Machi Koro Legacy - Games 1-5

21st September 2019.

It's Saturday evening round at Matakishi's and that can only mean games night!

​So here we have 'Machi Koro Legacy​'. As the title suggests, this is a legacy version of the very good Machi Koro game.

Spoilers!!!
Don't read any further ahead if you want to play Machi Koro Legacy!

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What's a legacy game?
Glad you asked. A legacy game's unique feature is that it is actually a series of play-throughs of the same game. After each game concludes, something changes, is added or removed from the game and that change carries over to the next play-through of the game. Thus you have (In theory.) a game that constantly changes and evolves according to player input.

Machi Koro Legacy is played over 10 games. We played games 1-5 in one night and in total all 10 games were played over 3 evenings.
I'm going to blog about all of the games in this post. Since at the time of writing, these blog posts are about a month behind the actual plays.

If​ you don't know anything about Machi Koro, you can read my blog about it here.
Have you read it?  Good! Now you know all about Machi Koro.

The Basics
The original Machi Koro has 2 expansions, 'The Harbour' and 'Millionaire's Row'.
Generally we play Machi Koro with The Harbour.
​As you would expect, the core mechanics of Machi Koro remain unchanged for the 'legacy' version.
If you didn't actually bother reading my blog about the main game: Here's a quick recap.

• The objective of the game is to purchase all the landmarks first. This is done with money.
• Money is accumulated by building up your city and profiting from this.
• In game terms, building up your city is done by purchasing 'establishment' cards from the available choice of cards in the main game area, called the 'market'. These cards are all numbered from 1-12.
• At the start of the active player's turn, they roll 1 or 2 six sided dice. Every card in the active player's city that has a matching number will then probably earn them money.
• Now the player can spend any money they have.
• There's bit more to it, but that's enough to be getting on with.

The legacy game
I can't really blog about the game in my normal format because the components and rules change throughout the game. So I'll just go through it as best as I can. I'm not going to extensively talk about the original, I'll try to just talk about any differences between 'original' and 'legacy' versions.​

Personal game board
This is immediately different. In legacy, each player is given a game board that has the following:

• Space for your settlement's name: Thus the tiny village of Townopolis was born.
• 4 tick boxes. 2 of these tick boxes are immediately ticked. These determine how many cards a player will will start the game with. In original, players start with the same 2 cards, a Wheat Field and a Bakery. But in legacy, each player is given a number of cards (Called Town Square cards.) from which they choose their starting cards. Initially players start with 2 cards, but as the boxes are ticked, they will start with 3 then 4 Town Square cards.
• A row of 3 spots for cards, with '5', '15' & '25' beneath them. These spaces are for landmark cards, which are put out at the start of a game. As each game is completed, the card on the '5' space is discarded and the other 2 landmark cards slide 1 space to the left into the cheaper spaces. A new landmark is then placed into the '25' space. There's also a 'communal' landmark card that is placed in the main playing area, this landmark is changed for every game. To win a game, players must buy all 4 landmarks. This is a bit different from original,.
• Triangular grid: On the right side of the board is a triangular grid. Players may spend actions 'filling' a triangle instead of buying cards. Filling in a triangle normally takes 2 or 3 actions. Triangles that are 'filled in' earn the player another new thing to the game - diamonds. What are diamonds (See below.)?

Diamonds
Diamonds are a new currency introduced in Legacy. Players can start a game with diamonds or acquire them during play. Some landmarks and cards can use diamonds for a benefit. But the main use of diamonds is to spend them to re-roll dice rolls.

Double sided establishment cards
These are an entirely new type of game introduced in Legacy.
When a game is concluded, a new type of card is added to the market from the next game onward. These cards are 'double sided'. One side tends to be blue/green and the other red or occasionally purple. The player who just won the concluding game gets to choose which side is used, these cards have tick boxes which can ticked to indicate which side was initially chosen.
During later games, it is possible that a stack of double sided cards can be flipped over to their other side. If this occurs, then it also affects all copies of that card in players' areas! (See below for how 'flipping' can occur.)

Traveller die
Another new introduction to legacy is the 'traveller die', a blank six sided die. What's the point of a blank die you may ask? Well, it doesn't stay blank for long. As games are completed, stickers are added to die. The traveller die is now rolled along with the normal dice. The following stickers are added to the traveller die: Turtle, yokai and moon princess
There 3 travellers each have their own little figure that moves along cards as dictated by the rules for the traveller die.

