Underwater Cities - Solo Playthrough Part 2

[Music] hello everybody how's it going uh we're back we're back again tonight uh my name is paul i'm with the dicey review and uh this is the second night in a row that i have played that i'm going to play a solo game of underwater cities from vladimir suchi why am i doing that well because it's fantastic and because i had so much fun playing last night that i wanted to play it again the other thing is i lost last night and i want to try my hand at winning this game the other thing is today look what came in [Music] the very cool upgraded bits the geek up bits from board game geek these are so fancy they're so awesome okay so anyway i want to play it again i want to see if i can win so we're gonna get right into it we will um once again uh do a brief run through of kind of how to play the game and then we will hop right in uh welcome if you are watching live i'm gonna try and watch the chat a little bit as i play if you enjoy this type of content make sure and give it a thumbs up give us a subscribe all the social media things that being said we're going to get right to it so um how do we play once again this will be a recap from last night in underwater cities we are trying to develop our player board build different buildings city domes expand out from our home base city right here and create a network of buildings and tunnels and factories that will produce us goods and resources because we're trying to explore the ocean floor and build an underwater civilization so how we do that is we play over a certain number of eras that are broken up into a number of rounds and in each round we're going to take three turns for the round now i'm playing the solo version of the game so normally each player in the game would take three turns and then the round would end but in this solo version you just take three turns some of the spots are blocked by some tokens that we'll that we'll look at here in a second and then the round is over and you rinse and repeat so what do you do on your turn you will take one of your action markers which i got these from uh top shelf gamer these are not what the base game components look like this is a little submarine worker meeple normally they look like this this is what your worker meeples will look like but on your turn you're going to place a worker on a spot and also play a card from your hand you always have to place a worker and play a card and there are different colors around the board and if you play a card from your hand that matches the color of the action space that you took so for instance if i went to this green space and played a green card you get to do the action on the board as well as the action on top of the card itself so and on a turn you can take a card action and a worker placement action depending on what card you play and these actions can be taken in in any order so i could take this card action and then use some of the resources i gained to take action on the board kind of like that um so very briefly what the actions do some of the actions will just get you resources so for instance any action space that shows just the square resources that look kind of like well i don't have a card that shows it but in the action space that just shows these resource squares when you come here you will gain those resources so if i were to go here i would gain two steel and a kelp you could get those right from the supply that board action would be done there are also action spaces up here like this one that will allow me to gain some resources or do an upgrade action which we can talk about during the game there are also some spaces up here for instance that will allow me to come and activate a card which we will have during the game and then gain an assortment of resources so those are some of the main actions that you can take on the board and the actions on the board will also line up on the card so the the resource the icons will be similar you'll see the same types of icons on the cards as you see on the board there are also a number of different symbols showing a structure of some kind and an arrow down an arrow down sorry these action spaces right here allow you to build things into your civilization so for instance if i were to come here this action spot allows me to build two yellow buildings and the yellow buildings look like this so i would be able to build two of these yellow disks there's a cost associated with that which we can look at here in a second if i were to come here i could build either a clear city or a red symbiotic city if i were to come here i could activate an action card and then build one tunnel if i were to come here i could either build two white disks or two green disks which are labs and farms if i were to come up here i could build a city and then one of my choice a white yellow or green disk so what is the cost associated with building well if you look on your handy-dandy player reference that is included in the game all of the costs for building things are shown here on the left side so for instance to build a green farm you would have to pay one kelp to build a uh a yellow desalination plant you would have to pay one credit to build a white building you would have to pay one steel to build a tunnel you would have to pay a steal and a credit and then to build these cities down here you would have to pay these resources shown depending on what type of city you're wanting to build and all of these buildings and cities will produce things for you during the production phase which we'll look at later in the game so for instance each farm will produce a kelp each desalination plant will produce some money and so forth and so on these red cities will produce points down here at the bottom but the cool thing is that you can upgrade these buildings so a normal building might produce one kill but if you upgrade it it'll produce a kelp and a point and if you have two upgraded buildings in the same city it will produce the goods shown on the right column so upgrading your buildings can really be beneficial as well and when you are building bill buildings or cities on your board you have to keep in mind some kind of adjacency rules some building rules anytime you're building a city you can build it adjacent to an existing city so for instance i could build a city here here or here anything connected by a road and you can build buildings next to your existing cities or next to a city plot where you can build so for instance on my turn if i wanted to build one of these buildings i could either put it down here in one of these available spots next to my city or i could put it in an available spot next to a city that i could build in the future but i couldn't come all the way up here and build in a city plot because i can't i don't have access to this plot yet until i build something here or here or here so that's kind of how the building rules work you also have to build tunnels starting from your base city so this is how you kind of build your network you start building tunnels from your start city and then expand out from there anytime you build a new tunnel it always has to connect back to your city and things won't produce unless they are connected to your network and to be connected to your network it has to be able to draw a tunnel line back to your starting city so for instance if i built a city right here and then i built a city out here on a future turn i can do that because i first built here and then i could build here in an adjacent city but only this city is connected because it has a tunnel connecting it back to my starting city this city is not connected yet so it wouldn't produce and no buildings around this city would produce either so that is kind of how um building works and you can also like i said upgrade your buildings or your tunnels if you want to anytime you see this symbol down here which i know it's a little tough to see on the on the top down camera or this symbol right here this means that that is something you can upgrade and typically you spend science to upgrade a building so for instance if i came here once again i could either gain two science or i could spend up to three science to upgrade three buildings three structures those are almost all of the actions [Music] you like i said you can come and activate action cards so when you come to these action card spaces you simply get to exhaust an action card and then gain the resource that's shown on the top or gain the action that's shown on the top so for instance if i were to activate this starting action i could gain a steal or a credit and once these cards are activated they are exhausted for the era not just for the round so you have to kind of think about when you're going to activate these cards you can also come down here to gain special cards and these are in-game scoring bonuses these cards are very powerful you always want to pay attention to them they can either well they cost money to play and they will always give you victory points at the end of the game which are tough to come by so you always want to try and keep as many of these cards