• Machi Koro Legacy Board Game
• Machi Koro Legacy 2 Player

Contents

Oct 27, 2019 In Machi Koro Legacy, players take on the role of mayors competing to build the most attractive town on the Island of Machi Koro. During each game, every mayor is vying for the title of Best Mayor and must also work with the other mayors to build a landmark on the island. Machi Koro received multiple awards upon its release, and has received two major expansions. A standalone game based on the same mechanics, Machi Koro Bright Lights, Big City, was.

• 2 How To Play

Machi Koro is a card and dice, fast-paced, city-building game from Japan that has been making quite a big splash among game enthusiasts.

In Machi Koro, participants roll dice to earn coins that help them develop their city, with the aim of being the first player to complete a range of in-game landmarks and win the game.

So, You think you know Machi Koro? It is indeed a whimsical land of amusement parks and cheese factories, but it's about to get truly of this world. Welcome to Machi Koro Legacy, the game where your beloved Machi Koro changes and expands right before your very eyes! In Machi Koro Legacy you play through ten different. Machi Koro Legacy features a ten-game series that tells a complete story set in the world of Machi Koro in which player choices create a unique gameplay experience.

Machi Koro is an excellent family-strategy game to play with children old enough to understand a little bit of math (it’s all about adding and subtracting the numbers, other than the probability aspect).

History

Designed by Masao Suganuma, Machi Koro was published by the Japanese games company Grounding Inc. in 2012.

This light, quick and approachable game is considered as one of the hottest additions in the succession of miniaturized games. Being crowned the winner of the 2015 Geekie Award for Best Tabletop Game, it has been published in eleven languages and has received two prominent expansions. The “Harbor Expansion” was released in 2012, expanding the base number of landmarks.

In 2015, Machi Koro “Millionaire’s Row” was released, adding additional high-tech industries and luxury-oriented establishments. In 2016, the “Machi Koro Bright Lights, Big City” was released, featuring a blend of cards from the base game and both the expansions.

How To Play

Participants find themselves in the role of a small-town mayor having big aspirations. Armed with only two establishments namely a bakery and a wheat field, they’ll try to develop a thriving metropolis and become the first one to finish four major landmarks namely a shopping mall, train station, radio tower, an amusement park.

Video Guide: Actual Gameplay

To attain this, you’ll have to develop your town by procuring new buildings, each of which offers an opportunity to increase cash for your emerging city.

You’ll roll dice, on your turn, to identify which, if any, of your buildings bring in revenue.

For instance, convenience stores pay three coins whenever you throw a four. A bakery pays a single coin when you throw a two or three. You can get repeated payouts through multiple copies of the same building. So, you can receive a potentially game-changing nine coins through three convenience stores, each time their number comes up.

Other buildings present new complications as well as opportunities to consider. Cattle ranches and wheat fields don’t generate huge amounts, but they pay out on other participants’ turns as well as yours.

Restaurants and cafés, if they are triggered on your own turn, pay nothing but if other players activate them, they’ll need to pay you for the privilege of dining in the establishments you own.

Forests and mines are not all that useful immediately, but they allow you to develop lucrative factories in the game later. All of these mean there are a number of viable options to develop a successful city.

Your deck, which is your city under the theme of Machi Koro, is always completely in play. It means players, even at someone else’s turn, might be required to pay another player or get a payout. The key decision for participants is how much to invest in the higher payouts rather than spreading out card procurements to cover more likely dice rolls.

Players look at the resulting value of pips on the dice rolled and compare it with the number at the top of establishments owned by them. For instance, starting bakery of a player goes to work if a two or three is rolled. Each bakery the current player has in his/her city will earn him/her one coin.

You can understand all these aspects better by watching the “Watch It Played” video at IDW games website, which published the U.S version of Machi Koro together with Pandasaurus Games.

Establishments in Machi Koro come in four different types. There are different ways through which every type earns income.

