as you can while mitigating the outcome in the second phase.
Frances – How it Plays
If you are looking for a quick-to-the-table, this one could get there eventually. It does take a few games to learn how the strategy works, and to memorize the additional postcard abilities (which are extremely important to the strategy). So we would not bring this out for casual guests, even though it plays very quickly once you get the hang of it. Luckily, it only plays two players, and we are typically those two players!
Check out our video below for our full thoughts on the gameplay, and an introduction to the rules and experience.
What we liked
- Two-phase approach in such a limited play time
- Depth of strategy considering how quickly the game plays
- Gorgeous art and components
Who Its For
- Couples
- 2-player game groups looking for something enjoyable and strategic that plays quickly.
Our Reservations
In the interest of being language-independent, the postcards in the Eiffel expansion did not contain explanatory text. With 8 unique scoring opportunities, each with unique placement rules, we were resorting to the rulebook frequently even after several plays. This does not hurt the game, but a small player aid (even a shared aid) would have been helpful.
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