grab as many of these cards as you can but they cost to play so i could come to this spot and grab any one of these special cards that i wanted to but to play this card it would cost me three credits and they take up space in your hand i haven't mentioned it yet but you have a hard hand limit of three cards meaning you can't ever start a turn with more than three cards in your hand unless you have a special ability um so that can be tough because these cards will take up one of your hand spaces so they're gonna they're gonna kind of gum up your hand if you don't get rid of them or play them you can also come and pick cards from this special card stack these cards are a little bit cheaper so they will help you out in that way we'll briefly talk about turn order and then we will talk about cards in a little bit more detail anytime you see one of these little globe symbols this means move up on the turn order track this matters a lot more in a multiplayer game but it will come into play in a single player game as well and as you move up this track you'll gain benefits based on how far you go so if you go here you would gain a credit a steal and a victory point this is the symbol for a victory point right here i can show that up close this oh that card's disappearing this is the symbol for victory points in the game so anytime you see that symbol that means gain some type of a victory point so we're going to be playing cards on our turn as well as action pawns so the cards come in a few different types they will come in like i said one of three different colors they will also have a different symbol up on the top left depending on what type of card it is there are instant cards that you just play them and discard them and they're done their effect happens there are cards up here that have this infinity symbol these cards are played out on your turn and they remain for the entire game and they will give you some type of a cool benefit and the benefit is typically described at the bottom of the card this game does a really good job of doing that um there are also production cards that have this gear symbol this means that these cards activate during the production phase and they can be very powerful and then there are end game scoring cards right here that have this clock symbol these cards will score you points at the end of the game so you play them out on your turn and they just hang out there and score you points only at the end of the game so that being said that is a good overall kind of catch you up on how to play the game and just a general idea of how to play as we build our city if we can reach certain metropolis tiles out here on the edge they will give us certain benefits so we will hopefully get that to happen during the game so we can talk about that kind of as it happens um but that being said we are ready to go we're ready to start playing and this this evening hopefully i will win last night i did not win to win this game i need to build seven connected cities and have a hundred or more points that's how you win in the solo game so that is going to be my goal tonight now that being said i've paid attention to some of the in-game scoring cards out here there are cards that will give me bonuses for building yellow buildings and for having money and pink resources which yellow buildings can produce all of those things so based on the special cards that were dealt out at the start of this game i think i'm going to kind of go towards a money generating strategy and we're going to see how that works so that being said we are ready to start the game at the start of the round in the solo player game the rightmost action space of each color is blocked so for instance for the first round this action space will be blocked this action space will be blocked and this action space will be blocked so i can't take these actions on my turn but um i do have a card that will allow me that will allow me to use an action space that is blocked if i should desire to do that so um i think i may but i'm not 100 sure if i want to do that just yet because i think what i want to do is start off by trying to get some get some buildings out generate my generate my city just a little bit and and generate some resources now i am going to try like i said to connect to these metropolis tiles with tunnels because if you connect to them with tunnels they give you instant benefits and some of them will also produce things for you during the production phase both of my tiles actually produce these things so for instance this tile if i can reach it it will give me instantly up top a steel and a science and down below you can see the little production gear that means that this tile will also produce a point during the production phase so i think i want to try and get to that tile before the first production phase so i can get some points from it so that being said what i want to do first is i want to come out here to this spot and build two two buildings i want to build two yellow desalination plants and the desalination plants uh will cost one credit each so i've come to this spot i also have to play a card on my turn and i can do that before or after my turn but i'm just going to go ahead and spin these two credits these clinky metal credits that i got from bgg they're so they're so fantastic i love them to build two desalination plants now when i build desalination plants i could build them next to an existing city or i could build them up to one space away where i have some some city spots where i could build as well i think i'm going to put them next to my existing city though because this city my starting city will produce during the production phase so i want to make sure and put them next to this city so that they will for sure produce during the production phase just in case i'm not able to build out a city in any other direction okay so that being said i've done the board action now i'm going to play my card and the card action simply says gain two credits and draw one card so i will draw a card and gain two credits and then at the end of your turn you always draw an additional card so i'll finish off my turn by drawing one more card now like i said you have to start your next turn with only three cards because that's your hand limit so i have to chunk one of these cards before my next turn so i think what i'm going to do this is a very simple card it just says give you a credit that's great the cards will kind of the way the colors and the actions work is the green actions are the best are sorry the green actions are the weakest but they have the best cards the red is kind of in the middle between cards and actions and the yellow actions are the best but they have the weakest cards so i have um let's see here i have a i have mainly yellow cards which means i'm going to want to [Music] um which means i'm going to want to go ahead and take a yellow action and i probably should have taken this yellow action i probably should have taken my actions in a different order because i have a card that would would have given me a bonus for placing my second yellow disk so i think i'm going to get rid of this card and i'm going to keep these three so what i will do now is i will come up to this action space right here and this action space allows me to activate one of my a cards gain two resources from those three that are showing and then play a yellow card so i think first off i'm just going to go ahead and activate this card and i'm going to get myself a i'm going to get myself a [Music] credit from the no i'm going to get myself a steal from this then from the action space i'm going to gain a science and a kelp so now i have two of each resource and with the exception of this pink resource i want to get this as quickly as possible um let's see here um and then i get to play my yellow card so i think i'm just going to go ahead and play this yellow card out so this yellow card gives me an ongoing benefit it says every time i place my second yellow city yellow building rather next to a connected city i gain one credit so i'm going to play that one out and that is a benefit that i'll just get going forward now i'm going to end out my turn by drawing one more card and now i will take my third and final turn and what do i want to do so i need to build out towards one of these tiles i would like to build to this city or this city hmm so i think i'll build a city i'm going to play i'm going to build a city and play i'm gonna build a city and play um a card so what do i want to do here i think um actually you know what i could also i would also like to upgrade some things and the upgrade spots about to be blocked next turn so i'm going to go up here and do the upgrade action and i will play this card out that sim sli that simply just gives me a coin so i'll play this card out go ahead and get my coin and then now i'm going to take the action of the spot now this spot will either give me two science or i can pay one science up to three times to upgrade up to three buildings so i only have two science so i'm gonna pay two science and upgrade these two buildings now when you