• Blue: During anyone’s turn, receive income from the bank.
• Red: Take coins from the player who rolled the dice.
• Green: During their turns only, receive income from the bank.
• Purple: During their turn only, receive income from all players.

For instance, if a player holds a café (red card) in his/her city and another player throws a three, the player holding the café will take one coin from the player who threw the three. As another example, if a one is rolled by any of the players, then all the wheat fields (blue card) get activated. No matter who threw the one, every wheat field will generate one coin for the owner.

Rules

Although Machi Koro rules are easy and short, players still need some setups to play the game.

1. Take yellow-backed cards and yellowish cards.
   • Each participant takes one each of these cards: bakery, wheat field, train station, radio tower, amusement park, shopping mall.
   • Return extra cards into the box.
   • Face up bakery and wheat field (starting establishments).
   • Face down yellowish cards.
2. Keep all cards in separate stacks of the same kind.
   • Arrange stacks according to the numbers shown on top.
3. Take three coins each.
   • Players will get Machi Koro coins from the bank or return them as they purchase establishments.
4. Ready to roll.

To attain in-depth knowledge of Machi Koro rules, you can have a look at this rulebook.

Or scroll through the rulebook here:

Machi Koro Legacy

Its gameplay is the same as that of Machi Koro. The dice is still getting rolled, income is still getting collected and players are still running to develop landmarks – but there are hidden changes that unlock deviations as things proceed. The all-new 10-game campaign consists of hidden objectives coupled with an astonishing narrative arc set.

Machi Koro: Deluxe Edition

This game, which is for 2 to 5 players, features the base game together with Machi Koro Millionaire’s Row expansion, Machi Koro Harbor expansion, two sculpted dice, upgraded punchboard coins, six copies of “Convention Center” card, six copies of exclusive “Diamine” card, and an exclusive drawstring coin bag.

Machi Koro Fussball

In Machi Koro Fussball, players get to participate in the historic process of construction projects associated with the mega-sporting event – The World Cup. You can participate as an investor who is developing multiple building projects. You can watch what others develop, take risks, and aim for profit from your very own football world.

How To Get Started

In this review, the vlogger demonstrates how to play the two to four player game, Machi Koro by Pegasus and IDW games.

He explains that each player takes on the role of a mayor, but your city is just a wheat field and a bakery, so not very significant you’re going to have to gather and maybe steal some resources to build up your city the quickest and win.

So join him at the table and let’s learn how to play to set up. Each player collects the for starting landmarks: the train station shopping, mall, amusement park and radio tower before the landmarks are built.

They have a gray sign and once completed they’re flipped over to show their colored sign to begin.

The game with these four landmarks, with a gray side, face up in front of you and return in the extras to the game box. The rest of the cards are establishments, there are starting regular and major ones.

The starting establishments are easy to identify because they have a different colored back compared to the rest of the cards.

So to begin players will take a wheat field and bakery from the starting establishments returning any leftovers to the box.

The rest of the establishments come in 15 different types and there are several copies of each to organize them into face-up stacks in order by the numbers shown here at the top. The game comes with several coins, and these come in denominations of 1, 5 and 10.

Each player starts with 3 coins and the rest are kept here in a bank along with the two dice.

Finally, you choose a starting player, perhaps by rolling the dice and then you’re ready to begin in machi.

Players would use coins to buy additional buildings that they will place in front of themselves. These buildings have abilities that are activated when the dice are rolled, usually giving you more coins from the bank or from other players earn enough coins.

You can start to complete these landmarks. Complete all four landmarks first and you win. Players take turns in clockwise order around the table and on your turn, you complete three phases, starting with the first phase roll dice. When the game begins players roll only one died on their turn.

The next phase is to earn income. You check to see if you’ll be able to collect any coins by looking at the values on the top of each of your establishments if they match the dive value their effects trigger. For example, the vlogger edroll the two and that falls within the range of his bakery, and it says that he gets one coin from the bank when rolled on my turn.

The establishments come in four different colors to remind you when you collect coins for them.

