Carson City is a game designed by Xavier Georges, with art by Alexander Roche, published by Quined Games. The original game was published back in 2009, with a big box edition published in 2015.
The game is played over the course of 4 rounds, in which players will select a character that gives them a special bonus for the round, as well dictated player order based on an initiative number.
Players will then assign their cowboy workers to different actions on the board, such as purchasing ownership of parcels in the city, buying buildings, gaining money, or gaining victory points. Players can place as many of their cowboys as they would like each round, or pass at any time.
This is the first game in the Winter of Games that didn’t have a tutorial built for it, so if you want to learn this one, you’ll need to read the rulebook or watch a how to play video. I went in an read the rulebook, but I found the rulebook to be poorly organized for giving the information needed to play the game, or it simply could just be my ADHD kicking in. If I have the rulebook and the physical game in front of me, I learn better than just straight reading the rulebook and then trying to play the game, because being able to move and manipulate pieces as I learn the concepts is huge for me. So, I struggled through this one.
The digital implementation from Board Game Arena is fine. The information and the game board is easy to view and interact with. It’s easy to figure out where to put things and how progress through the game.
I have played roughly 3 games (BGA says 4, but the first game my opponent disappeared during the game and I had to cancel it). I think that I am starting to get the hang of it, as I only lost by 5 points on the 3rd game, instead of 15+ points.
I find the character selection, the actions, the city building, and the point scoring to be interesting and engaging in the game. However, I am not keen on the dueling aspect of the game. Your strategy for the game can go quite sideways because another player wants the same actions as you, then the duel is a die roll plus any firepower you have. There is an action slot that allows you to gain firepower, but players can also duel over that slot. So, a poor roll on the die, even with greater firepower than your opponent can lose you the extra firepower slot, almost assuring that you’ll also lose whichever building or other location you’re also competing for.
Additionally, there are certain buildings that easily seem superior to other buildings, so they quickly become contentious, then see the notes on dueling in the prior paragraph.
I owned the physical version of this back around 2015, when the big box was released. At that point in time, my husband and I learned and played it exactly once, then it was a Covid Sale casualty. But I strongly believe we didn’t return to this particular title because it just didn’t inspire us at 2 players, which is our main player count. I originally rated this one at a 7/10 on Board Game Geek.
However, these additional plays have not doing anything to endear it to me. I am changing my rating down to a 4/10. If someone put it on the table and said, we’re going to play this and my options were to play the game or not play a game, I’d play it. But I won’t be revisiting this one on BGA on my own or adding it back to my collection.
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