upgrade buildings and they are these little disk buildings you just stack another disk on top to show that they are upgraded if i were upgrading a tunnel i would flip the tunnel over to show that it's upgraded so now i have two upgraded cities two upgraded buildings rather in the same city which means i'm going to get the max production from these building types on my first production phase so that is great news and i will finish off my turn by drawing a card and now oh and this is great and now uh the round is over which means we will move into round two and the action spaces will now be blocked they will rotate which one are blocked now a thing about the solo game if you don't move up one space on the turn order track during the round an additional action space has to be blocked during the next round so for instance um let's see here this action space is going to this action pawn right here is going to block an action space as well each one of these will move one space clockwise and then the way we figure out which additional spot is going to be blocked is we draw a card off the top of the deck and we add the numbers together on the bottom left of the card so this one says six zero so we will count six spaces and block that spot as well one two three four five six this spot is already blocked so we go to the next space in clockwise order and it is blocked so now i have even less choices on my next turn which is a bummer but it's okay because i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to come to this space so here's what i'll do um at the end of the game if i can build out to this to this tile i will get two points for every special card that i've played at the end of the game so any card from this stack or any card from this uh face up display so i think to start off my next turn what i'm going to do is i'm going to come to this red space and draw a special card now when you draw special cards you could either draw one of the face up cards from the middle or you could draw the top card from this deck that's face up or you could chunk this card to the bottom of the deck draw three cards and pick one but i actually really want this card from the top of the deck because this is a sweet card this one during the production phase will just simply produce a money and two kelp and that's fantastic because you need kelp to feed your cities and money is really hard to come by so i'm just simply going to draw that card off the top of the deck and flip it to replace it now this one looks like a really cool card as well um you can build a desalination plant and a tunnel for free wow that card is really strong so i might want to come and grab that card as well now the only bummer with these uh special cards is once again they do take up space in your hand so i draw that card immediately as part of my turn now i need to play a card from my hand so i'm going to play this one and this one just simply says that i can build a city immediately with a discount of one credit so i'm going to take that action now normally when you're building cities it will cost to steal a credit and a kelp um but this one since i get a discount of one credit will just cost me two steel and one kelp so i'll pay two steel and one kelp and i get to build out one of these normal cities i wish i could build out a red city but i don't have any pink biomatter yet i'll produce that hopefully in the first production phase well i will produce some of it so i think i kind of want to go this way although i could go up here i could go up here and gosh get a bump on the on the turnover track whenever you cover whenever you cover certain things um [Music] certain symbols uh when you're building things you will typically get bonuses but i think i want to go this way because this one will produce points for me and it gives me a pretty sweet bonus so i'm going to go this way i'm going to build a city right here and that happens on my turn now unfortunately i do have to draw another well i say unfortunately i have to draw another card on my turn which is going to put me uh one card above my hand limit and i think i want to chunk a orange card which is going to only leave me with green actions that i can take but i think i think that's okay let me think about this for a second no oh man i'm gonna chunk this orange card but i may not want to just take green actions we'll see we'll see what i will see what i need to do all right so uh next action i'm going to take i am going to i'm going to go right let's see here i'm going to go right here and build two more desalination plants now a couple things are going to happen because of this which is great i'm going to build two desalination plants and i'm going to build them next to this city right here now this space has nothing on it but this space has a steel so whenever i cover this steel space i gain the steel immediately and i also have this card out that says oh never mind this one's not connected yet ah i need to possibly do that in a different order oh boy how do i want to do this this one's not connected yet because i don't have a tunnel to it so i need to rethink the timing of how i'm going to do this [Music] okay so instead of doing it in that order i need to do it slightly differently how do i need to do this i need to have a road out okay so unfortunately and i didn't have that steel because of that so unfortunately i need to do something slightly different so i am going to have to i'm gonna have to build a road first but i need to get steel so here's what i'll do i'll come here and i will uh play my card before i take the action so i'm gonna pay one credit i'm gonna pay one credit to let's see here oh man i could take i could take the action space of another of another action space okay so here's what i'm gonna do i am going to take this action right here and before i take my actual action i'm going to pay one credit to take the action of an occupied space on the board i'm going to take this action space and i will gain two steel and a kelp now i also get to take this action right here as my main action so i'll draw two cards and then i will either get to gain a kelp or spend the science to upgrade i think i'm going to um i think i'm gonna just gain a kelp because i don't have a science to spend so that that handles that now at the end of my turn i will draw one more card and i have to discard down to now i have to discard down to three cards so i want to discard this card and man these are all great cards um i guess i'll discard this card what a bummer all right so now i need to come up to let's see up here to build some roads i think so here's what i'll do i will come up here i'm gonna play a yellow card out so this is just simply an action card so when you play action cards you play them out into your tableau and you can have up to four in your display during the game that's a limit of four so i first do that and now i can build up to two roads on this turn so i will do that i will build two roads now a road each costs a credit and a steal which is a bummer because i need those credits to play these cards so i need to get some money um somehow but what i need to do first is build some roads so one steel and one credit builds a road and whenever i build a road i can build out starting from my starting city so i can either build here here or here and i think i'm going to build starting right here so that this city is connected and i'm covering up a little federation symbol so i get one bump on the turn order track and then for my second action for my second build i think i want to build right here because i'm hopefully maybe going to be able to connect to this tile before the production phase so those are all three of my turns i did move up on the production fa uh track the uh turn order track so i don't have to block an additional space this round but it is round end so these will all move one space in a clockwise direction and i'll get my workers back my sub submarine meeples move one space forward and then draw a card to end off my last turn okay fantastic this is great so i need to get some money and i need to play some desalination plants so what do i need to do on my turn well let's see how can i get money there is one space on the board that you can go to as many times as you want and it just simply says chunk a card from your hand and draw two cards and gain two credits that's not terrible but it's not the best what i think i'm gonna do instead is i am going to come up here oh man all of my all of my actions oh i could do this okay so i'm going to come here and then i'm going to discard this card right here so that means that i'm going to move up four spaces on the turn order track in one turn which is pretty big so one two three four now because i did that i gained one steal or one credit one steal and one point so i'll gain my point i'll gain a steal and i'll gain a credit and then that is my first turn i will draw a card to replace what i had oh my goodness i'm just drawing all green cards these are all really good actions but man um this is tough because i have to go down here and take the green actions to play