Green establishments, like the bakery, give you coins on your turn. Only, but blue establishments can earn you coins on any player’s turn. So you should always check your establishments after each player’s roll dice face to see if any of them activate red establishments. Let you take coins from the player who rolled the die on their turn.

For example, if another player roll the three then my cafe would activate and I would get one coin from that player. Purple establishments give you coins from other players as well, but only on your turn.

So if I roll the six, I would get two coins from all players, but only on my turn, if you ever Aucoin x’ to a player, but you don’t have enough to pay them fully, you pay what you can and then you ignore the rest and that Player is not compensated for their lost income, also, if more than one player is owed money. At the same time, for example, let’s say that we have three players: one is seated here. One is seated here and I owe them both two coins, but I only have three: you always pay back in counterclockwise order, so I would pay two of my coins to this player and then one to that player once you’ve earned income. You now enter the construction phase, where you can use your collected coin to buy a single new establishment.

The cost for each establishment is shown here in the bottom left hand corner. Let’s say I decided to buy a cafe. This costs two coins.

I place it here and pay two coins to the bank. Now it can trigger when dice are rolled on future turns your city can have multiple copies of the same buildings, and it’s recommended that you stack them like this.

However, when it comes to the major establishments these purple cards, a player can only have at most one of each type each copy of a building you roll can be triggered when you roll a die. For example, if I roll the two now instead of collecting just one coin from the bank, I get one for each bakery that I own.

So I would take two when resolving the order that buildings trigger in always resolve red buildings. First, then, all green and blue and finally any purple ones. Instead of constructing an establishment, a player may instead complete a landmark by paying its cost and then flipping it over. These can be completed in any order and once flipped over, they provide you with a special power.

These powers are not active when the landmark is gray side up, but they’re still written there just to remind you of what they can do. For example, now that we’ve completed the train-station, we can roll one or two dice on our turn. But just note, if you choose to roll two dice, you always add the numbers together into a single value. Once you’ve completed the shopping mall, each of your establishments that have this and this symbol will earn an additional one coin.

When the amusement park is completed, if you ever roll doubles, you take another turn immediately after the one you’re currently taking and if you’ve completed the radio tower once every turn, you can choose to re-roll your dice.

Now, if you have chosen to roll two dice, you can’t just reroll one of them: you’ll need to re-roll both of them as soon as a player has completed their fourth landmark.

They immediately win the game and, as a reminder, you do not have to complete them. In order, so you could save up and complete the radio tower first, if you really wanted to and that’s how you play machi Koro now, here’s something to consider you may want to get a variety of different kinds of establishments and that way, no matter what is Rolled you’re more likely to get some coins from the bank.

On the other hand, you may try to stack up on some of the specific establishments and that way, if you get those certain number, while your payout could be quite large and there’s also some other establishments that combo with other ones. For example, the fruit and vegetable stand will give you more coins based on the number of wheat fields that you have.

But if you have any questions at all about anything that you saw in this, video, don’t hesitate to put them in the comments below and I’ll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance and do consider subscribing to our channel, because in follow-up episodes we’re Going to do a full playthrough of Machi Koro and you can really see how the game works and even participate in the gameplay.

Machi Koro Legacy is the brand new edition of Pandasaurus Games’ dice rolling family board game. Designed by Rob Daviau (one of the people behind Pandemic Legacy), JR Honeycutt and Masao Suganuma, the game sees 2 – 4 players building up a town. Across 10 linked games players will spend 30 minutes at a time earning coins, building landmarks and unlocking new content. The legacy treatment on other titles has resulted in some amazing experiences. However, does Machi Koro suit the changes? Let’s find out!

The core experience is the same as the original game. Players start with only 3 coins to their name and some lacklustre buildings. Each building type has a value of 1 – 12 assigned to it, as well as something that occurs. The effect can range from earning coins only when you roll, or on an opponent’s turn, through to stealing coins from another player. On a player’s turn they roll the dice or just one die. All players then use that number to activate cards of that value, following the Your Turn/Opponent’s Turn limitations.

