Cities of Splendor (Expansion)

Adds depth to an already fun game. Containing four new expansions, this is about expanding the core experience, not just adding some new Noble cards.The cities expansion replaces Nobles with a 3 cities, each requiring a different set of bonuses or prestige points to earn. The game ends when a player obtains a city first, or if you obtain at the same time as your opponents, the one with the most overall prestige wins. I enjoyed this and it changed the game up and added a higher level or trying to mess with and block your opponents.Strongholds gives each player three towers which they use to place on face up cards or remove towers their opponents placed. Once all three of your towers are up, you can buy the card after your regular action, so it will enable, if allowed by your opponents, almost a second turn. I didn't particularly care for this expansion and didn't really get the point of it.The Orient contains 30 new cards or ten per each level of Splendor. These cards, once purchased can add to your bonuses, give you two gold tokens at once, reserve a noble and even earn prestige points by discarding bonus colors, among other abilities. This expansion is pretty fascinating and really changes the way you play the game, offering even more opportunities for victory.Finally Trading Posts is the final expansion in the box. A small sideboard is added and each player gains five tokens. At the end of your turn, if you meet the right requirements, you place your token on one of the powers. These offer cool bonuses like bonus prestige points or having each gold token count for two. This is another great expansion that really adds to and changes the base game, as well as mixes up the traditional game strategies.At the same price as the base game, this is still a requires buy, especially if you really enjoy the base game of Splendor. I highly recommend this and it remains a staple in between bigger games on our game nights.

The quality is FANTASTIC the size is very portable for trips and vacation. The art work is phenomenal The games go quick and rules are easy to teach and we replay this game almost every day with friends and family and this expansion just makes it even better!!!

Quickly became our favorite family game. The expansion pack adds excellent twists to the game as well. Although easy to pick up and learn I would recommend a youtube on the instructions as it was easy way to learn the game in about 6-7 minutes.

The variants are all decent, and they all have unique twists to the strategy and tactics needed to win. For the two of us, it was worth every penny. We have had a blast with each variant game. We love the base game, which has immense replay value (we play it frequently...), and the four expansion variants just add to the whole of the game. Glad we took a chance on it. Cheers!

This is a fun expansion for a fantastic game. Our family of 4 loves playing - started playing when our youngest was 9.

I am enjoying a Splendor "gaming spree" with my boys (9&10) and I wanted enough variation to keep it fresh to take it to a new level. Cities of Splendor is definitely an add-on feature to the game Splendor.There is four new game variations in this packet. We start a different one every time we play. Some are better than others pending on your playing preferences and gaming personality. I like the "Cities" variation because it gives everybody a clear end game goal. "Strongholds" is for those that want to throw a wrench in the other players gears. "Orient" adds more cards and possibilities --giving you more options and less mid game stalemate. We have yet to play the last game, but I wanted to leave a review to let others know what to expect.

I like the expansion options but strongholds was not well thought out. You get to build up to 3 strongholds on a card once and then people see the value and it becomes an exercise of you place a stronghold and then one of your opponents removes it. Place it. Remove it. Nothing ever goes beyond that. So except to deceive opponents and make them THINK you are targeting a card it is a waste of time.I like the options that "the Orient" expansion gives with the extra cards. Though that does make for a substantial amount of room on the table that the game takes up.Favorite is probably trading posts. Only a small amount of extra space needed and provides several distinct strategy paths which hopefully will keep the game from becoming stale.Cities provides somewhat alternate means of winning, or at least changes the goal somewhat. But it is the most difficult to get people I play with to play.Except for the Cities which replace the nobles there is no reason the various expansions could not be mixed. Nothing about any of the features conflicts with any element of the game. But the rules specifically state they cannot be mixed. It would have been much better if they had said the expansions could be played separately or combined. Then you would not have as much of a rules debate.

We weren’t sure what this involved but we got it anyways. It is so much fun and adds so much to the already great game! There are four different expansions in this and we cannot decide which one is our favorite!