them boy oh boy i want all of these cards too these are all fantastic cards this is a card that just gives me great stuff during production this is a card that lets me turn a money into a biomatter which would potentially allow me to build a red city before the production happens but i need to get credits to do that man man what i need to do i have two turns and i need to gain some money somehow so i could oh man if i could get one more credit so i might oh man this is the worst this is the absolute worst okay so i'm gonna come here gosh i hope this works out okay i'm gonna come here draw two more cards um that did not work out like i wanted it to gain one more kelp and play a green card so i need to play i want to play this card because this card is really really fantastic this is a great card this one allows me to take this action and spend two science to upgrade three buildings instead of three science which is a really strong action so that is my last that's the last of that turn and i will now draw another card so i have to discard down to three cards now and i think i'm going to get rid of these two cards and keep these three now i desperately need one more credit for a number of reasons so i am unfortunately going to go here activate my a card giving me one credit and one point which is good that's a very good thing but the card that i play on this turn i'll just have to discard for no benefit so i think uh i want to gain a steal and a science as my two resources to finish off this action and now i just need to chunk a card so i'm going to get rid of this card because it's good but it's not good enough to warrant me keeping it over these other cards oh my goodness that is fantastic man these are these are such great cards these green cards are so good all right so that's my that's my turn we are in the next to last round before production and i am not nearly as far along as i would like to be this is bad um i do go here i do go here and then i oh no it blocks the desalination plant that was my plan so i'm gonna have to adjust okay we can do something else we can make this happen all right this is not starting off how i would like it to start off however so here's what i'm going to do i am going to i'm going to start off the next round by playing this spot right here no because if i do that i won't get enough so i have to do this first so i'm going to go right here and i'm going to play this green card which says if you have a connected upgraded desalinization plant you gain one biomatter i do have that which means i gain a biomatter on my turn which is fantastic this will allow me to potentially do what i want to do oh man oh that would have been great if i could have played that and then used it which i can i can do that if i can go to an a action card space okay all right so here's what i want to do that was my first turn and i drew a card for my second turn second turn what i want to do is i want to go uh i want to go here oh wait i didn't actually take my action i get two bumps and a credit that's the whole reason i went there that's the whole reason i went there okay so next action i'm going to come here to build a building and as part of my green action this time i'm going to spend one credit to play this card so i have to spend the credit to play the card but that card is so fantastic it's great it's a production card that produces me lots of extra cool goods during the production phase then in addition to that card i want to build a city so i now have the goods i need to build a um what's the word i'm looking for symbiotic city the red cities so to do that i have to pay one pink one steel and one green and two credits unfortunately but that does mean that i will get to that i will get to play um this city out and it's connected which means it will produce two points during the first production phase so i will now go here hmm and i now have one more turn to do a thing what do i want to do man i need to get resources i need to i wish i had the things i needed to build one tunnel that would be fantastic if i could build one tunnel but i don't have the money so instead i am going to go [Music] hmm i guess i could go here and upgrade one of my tunnels with a science but that doesn't seem super efficient what do my cards tell me i could go out and play do this so i think i'm going to try and prepare a little bit for the next round for upgrading some things so i'm going to go out here and get to science which is really good and then i'm going to play this a action card which allows me to spin to steal to build a tunnel which is really strong and then i will get to draw one card and we are at the end of the first era so this is what happens at the end of an era first off you will produce um on your spaces and then you will handle production and then you'll set up for the next era so what will happen during the production phase is each one of our cities will produce so normally what happens during a production phase is each building will produce what's shown on the left side if it's just a single stacked building if you have one double stack building in a city it will produce these goods right here but if you have two upgraded buildings in the same city it will produce these goods so for me for instance i have two upgraded desalination plants in the same city which means i'm gonna get three credits and two biomatter which is great because the biomatter is awesome and it's hard to come by so i gained three credits i gained two pink one more credit and two okay one more credit and two um kelp doo doo doo and then now i have to feed my city so i have to pay one kelp for each connected city which means i'm gonna have to chunk three kelp and now we're ready to move on to the next round so at the end of at the end of an era you always get rid of the old era's deck of cards and then you shuffle up and draw three new cards from the next era's deck so i have the era 2 deck right here so i will shuffle these up make sure they're nice and shuffled i'll draw three cards and then i'll move into the next era so i really need to think about a few things i need to i have a little bit of money now which is good but i need to try and get as many special cards as i can because that's my end end game bonus here i need to try and make sure that i can build seven cities which is going to be tough i really need to have a really big second production phase so to do that i need to make sure i am generating plenty of money and resources so i need to get some steel i need to make sure i'm generating kelp got to do lots of things all right so i will draw three cards from this deck and now we will set up for the next round so i did move up on the turn order track so i don't have to block a fourth space all of these markers will move to the next space in clockwise order so i believe they rotate back to this spot and i have to go again so let's see here before i do that i need to look at my three era two cards and see which ones i want to keep let's see here and if anybody's chatted i apologize it says that i'm it's unable to connect to chat so if you're saying anything let me say this let me do a test okay i am seeing chat so if you're if you're saying something in chat i should be able to see that all right so i drew three cards here and they seem pretty good um science and one card uh man that's not bad all of these seem pretty good so i think i definitely want to keep this because i was in money trouble last round so i'm gonna keep this card which means i have to get rid of one card from my hand so out of the three cards that i have i'm gonna get rid of this card so i'm just keeping nothing but green cards in my uh in my hand so we'll see we'll see how that works out let's see here all right sweet so now i get to start again so what do i want to do i want to build some desalination plants in a big way i want to i probably need to build a couple of farms this round but i think what i want to do first oh sorry you also reset your action cards at the start of each era and now we're here alright so here's what i want to do i think i want to take a green action to start myself off i want to build two desalination plants which is going to cost me two credits so i'll pay those two credits build these two plants and i want to build them here and here which will give me a couple of things i'll gain a steal and since i have built my second desalinization plant next to a connected city i gained one credit back so really that action cost me one credit to build the two buildings which is fantastic and the card that i want to play is this card this is an action card that will allow me to just simply gain two money and one steal which is fantastic for what i want to do all right and i will finish off my turn by drawing one extra card and that is that pay one science or one credit to upgrade one of my farms that's not bad that's not bad at all okay so here's something else i want to do i want to go to this location and build a couple of farms because i need to build forms but what should i man okay actually what i should probably do okay here's what i'll do i'll go right