The active player only is then able to either purchase a new establishment card to add to their tableau or a landmark. Increasing your tableau is a great way to earn more when specific numbers are rolled. It is also useful to spread your luck. By having more numbers the chance one of the values you want comes up increases. As a rough rule the numbers about 7 have higher coin returns. Therefore players will often start off rolling a die to trigger low cards but using coins to buy 7 – 12 valued cards before rolling both dice on their turns.

Each game players have access to four landmarks. Landmarks can be built by all players, so there isn’t a rush for individual landmarks, unlike the establishment cards which can run out. However, the game is instantly won by the player that builds the set of four landmarks. As far as the basic game goes this is the end of the gameplay. This is not just the basic game though and at the end of each game the legacy aspect of Machi Koro Legacy comes into effect.

Without giving away specific content this will see new cards come into play, others leave play and often includes a player choice. This is where winning has an instant benefit, throughout the experience. New establishment cards often have two sides to them. As a generic example, one side may be earning coins on your turn, with the other side about taking coins from an opponent. The winner marks the side of the cards that they wish to enter play. If you’re an aggressive player that loves to steal coins, or hates this aspect, by winning you can somewhat impact what becomes available. This is certainly not the only way the game changes, with new landmarks and buildings the tip of the iceberg. For the specifics you’ll have to play to discover them.

Perhaps it is the competitive nature of the game or the much shorter game length. It could be the way the game evolves with the changes sometimes straight swaps or simple additions. There are a few potential reasons, regardless of which, there is never an attachment grown between players and their town. Even after the 10th game each town can be identical, with the opportunity for personal choice impacting the town left to the individual games. This does however allow Machi Koro Legacy to be played beyond the final story game.

A loose narrative ties the games together, giving a slight meaning to why new components, elements or mechanisms have been introduced. It may not be possible to create a masterpiece across the handful of cards used to develop the story. Nevertheless, other legacy games such as Pandemic Legacy Season 1 managed something vastly more compelling. It can be easily forgotten and even skipped, with only the new rules introduced needing to be read aloud.

The components of the game are mostly secret at the offset of the 10 game campaign. With 3 large decks and 6 boxes of content to be slowly unveiled, players start with only player boards, dice, coins and a basic deck of cards. What players will start out with is what they would find in the original Machi Koro and nothing more. Progressing through the deck more cards of the same strong production quality will be revealed. Each card is clearly laid out, with a minor use of icons and text, beneath almost cute artwork. Being all about cards and dice, the cards themselves are certainly a strength of Machi Koro Legacy.

As with any game where new things are unveiled there is an excitement caused by opening boxes and going through the legacy decks. The unknown of what’s to come plays a big part in this. Though some content from the large boxes did make us question the sizing – with plenty of air in the box with the new component. Regardless of the reasonings for the new elements to the game it does result in each game feeling different, with a constant stream of new content. Each game is somewhat fresh with landmarks only being around for a few games and different objectives coming into play.

While the rulebook doesn’t suggest it, new players may want to play a couple of pre-Legacy games. It is far from compulsory as the game doesn’t drastically shift with changes after only one game. That being said, having played the original the knowledge of how the game plays helped us hit the ground running. Even one game would be enough, just so everyone can learn before winning or losing the first legacy game.

Machi Koro Legacy Board Game

Machi Koro shows that more games could work with the legacy treatment. In this case, the story is lacking and some of the contents were underwhelming. However, the fact that each game in the 10 games is slightly different from the last, without straying from the core Machi Koro experience, is a great strength. Plus, players are left with a playable title at the end, to keep on enjoying. One sign that it does enough is that once equipped with this post legacy version there is little draw to ever return to the original. If you’re a fan of Machi Koro then this could be a legacy game for you to get to that post campaign version, it just isn’t a totally inspiring journey past the experience of unlocking content.

Machi Koro Legacy 2 Player

(Editor’s Note: Machi Koro Legacy was provided to us by Asmodee for the review. The game is currently available from local board game stores, find your local store here.)