• Turtle: 2 turtle stickers are added to the traveller die. The turtle travels along the player's establishment cards. When the turtle result comes up on the traveller die, the turtle will move along player cards a number of times equal to the result on the normal dice roll. When the turtle stops on a card, it's owner is given money equal to the card's cost. The turtle always starts the game on a card belonging to the player who has won the least number of games.
• Yokai: When the yokai appears, 2 more stickers are added to the traveller die. Generally the yokai is 'mischievous', but in the end becomes a 'nice guy'. The yokai always starts on the fishing boat card stack in the market area and moves along card stacks in the market area. When a yokai result comes up, the yokai moves along a number of card stacks in the market area equal to the dice roll. When the yokai stops on a 'double sided' card, then that card is flipped to its other side. Additionally, any card the Yokai is currently standing, cannot be bought by any player. Eventually the yokai learns the error of his ways and becomes 'nice'. This means that when he stops on a card he no longer flips or blocks it and players are given money from the bank if they have that type of card in their personal play area.
• Moon Princess: When the moon princess appears, 2 final stickers are added to the last 2 blank spaces on the traveller die. The moon princess starts the game on the wheat field card stack in the market area. Like the yokai, the moon princess moves along card stacks in the market area. When the moon princess is standing on a card stack, then the active player can buy a card from that stack for free.

The sea
Another new addition to legacy that appears later in the game is 'the sea'. This is depicted by placing 3 cards in a column in the market area along side the establishment cards. Then, each player receives a boat figurine in their colour and a 12 sided die is introduced into the game. What does this all do? Well, read on:

• Sea travel: The 3 cards used to depict the sea have 10 locations on them, each location is also numbered from 3 to 11.
• If players want to travel the sea, they put their boat at the bottom and travel upwards, starting at 3 and ending at 11. It uses their action for their turn to do so. There are 2 modes of transport available to them. Sailing and rowing.
• Sailing: In order to sail further, the active player must roll the 12 sided die and get a result higher than the number on the next spot that they are headed to. Thus it is possible to fail sailing. Failure can also see the ship go backwards.
• Rowing: To move forward by rowing, the active player simple spends money equal to the number on next spot they are headed for. It costs, but there's no chance of failure.
• Some of the later spots give the players who reach them bonuses such as a free card from the main playing area, cash, an extra go, Etc.
• In the game that the sea appears, the communal landmark requires a player reach the final spot on the sea before they can buy the communal landmark.

Islands
When the sea has been introduced, islands are next. Islands work in the following way.

• 5 island cards are placed face-down in a row in the playing area.
• Each island corresponds to spots 6-10 on the sea track.
• When a player's boat reaches a relevant spot they can look at the corresponding face-down card. They do not reveal it to other players and put it back still face-down.
• Once the player has looked at a face-down island card, they can decline from taking it or choose to take it. If they do take it, then they return back to the start of the sea track.
• If a player takes an island card, it cannot be used immediately. It can be used from the start of the next game onward. It is permanently added to a player selection of cards.
• When a player starts a game with a island card in their possession, they can use it as a town square card, therefore it counts against their town square card limit.
• Even though an island card counts as a town square card, it is not considered a normal card. It cannot be activated by a dice roll, nor does the turtle travel on to it.
• Island cards work by allowing the active player to spend diamonds to acquire cards of a particular type as a free action before they roll the dice. The type of card they can buy is dictated by the island card. Thus a player can get 2 establishment a turn or a establishment and a landmark etc.

The moon
During one of the latter games, the players will acquire rockets for their ships and in the 10th and final game, they will travel to the moon in an endeavour to return the moon princess home.

• The moon card is added to the top of the sea track to form a new track - I guess the moon track?
• Journeying to the moon is identical to journeying in the sea (If only it was so in real life!) except the moon card adds an extra 3 spots to journey along
• None of these spots can be reached with a roll of the 12 sided die. Players must spend money to reach the moon (Space programs are expensive!).
• The final communal landmark require a player reach the moon in order to buy it.

Right that's about it for what's in the game and rules. I've missed out some bits about some cards being removed from play and so on, but that I think is most of it.

The 11th game
Once the 10th game has concluded. The remaining cards can be used to make up a new game of Machi Koro. Having a functioning game afterwards is a nice touch.

Overall
I think this blog post I've written about Machi Koro Legacy is going to be the longest blog I've written about a card game so far. I guess a legacy game can complicate things quite a lot and there's quite a lot to process here.

Additionally, I will state that this is the only legacy game I've ever played and I have nothing to compare it to or measure it against. I guess I'll just go through the things listed above and blog my thoughts about them.