here this will allow me to do a few things first off i get to play a yellow card so this is the yellow card that i have i'm about to play a my fourth my fifth uh action card and as i said earlier you can only have four action cards in your tablet what happens whenever you play one more than your limit is you bump one of your previously played action cards and if you bump a card that is unexhausted you can actually use the benefit of that card when you bump it so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna keep one credit i'm gonna get one credit from this card and this action card is now gone from the game i can no longer use it but that actually allows me to then use one action card and if i wanted to i could use the action card that i just played before my main action but i actually want to use this action card to spin one steal and gain a road so to do that i am going to like i said spend one steal and then i'm going to build a road right here and this is great because this connects me to this tile to this metropolis tile which i will gain the goods from this metropolis tile instantly and this metropolis tile will will generate points during my next production phase so right away when i connect to this tile i gain a steel and a science and then i don't gain the point until my next production phase uh so that's done and now i actually get to gain the resources down here so i'm going to gain a kelp and a steel and that's that okay so i get to draw another card and then it is on to my third and final action oh man what an action card okay so i think for my third and final action i want to sorry this should be reset i don't think i have i've gained anything on this track for this round for my third and final action card i think i want to come here oh no but the upgrade spot is going to be okay so i think i'll do this instead i will i'll go here because this spot's about to get blocked and unfortunately that means i'm going to waste a card action this turn but it's important that i do that and upgrade some stuff so i'm going to spend two signs to upgrade three things because i have this benefit right here that says i can upgrade three buildings for two science instead of three i'm going to upgrade these two desalination plants and i am going to upgrade one tunnel so when you uh let's see here so i'm gonna upgrade this tunnel which means it'll produce a point and a steal or a credit during the next production phase and then i have to just chunk a card so i think i'm gonna chunk this card unfortunately and not gain the benefit which is a real bummer but i needed to take that action before it got blocked so next round we'll start now and um the unfortunate thing about that is that this action space will be blocked and i'll have to block an additional action space because i did not move up on the turn order track so sorry i need to draw an extra card oh that one's not bad all right um so this action space now becomes blocked this action space now becomes blocked and this action space now becomes blocked and in addition i have to block one more action space by adding these two numbers together seven and zero so i add 70 together or sorry seven and count this many spaces one two three four five six seven this space also gets blocked which is a bummer for sure [Music] okay what do i want to do what do i want to do well i think the first thing i want to do is i want to [Music] oh this will be interesting okay so i want to come right here for my first turn and before okay i'm going to do this action first so we can see how a little bit of an interaction will work the timing of when you take your actions and why that matters so i'm going to um i'm going to play this action first spending two kelp to build two farms i really need some farms because i need to be able to generate enough food to feed the cities that i'm going to be feeding a building rather for the rest of the game so i will build these two farms then as the card that i'm going to play on my turn i'm going to play this red action card and i think i am going to bump this action card which was still up which says you can spend a credit or a science to upgrade one of your farms so i get to upgrade one of my farms that i just built which is fantastic and i will spend a credit to upgrade that farm i believe instead of the science because i want to use the science to upgrade three buildings on one of my future turns here oh my goodness so i have an expand i've had not a lot of food today and a lot of coffee so i've got the shakes all right um okay that one's not bad okay so i have two more actions and what do i want to do i definitely want to build a city i believe and i want to build and i want to build as many buildings as possible so i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to come up to this action space right here so this action space simply allows me to build a city and then build one building of my choice now before i before i build a city i'm going to use this action just because i can this one says gain this one says spend one kelp to game one biomatter so the reason i will do that biomatter is always good to have because it's a wild resource as far as steel and kelp are concerned it can be steel or kelp and then i'm going to build a city so what i'm going to do is i'm going to build a symbiotic city by spending one one biomatter as biomatter one biomatter as one biomatter is biomatter one biomatter as kelp and then i'm going to spend one steal and two credits to build a symbiotic city and i'm going to build it right i'm gonna build it right here and i need to connect this city somehow but then in addition i can i can build one building so i think i am going to build uh i think i'm gonna build a lab because labs will give me science and steel if i can upgrade them so i'm going to do this right here and build a lab right here now i'm using the alternate side of the board they want you to use the alternate side of the board for the solo player game normally on the basic side of the board each city has three spots for buildings the alternate side of the board has some spots with four spaces for buildings and then you know two spaces here or there there are also spots that have little dotted outlines around them those can only be built on if you have a special card that lets you build on those spaces they're kind of reserved locked spaces so um i'm able to actually build four buildings in this city which is good for in-game scoring if i can make something happen and we'll see about that uh let's see here so what do i want to do i need special cards as many as i can get i need to build roads so i need to i need to at least connect this city what can i do can i come to any spaces that will allow me to gain what i need wow okay so um so i need to build roads but i only have one steel oh i have a biomatter okay so here's what i'm gonna do i am going to come to this space to let me build two roads the only bummer is that um man oh man oh man okay i need to build two roads because i need to connect to this city so that it can produce so i'm going to use one steel and one biomatter as a steel and then two credits to build two roads and i think actually i'm gonna spend three credits because here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna build two roads one right here and then one right here but to build right here there's a surcharge of one extra credit so i'm gonna spend third credit to be able to build there but the reason that that is cool is now this city is connected which means it will produce points during the production phase and then this road space actually produces two points as well on it if you are able to build here so i'm able to do that that being said though i do just have to chunk a card which is the worst i'm going to chunk this green card which is a really good card but it doesn't really help me with what i'm trying to do long term okay and this one says every time i build a symbiotic dome i have a discount of one credit this is huge i absolutely want to play this card from now on in the next round because i only have one more round before production and i need to save as much money as possible and i still need to build three cities before the end of the game to even be eligible to win the game um so man there's lots that i need to do um okay so here's what i'm gonna do uh we need to do the end of round cleanup because we are in the next to last round in the second era i do have to block an additional space because i didn't move up on the turn order track that gets blocked this gets blocked unfortunately this gets blocked and let's hope that the science upgrade space does not get blocked i have card 111 so i add one one and one for three one two three this space gets blocked which is a bummer because desalinization plants are great that being said i didn't have any money to build a desalination plant anyway so it's probably okay what i need to do okay okay what do i need to do i have three turns to try and make as much happen as possible um i need to i need to play this card in a big way i need to play this card um [Music] this one would