G@mebox author Ralf Togler writes about the game:

When I first saw La Citta on the game 2000 in Essen, it reminded me at once on the Settlers of Catan. Should Kosmos really try to publish an imitation or a new version of this famous game? My suspicion grew even stronger when I opened the game box and read the introduction the first time. But after playing La Citta a several times I must confess that it is a clever game of its own and has not too much common with the Settlers of Catan exept of the make-up and the background. Perhaps you could say that it is a little bit a mixture between the boardgame and the cardgame of Settlers of Catan with some own elements, which make the game very interesting.

But let us start at the beginning: like in Settlers of Catan each player tries to build and develop his own empire by founding cities. During the game the players can build buildings like marketplaces, statues, universities etc. in the cities an so the cities grow and gain more and more influence.

The biggest problem is that each building has to be occupied by one citizen. Every round the players get one new citizen for each of their cities. But these citizens can also starve if there is not enough food for them or even worse they can emigrate to a city of an enemy with more influence in one of the virtues culture, health and education.

For the prevention of the starvation of the citizens one has to build enough farms at agriculture landscapes. But you may not forget to build some quarries at mountain landscapes to earn money. Otherwise you will not be able to buy bigger buildings which of course cost some coins. With these buildings you get the influence to attract citizens of the nearby towns (at least if you have more influence than the other towns). Each round the people elect one virtue to be the "round virtue". This is done by uncover four cards. On each card there is a symbol with one of the virtues. The majority of the virtues is the round virtue. Of course the cards -except for one- are only uncovered at the very end of the turn after the players have placed their new buildings. But there are possibilities to have a look under one or all of the other cards and so possibly you get to know what the round virtue will be before the other players know. This gives you a big advantage because you can then much better plan to get more influence in this special virtue. At the end of the round you get one citizen (or loose one) from every city which is nearer than two squares and has less (more) influence in the round virtue than your city. But beware! Even this new citizens are hungry ....

At the end of the sixth round the player with the most citizens and the most influence wins the game.

In summary I would say that La Citta is a very interesting game especially if you are playing with three of four people. Every one who likes the Settlers of Catan and always wanted to do some more damage to your enemies will enjoy La Citta. The rules are very simple but nevertheless complex enough to create an eventful and well-balanced game.

Copyright © 2006 Frank Schulte-Kulkmann, Essen, Germany