Rebuilding Chicago

• Designer: Quinn Brander
• Publisher: Wizkids
• Players: 1-5
• Age: 12+
• Time: 60-120 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4n29utO
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Rebuilding Chicago, a standalone successor to 2023’s Rebuilding Seattle, you’re responsible for managing the zoning and expansion of a major neighborhood following the “Great Chicago Fire” of 1871.

Each round, your population grows, then you can either build a new building, expand into a new suburb, activate an event, or build a landmark, after which you earn profit based on your neighborhood’s commerce. You’ll buy building types from a shared market — looking to find shapes that fit your grid and types that fit your strategy — and construct landmarks on the right tile combinations. Suburb tiles connect to your grid however you like, creating uniquely shaped neighborhoods. Triggering citywide events can change the tide of the game, offering points, money, and expansions for the players ready for it. You can even enact laws to give yourself the advantage!

You earn points for building types, upgrades, landmarks, events, and remaining cash, and at the end of the game, whoever’s neighborhood has earned the most points wins. Rebuilding Chicago also comes with a solo player deck so that you can compete to build the best version of Chicago even with just one player. Enjoy gameplay against a deck designed to simulate the actions of a second player to discover strategies and configurations you can use to improve Chicago.

To set up the game, place the board on the table and deal Round 1 buildings to each market space.  Place the 6 Event cards next to the board.  Place all the other bits nearby.   Choose a difficulty level to play, and place the appropriate tile at the upper left corner of the board. 

Each player is given a District player mat as well as a starting neighborhood.  Players get all the bits in their color and place a cube at the bottom of each of the 3 Quality tracks on their mat.  The Amenity track is seeded based on the icons found on their starting Neighborhood.  Each player gets $10 plus an extra dollar for each position away from the start player. Each player is dealt 3 Landmark cards of which 2 are kept.  Players start with 11 population (recorded by a meeple on the amenity track)

The game is played over three rounds, each with four phases: Increase Unhappy Population, Action, Profit, Cleanup

1] Increase – players increase their population based on what the Round track says.  Note that this number is different based on the difficulty level that you have chosen.

2] Action – players will take a turn to take an action (buy a building/landmark, activate an event, enact a law), then the next player takes a turn.   At any point in your turn, as long as there are cards left for the current round, the player can spend $1 to refill any empty spaces in the market.  The action options:

• Buy a building card – pay the cost listed above it, then choose which half of the card you want to use, and then resolve that half of the card.  If you choose the half that provides two benefits, resolve those and then place the card facedown in a personal discard pile. If one is a building, take the matching tile and place it in your Neighborhood; altering your Amenity tracks as needed. If you choose the half which gives you profit phase abilities or end of game scoring – place that card in the appropriate area.  If you choose a half which gives you 2 suburb tiles, take those and then place the card in your discard pile. 
• Buy a landmark – you can build one of the two landmark cards you chose at the start of the game. Place the landmark tile like any other building into your neighborhood.  Landmarks can have immediate or end game effects.

• Activate an event – choose one of the event cards which has not yet been resolved this round and do the things as printed on the card.  Each card has a benefit that will affect only you, and another benefit that will affect all players.  Each event card is different.  Going clockwise around the table from the player who activated the event, resolve all the necessary parts.
• Enact a law – once a round, you can enact one of the laws on your District mat, assuming you have the prerequisites. Place your law disc on the law you are enacting, and then resolve its effects.  You can enact the same law in subsequent rounds.

3] Profit – each player earns $5 per green symbol they have in their neighborhood plus any other bonuses they have acquired (generally on building cards that you have bought)

4] Cleanup – Clear out the building card market and deal out cards from the deck corresponding to the next round. Return all event cards, and players who played their law disc remove them from their mats.

Repeat this for three rounds.  At the end of the third round, resolve any end game scoring effects on building cards chosen for their endgame ability and Landmarks.  Players get 1 VP per $5 remaining.  The player with the most money wins, ties broken in favor of the player with lowest population.

My thoughts on the game

If you are not familiar with the predecessor to this game – my review of Rebuilding Seattle can be found here: https://opinionatedgamers.com/2023/04/06/dale-yu-review-of-rebuilding-seattle/.  You can definitely feel the bones of the original game in Rebuilding Chicago, but there are a lot of changes that make this game a much better fit for me.

Per the Designer: (https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3257414/article/46881835#46881835)

“Hey folks, designer here. Rebuilding Chicago follows the blueprint of Seattle, with some important differences:

– it’s crunchier and more interactive, but also a little more complex. Rebuilding Seattle is more of a gateway euro, where Chicago is more appealing to hobbyists.

– Chicago has a different art style, more detailed and realistic than Seattle’s visual treatment.

– Chicago comes with a built in tray, so its faster to set up and takes up less table space.

– Chicago comes with different difficulty levels and a dynamic solo mode, featuring two additional decks designed specifically for solo mode

– the two games aren’t compatible – each is standalone.

If you own Seattle and want more in this style, I’m confident Chicago will scratch that itch. If you don’t have either and are wondering which to pick up, if you’re an experienced euro enjoyer already (which is likely since you’re here), I think Chicago is the way to go. “

Ergonomically speaking, the tray is a huge addition and improvement to the game. It is so much easier to find the piece that you need (as well as know how many are left in the supply).   While we’re on the topic of the trays, they do provide wells on the top to hold the cards, but they are made to the exact depth of the decks which means the top few cards of each deck are liable to move around.  As I’ve quarantined all the solo materials in their own bag, my card decks now have plenty of space to stay in their appointed slots.

The game itself is definitely more involved.  The decision on which card to buy is made much more interesting as the cards are double sided.  You have a lot of options to consider on each turn – both in terms of how they will affect your own space as well as possibly keeping cards away from your opponents.  Further, I really like the way that this new version gives the player the option to replace cards in the empty market slots for a buck.  

You can push your luck and wait things out, but don’t be surprised if the round ends before you want it to.  The moving target of having all the event cards triggered adds a bit of spicy tension to each round as you also have to figure out how long you’ll have in the current round to get your stuff done.  There are definitely times when I have felt it in my interest to take a lesser turn and execute the final event of a round rather than let my opponents have time to enact a good law or make a great build (for them). 

A measly dollar doesn’t sound like a high cost, but money can be pretty tight in this game, so players will have to carefully weigh the risks/benefits of spending a dollar now to replace only a few cards or wait until later in the round when they might get more bang for their buck.  

The first round tends to be a bit shorter than the next two – mostly because players only start out with around ten dollars each, and while there are ways to make money in the course of the round; it’s unlikely for players to be able to buy more than 3 or 4 cards in that round.  The potential for more income increases and players should have more money to change their fortunes!  You’ll definitely need more money – as most of the landmark cards cost $15 or more – and you’ll likely want at least one of your landmarks built by the end of the game.

Points can be scored in a number of ways, and it has not been uncommon for winning scores to be in the 120 point range.  That being said, a well executed landmark card can score 50 points or more, so you can see how vital they can be to a victory.  

I’ll admit that I don’t have the original game to directly compare to for this review; it got its plays for the review and then it moved out of the collection as it was a bit long for what you got and a lot fiddly.  Rebuilding Chicago is a much different beast, it’s a tight game where there is constant time pressure to improve your city neighborhood.  A much appreciated improvement to the original, and a game much more suitable for my euro-gamer collection.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4n29utO