allow me to build a desalination plant oh man so many good cards okay so i think the first thing i'm going to do i think the first thing i'm going to do is come to this location get two steel and a kelp and play this red card which gives me a benefit gives me a bonus or a discount rather every time i build a symbiotic city so i definitely want to do that because that is a huge benefit it's a great benefit i will now draw a card this is great whenever you play or claim a card with the symbol oh man or claim a card oh wow okay that one's really great too and i need to use a yellow spot so this is all coming up this is all coming up perfectly all right so now what i want to do is i want to go to this space to upgrade well yeah i think i'm going to do that i'm going to do that first so that i can play this card and then go to that space for my third action so what i want to do is go here i want to play two science i'm going to pay two signs to upgrade three structures so i'm going to upgrade these two structures meaning i'll get the food that i so desperately need in the production phase and i will get hopefully plenty of biomatter which i'm going to need to build some cities hopefully and then i will upgrade another tunnel that's what i will do all right [Music] that being said i'm also going to play this yellow card this yellow card says whenever you play and claim a card with the um with the infinity symbol you gain a credit including this card so i gain one credit right now that is fantastic i need as many credits as i can possibly get and i'll finish off my turn by drawing a card uh oh wow this one could be big but i i need to play i need to draw a special card i really do i need to make sure that i play some special cards out so i think i'm gonna have to come here i will play this red card to immediately gain one steal which steel is great you need as much of that as possible as well you kind of need as much of everything as possible in this game uh as you can so i'm going to go there spin that and then i will draw one card so i think i'm going to draw this card to start off with this is going to give me two points at the end of the game for every upgraded desalinization plant that i have next to a connected city i already have four so this is already an eight point card now it will cost me three credits to play but i definitely think that is worth it um and i think that's that i thought i was in the next to last round i think i forgot to move my action marker i think that's what happened okay because i know we were gonna produce at the end of this round uh okay let's see here and i'm gonna have an extra action left here which i did not think i was gonna have which is interesting hmm can i do anything with this extra action wait i went here at the start of the i think i'm done sorry i'm i'm i'm super distracted by these cards one of the things in this game is you will uh you will you can totally get lost in your head about the strategy what you're trying to do and uh just completely lose track of steps in the round so like i said i should have moved the round marker at the end of the last round so i've played all of my actions i've done all of my things so i'm going to move into our second production phase and now i will have a much better production phase which is great because i need more resources and hopefully i'll be able to do some good things here all right so we're going to go city by city and produce this city will produce three credits and two biomatter so i'll go ahead and get those three credits one two three two biomatter one two ah sorry this city will also produce three credits and two biomatter so i'm gonna take a five give two back uh and two biomatter fantastic this city is going to produce three food and three points for the um one two three and three food and then in addition to that it also has one upgraded lab which will give me a science and a steel which is great i need that as well and then now we will produce for our roads and cities so this one produces i produce one two three four five credits for these roads and two of the roads also produce a couple of points so i'll go one two then in addition to that this spot produces two extra points this tile produces a point and these cities produce two points apiece for one two three four points i'm starting to gain some points now which is great but i think i'm behind i feel like i'm behind we're gonna see if we can pull this out but i'm not feeling super confident about that at the moment okay so that being said we are now into era 3 somehow this game is like flying by how long have we been recording uh let's see here i've been going for a little over an hour goodness gracious am i am i really playing this quickly or did am i just drastically skipping things i only have three more rounds left and let me tell you i've got some stuff i want to do that i don't know if i'm gonna be able to get done how's everybody doing hopefully everybody's having a good night as i clean up here sorry i forgot i need to feed my cities so that's gonna get rid of all my kelp which is a bummer hopefully everybody's having a great evening today has been an insane day for me um for more than one reason work has been nuts and so i thought to myself you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna go for try number two at beating underwater cities i'm gonna try and beat it and feel proud about myself i doubt that i am going to beat the game but we are just giving it our best shot all right so here we go here we go these are nice and shuffled i draw three cards and then all of these reset oh i forgot to produce this my bad i get one extra credit and two kelp that is amazing because i spent almost all my kelp so that's really good i'm so glad i didn't forget that all right i'm gonna see if let's see if these cards are good enough to keep this one says you can build a building on an expansion site pay the usual cost that's really good that is not a bad uh card at all you may rotate one of your used action cards to make it available again or gain two cards that one's really good as well and once per turn when you build a tunnel advance two spaces on the federation track these are all really good i think i want to keep these two which means that i'm going to chunk these two okay so i'm good to go i'm good to go i think i'm okay now since i didn't advance on the federation track i need to block this space block this space block this space and then figure out which extra space needs to be blocked on my turn so to do that once again we are going to find the number on this which is one three oh man bummer i would have liked to have that one three one so for a total of five one two three four five this spot gets blocked which is a bummer i need as many special cards as i can get alrighty okay so i need to i need to do some stuff i need to do some stuff and some things i need to build three cities this round which is going to be very difficult i need to build three cities and connect them to be eligible to win this game so i really need to make sure that i can build three cities and connect them with roads and also hopefully connect these things right here so boy all right so here's what i'm going to do first things first i'm going to come to this action space to allow me to build a city um i'm going to play this card on this action space that says every time i build a tunnel once per turn i can bump up twice on the turn order track which i am definitely going to do in addition to that because of this yellow car that says whenever you play and claim a card with an infinity symbol i gain a credit so i gain one credit back which is great then i get to build the city so i'm going to pay two steel no one steal one red one green and only one credit because i get a discount of one to build a symbiotic city now thanks to this car that's played out there and i will get to build a symbiotic city which is fantastic i want to do as much of that as possible i think i'll build right here which means that this one is connected and i will finish off my finish off my turn by drawing a card turn number one done and done okay next action i want to come to i want to come to this space right here i want to first oh man i want to first use an action actually first off i'm gonna pay three credits to get this card played i need to get i need to make sure that this card is played out so i get two back i'm paying my three credits and i'm playing this card because at the end of the game this one gives me two points for every upgraded yellow building that i have and there is no maximum on that there's no cap which is a big time scoring bonus for me there all right so i've played that now i get to activate one a action card so i think i'm going to activate this card that allows me to spin to steal and build a road and whenever i build a road on my turn because of this one i get to bump up twice on the turn order track so one two which will give me a credit fantastic it's all coming together and then now i can actually if i wanted to i could spend a steal and a credit to build another road which i probably need to do