Town square cards
I actually quite like this idea, it gives players a meaningful decision to make immediately and can lead to an asymmetrical game start (See below for more on this.).

Landmarks
As your small fishing settlement advances through civilisation to fulfil its destiny of becoming a 'space power', it's only natural that its landmarks will change over time.
So thematically I understand it, but from a game play perspective, I'm ambivalent towards it.
This is partially I think, because I didn't find them particularly interesting or useful. Especially since there's so many of them (10 communal and 12 player landmarks.) and they only hang around for a maximum of 3 games.

Diamonds
Diamonds have several uses in legacy.
Some landmarks allow players to use diamonds for extra turns or for extra cash. They can also be used in conjunction with island cards to acquire establishment cards.
But probably the biggest use of diamonds is for re-rolls.

The original Machi Koro gave players a re-roll once per turn in the form of a landmark that they could purchase.
Legacy take this a step further by giving players the ability to spend multiple diamonds to gain multiple re-rolls.

This has a low impact in the early games, but a high impact in the later games. When a players has 8 diamonds, they spend a long time pondering their many potential re-rolls. 
I don't actually mind the game slowing down that much (I'm used to it.).
​I dislike how easy it is to just mitigate so many bad rolls. Having to deal with bad rolls is part of what makes Machi Koro what it is.

Double sided establishments
The idea of having dual-function establishments seems like a reasonable idea. It can change up the dynamic of the game a little and doesn't seem to have a negative impact. If only there was a better way to implement them other than the yokai (See Below.).

Travellers
Legacy adds 3 travellers to the game, as well as an extra die and extra rule to deal with it all. The problem I have with this is that all it does is introduce an extra random element and no game play element. When travellers do move, most of the time it has minimal or no impact on me or the decisions I made.

• Turtle: The turtle moves about 1 in 3 turns, so someone will benefit from the turtle 1/3 of the time. It probably takes at least 5 turns for a turtle to come back around to a player again. This means an individual player benefits from the turtle about every 20 turns and will mostly gain a small amount of coins. Not very exciting is it.
• Yokai: Until the very last couple of games, all the yokai does is randomly frustrate players. To be fair, I think there was only one occasion when the yokai stopped me getting a card I wanted. Even so, not good in my opinion.
• Moon Princess: So the moon princess allows players to purchase a card that she has stopped on for free. Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds, unless the moon princess has landed on a card you want at that time, you'll be faced with a choice. Get a free card that you might not need or want? Or pay for the card you want? When faced with that choice, I always chose the latter. A useless card that's free is still useless. Not once did I benefit in any of the legacy games I played which involved the moon princess.

I don't dislike the travellers, they just feel a bit pointless.

The sea
When the sea was added into legacy, it introduced a fiddly and slightly confusing set of mechanics to the game. Not only that, they're completely alien to Machi Koro's 'style' and lack any elegance. You might as well have added a copy of 'Monopoly' to legacy, they're so different.

Furthermore, when the sea was added to legacy was when the game started to really slow down. All those extra little rules and extras just dragged it down. It seems that the combination of the sea and diamonds is not a good one.

Island cards
The island cards are quite an interesting proposition.

• The bad: Island cards allow players to acquire certain establishment cards for diamonds in addition to buying one normally. This essentially allows the player double the cards they acquire for their first few turns. During the games we played, I acquired the island card that allowed me to use diamonds to purchase establishments with the 'wheat' symbol. After this, concentrating on wheat establishments and the cards they 'feed' into was a 'no-brainer'. And the problem with no-brainer strategies is that they're as meaningless as a meaningless choice - because they're a no-brainer. Essentially, the island card dictated my strategy (If I put in my starting cards - which I did.).
• The good: I like the idea of having single unique cards in the game. I like the idea of having single unique town square cards. I'm sure there would a way of implementing this without all the associated unnecessary stuff.

The moon
The moon track is essentially an extension of the the sea track. Everything I've said about the sea, applies equally here.

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So that's it. As I explained earlier, this is the only legacy style game I've played. And to be honest, in regards to Machi Koro, I don't think it adds much to the experience of playing it.

Sure, it adds some interesting ideas to the mix and it was nice seeing new cards. But it also adds a whole lot of unnecessary stuff too. Additionally, the changes that occur throughout the games feel very small, the choice that the winner makes after every game feels inconsequential.

I don't regret playing Machi Koro Legacy at all; it provided us with 10 games and 3 evenings of entertainment. But during those games I never felt that I was playing something superior to the original.