because i'm probably going to need to do that because i need to build four total roads in this round to even be eligible to win because i need to connect seven cities one two three four five six seven i need to connect seven cities so i'm going to connect this one right here because now i'm connected to this tile which will score me big points at the end of the game and i will finally finish off my turn by drawing that to pay two credits to build on to build any building on an expansion site that sounds great okay so what do i want to do to finish off my first round in era 3 here well i could go [Music] i could go here get some resources that i need play this action card and bump off this action card to gain its benefit that seems like it wouldn't be a bad move but i also need to make sure that i can build three buildings in this round oh boy and that action space is going to be blocked next round so i think i actually need to do that i need to come up here and build a building so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to play this instant card to just gain a bio matter that's great that is fantastic i need to do that biomatter is really good because it can replace steel it's great in almost every situation so what do i want to do i want to pay my one steal one kelp and one biomatter and one credit to build another city out there so i'll do that steal one credit okay and now uh i get to build my building so i'm going to build this one out here and i'll build it right here it doesn't really matter i don't think but i'll just build it right there now i get to build one building of my choice as well so i think because of my card i want to build more i want to build more desalinization plants and i think i'll build it right here so that this city is worth the most points at the end of the game the reason i say that is each city is worth more points if you have more building types around it so i'm gonna surround this this city with as many building types as possible and i've done all of the things that i can do on my turn so i will draw a card to finish off my turn and that is that um getting one point that's not bad alright so into the round we are into the next to last round in era three which is uh things are getting down to the wire now the good news is is that since since i didn't since i bumped up on the turn order track i don't have to block an extra action space this round i do however have to block this space block this space which is a bummer because i'm going to hopefully try and get one more uh one more special card that i can play before the end of the game but we will see and now we're in that round and that's that okay so what am i gonna do i need to build one more city and i need to i need to build one more city and i need to build two more roads so i'm gonna need i'm gonna need this action space uh okay so i think my first turn even though this isn't a super exciting turn i think i need to do this i need to go here and play this card which will give me the ability to bump one of my other action cards and i think i'm gonna bump this action card to gain two credits and a steal i need all of those i can get and a steel and then for the actual action space i'm going to gain two steel and a kelp seems pretty good right all right now i will draw a card and that's my first turn um okay okay second turn what do i need to do second turn i need to uh let's see i need to build a seventh i need to build my seventh and final city i do need to do that and i could also oh man i could also do [Music] okay so i can go here i'm going to first off play this card that just says i can build on any expansion site paying the usual cost so the expansion sites are the sites off to the side of a building that is normally blocked off um and i think i'm going to i think i'm going to i don't want to build here necessarily because i already have three different although i say that i could i could get this could build right there and then have a double upgraded ah that seems really good okay so i'm gonna pay one credit and build another desalination plant on this city so that i can get three double upgraded cities there i i would also potentially like to build one more farm in here to try and make sure that i can produce enough food at the end of the game to support all of my cities because if you don't pay for your if you don't feed your cities with food you have to feed them with these goods right here which are worth extra money so okay so first thing i have uh i've i've done my card to get to build my my expansion site now i need to actually pay a steal of food and a biomatter and one credit to build my seventh city which is great because i need i need that once again to win the game so i'll build it right here and now i just need to build two roads to connect all these bad boys and i will be good to go uh let's see so that is that that's my turn at the end of the game for every science and steel you can gain one point that's not bad all right third turn what do i want to do i think i want to come up here and build two roads to make sure that i can win and hopefully just use the last round to squeeze any points i possibly can out of this this whole situation so i'm gonna pay two steel and two credits to build two roads and i'm gonna build one oh man i'm not gonna be able to upgrade any buildings in the last round ah boy boy oh boy oh boy i would be able to upgrade one building and i could potentially man okay well that's a bummer um i need to build the building i need to build the tunnels to win so i need to make sure that i do that so i'm going to do that okay so that being said i am going to build a tunnel right here which will give me one science and i'm going to build a tunnel right here which will give me one nothing but it will connect these cities so all these cities are now connected to my network which means i am eligible to win the game if i can get to 100 points which i doubt very seriously but that being said now i do have to play a card and i'm just gonna i am just going to chunk this card without gaining any benefit draw this card and then um now since i did build a road on my turn a tunnel on my turn i do gain two on the point order of the turn order track which will give me one credit and oh okay oh man oh wait i missed a trigger as well sorry whenever i place my second desalinization plant next to a connected city i should have gained an extra credit so i should have one extra credit i need to i need to pay more attention to these okay all right so that's that uh last round before our final production phase and the end of the game we'll see what we do i don't think i don't think i'm gonna win we're here's here's hoping but i don't think i'm gonna win we'll have to see how this goes all right so this this and this okay so what can i do before the end of the round i could build a couple of farms next to a city somewhere i could hopefully if i play this right here i could build a couple of desalination plants which would get me a credit oh boy boy oh boy oh boy but i need i needed to upgrade some things this turn which is a bummer but i think what i need to do first is um i need to hmm i think i need to come up here which will allow me to need to go up there which will allow me to activate one of my a action cards and i think what i'm going to do is pay two credits activate this card pay two credits to build any building on an expansion site so i'm gonna pay two credits and i'm going to build a farm i'm going to build a farm on [Music] this expansion site right here that's what i'm going to do there now i get to gain any two a mix of any two resources so i'm going to gain these i'm going to gain a steel and a kelp that's what i'll do there and now i get to actually play my card so i'm gonna play this card that says i can upgrade i can pay one science and one credit to upgrade two of my tunnels which is great so i have to pay one science and one credit and i get to upgrade two tunnels so i'll upgrade this one why not and this one why not and that is that so i draw a card and there you go oh that's not bad at the end of the game i can't really can't really play that one very well so what i also need to do what i need to do fairly desperately is i think i need to go here play this red card that says if i have three upgraded roads upgraded tunnels i gained two points so i'll do that two points is always nice and then i will take a special uh action card a special card and i'm gonna take this one because it is uh gives me the opportunity to spend 15 credits at the end of the game for 13 points which is a big which is a big swing and then i'll go here um and i have to discard down to three cards for my last action so i think for my last action i'm going to what am i going to do i am going to go to a green location so that i can play my green card but what location do i want to go to i could build two desalination plants which would give me money which i desperately need which i'll probably end up doing that so i'll probably go right here i will spend two credits getting three back one two three and i will pay three credits to play this card out which is a big big time i need to play that card and i'll build my two desalination plants and when i build a second desalination plant to a connected city i gain one credit back so there's that that as they say is that that's the last round that's the last action of the last era so we will produce one more time and then we'll go to to uh score the end of the game i've only gotten to 18 points i think there's a zero percent chance i'm getting to 100 but let's see what happens let's see what happens all right so first we produce this city i gain three credits and actually that'll just put me at five and i'm going to be getting more of this so uh i will get i'm up to five and two biomatter all right so that's that now i will also get one kelp from that city from that farm next spot i will gain three credits and two biomatter all right we're moving now next spot i will gain oh my gosh a lot two credits i will gain one science one steal i'll gain three kelp so that'll put me at five total three kelp and three points one two three um i think that's everything from that city from this city i will gain two credits and i think those are all of the cities that produce from buildings so now i need to produce the extra stuff so uh my my red cities will each produce two points so two four six eight ten points up to thirty one then this tile will produce a point this spot will produce two points and then now all of my roads produce so i get one two three four five six seven eight nine credits so i'll gain a 10 and give one back and then i also produce one two three four points so one two three four points all right let's see what else i can get do i get anything else i don't think so uh so i have to oh yes i do i get two kelp oh fantastic i always forget this card over here i get two kelp and one credit sweet okay so this is the scoring reference card so this is what we will score at the end of the game so first things first we are going to score our golden tile our our yellow tile over here now my yellow tile says at the end of the game i get two points for every special card that i have out in my tableau in my area so i have one two special cards three special cards for a total of six points so one two three four five six now next thing we are going to score is any end game scoring cards i do have two in-game scoring cards that will potentially give me a decent amount of points so this card gives me two points for every upgraded desalination plant i have and i'm just kicking myself that i wasn't able to get these upgraded because that would give me a lot more but as it stands that's gonna give me eight so one two three four five six seven eight oh gosh is it going to work out i don't think so but we'll see next i scored this card so this card i have to spend 15 credits which i do have right here but because of that i get 13 points so up to 62 123 65 oh gosh it's going to be close but it's not going to be close enough i don't think now that card is scored so the next thing i score is my cities so the way the cities work is each city scores two points and then if there's one building type next to it it scores three points if there's two different building types it scores four points and if there's three different building types it scores six points per city so i guess we'll start with the lowest cities first so this is two four six points for these cities one two three four five six uh each one with one type is three points so six more points for these two buildings right here one two three four five six then four points for a building with with a city with two building types one two three four and then six points for this building type one two three four five six oh my gosh is it gonna work out i don't think it's gonna work out that's all for that so now we break down resources and get get points for money no okay so first thing i forgot to feed my cities so i have to pay seven seven kelp to feed my cities and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna break down all of your resources into money and then divide that money for points so each normal resource is worth one coin so these are gonna be four four credits so i'll get a five and give one back and then these are all worth two so two four six eight ten twelve credits man don't you wish every credit was a point that would be great that would be fantastic all right so i don't think it's going to be enough what do we have here we've got 10 5 12 well let's see here 1 0 five six twenty all right so i get a five so we are at twenty three divided by four what oh why why is my my brain broken uh four or five right five points one two three four five ah so i'll say this i did a lot better than i did last night i got to 92 points which is only eight points away from winning the game but i did not any oh man i this is what this game does okay it's so good this game is so good if i had if i had have been able to upgrade these four buildings that would have given me exactly enough to get 100 points if i had been able to just build a couple of extra buildings around some of these some of these cities that would have potentially given me some points if i could have if i could have gotten one more special card before the game was over that would have definitely given me enough to uh to win the game so yeah so many so many tough choices in this game every turn matters i will say this i feel like i got a really slow start which put me put me behind at the end of the first round typically i like to have at least two cities built with double upgraded something right so for my strategy i was trying to go for money based on these cards that were out this card giving you points for money and this card giving you points for every upgraded money building basically the only thing that would have really given me an edge in addition is if i could have somehow snagged this card this card would have allowed me to do i would have been able to trade in every one of my biomatter at the end of the game for two points which would have given me 12 points which would have allowed me to win uh the game so yeah there's man such a good game the combos that you can trigger in this game with these cards over here um just the engine building such a fantastic such a fantastic game it has a great solo variant um people on social media have been telling me that i really need to try the expansion i have ordered the expansion and it's going to show up either tomorrow or the day after is supposedly when the game is going to show up so i'm looking forward to that in a big way hopefully once i get the expansion i can play it even more the expansion is going to add more tiles like this more in-game scoring cards double-sided player boards all of that great stuff so anyway i just love the heck out of this game and i don't want to stream it time after time after time just because i don't want everybody to get tired of watching it but i could i could i've been a big i'm a big fan of this game right now so hopefully y'all uh y'all enjoy the solo playthroughs hopefully it's helpful to teach the game because this is kind of a heavier more complex game so i always learn better if i can watch somebody play it if you like this content let me know give me a thumbs up give me a subscribe leave a comment below that just says you know i like this or i don't like this i'd rather have a pre-prepared type of presentation of the game or something like that i'm still going to be doing my normal how to play videos coming up i will also be doing some stuff for portal con on saturday january 23rd that's going to be coming up we're going to be doing some uh talk we're going to be doing some um breakdowns of a keynote speech we're going to be playing uh the imperial settlers empires of the north uh egyptian kings expansion we're going to be playing some robinson crusoe uh which is an amazing game so yeah let me know let me know games that you might like to see me play if you want to learn a particular game if i can somehow learn it and teach it on stream i would absolutely do that and be happy to play through it if it has a good solo variant um if that would be helpful for a game like robinson crusoe or empires of the north or what other games do i have that i could play solo feast for odin that's a good one that i haven't played in a while wingspan lahav all those games just let me know what you would like to see and i will try to absolutely put that content out for you but thanks so much for hanging out tonight we we consistently had three to four viewers so thanks so much for completing my virtual gaming table with your presence um and hopefully i will see you soon uh hopefully this was helpful as well and like i said let me know what you'd like to see more of in the comments below thanks so much for hanging out everyone and until next time i'll see you at the table

Channel: The Dicey Review

Views: 208

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: underwater cities, how to play, dicey review, vladimir suchy, rio grande games

Id: -fk17QIXuSg

Length: 93min 57sec (5637 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021