Scott Tepper: Games You Didn’t Know About:  Ruhrtropolis

One of the best things about Boardgamegeek is the opportunity it provides gamers to find games that they would never normally encounter.  Some of my favorite Geeklists are about little known or rarer games.  It was through such a Geeklist that I found Ruhrtropolis. 

(Confidential note to readers who don’t like complete descriptions of game mechanics:  you can jump to the end of this review to get a quick overview)

Ruhrtropolis’ name comes from the Ruhr region of Germany, a grouping of cities in the western part of the country that had large growth due to coal mining and steel production during the Industrial Revolution.  Over time, some cities were able to cope with the changing reliance on these resources, and shifted their production to more modern output.  These cities grew.  Other towns, unequipped or unable to redefine themselves, became stagnant and didn’t grow.  Interestingly, our game Mecca, Essen, lies within the Ruhr domain.

Although it is more of an abstract game, Ruhrtropolis, through its gameplay, mirrors the growth and stagnation of a province.  The game comes with the following components:  A gameboard displaying a map of the Ruhr region broken into 37 numbered hexagonal cities and with a large Planning hex in the corner, 3 sets of 37 numbered cardboard tiles representing each city’s “yesterday”, “today”, and “tomorrow”, 6 sets of 10 differently colored wooden markers for up to 6 players, and of course a rulebook.

To prepare the game, the tiles are separated into their respective eras and then mixed up face down.  To tell the tiles apart, the “yesterday” tiles are printed with red numbers from 1-37, the “today” tiles are printed with the same numbers but with white printing, and the “tomorrow” tiles have the same numbers printed in green.  Each player starts with 3 random “yesterday” tiles in their hand and a set of 10 colored markers.  If playing with only 3 or 2 players, then everyone plays with 2 or 3 sets of markers respectively.

On a player’s turn, they can do one of 6 simple actions that correspond to the development of the Ruhr region.  The actions are:

1. Planning – from your hand, choose a tile (now considered a project) and place it and one of your markers on the Planning area of the board.  You can only place a “today” tile here if the same numbered “yesterday” tile is on the map or in Planning.  The two previous tiles are similarly required if you want to plan a “tomorrow” tile.  Only a maximum of 6 projects can be in Planning at the same time.

2. Commitment – you may add one of your markers to a project that is in Planning.  If you’re adding your marker to a tile that already has one of your markers, this project is now called a Soloproject.  If you are adding your marker to a tile that has a marker belonging to another player, this is now considered a joint project.

3. Implementation – When a tile(project) has 2 markers on it, a player who is involved in that project (either solo or joint) can move the tile from Planning to the appropriate space on the board, with the markers remaining on the tile.  A “today” tile can’t be moved to the board unless the corresponding “yesterday” tile has already been moved.  Similarly, a “tomorrow” tile can’t be moved unless the “today” tile is already in place.  When “today” or “tomorrow” tiles are added to the map, the markers that were on the previous tile are removed to their owner(s).

3.1. Expansion - When a tile is moved to the map from Planning, if it is placed next to a tile of the same, or a lower (previous era) level, then the player who Implemented it may remove one the markers on the neighboring tile and replace it with their own.  If this exchange results in the neighboring tile becoming a Soloproject, then this expansion can be repeated with another tile that touches this new Soloproject, etc… If the tile being moved to the map via Implementation is a Soloproject, then the player can also expand to a neighboring tile that is in the future (either “today” or “tomorrow”).  In the case of expanding into a tile with only one marker(as a result of action# 4 Change), no exchange takes place.  The expanding player simply adds one of their markers to the tile.

To add to the theme, when tile# 37, Dusseldorf Airport, is Implemented, it is considered adjacent to all the tiles on the board.

4. Change – choose any of your markers on the board and offer to exchange its place with any other player’s marker on the board.  Other players then can choose to offer up their markers on specific tiles.  You must trade with someone if at least one offer was made by an opponent.  If no opponent offers to trade, you may remove your marker from the tile it was on, as long as one marker remains on the project.

5. Investment – a player can draw up to 3 tiles from any of the 3 era draw piles.  The players can only hold a maximum of 8 tiles in their hand at any time.

6. Offer – a player can offer up one of the tiles from his hand and shows it to the other players.  Any of the opponents can then show a tile from their hand.  If a least one opponent offers up a tile in trade, you must make a trade for their tile.  If no opponent makes an offer, you may discard your tile to the appropriate draw pile.

The game ends when the 3rd “tomorrow” tile is Implemented on the board.  The players then receive 1 point for each marker on a “yesterday” tile, 3 points for each marker on a “today” tile, and 6 points for each marker on a “tomorrow” tile.  If a player has a Soloproject on the board, only one of the pair of markers counts towards their score.  The player with the most points wins.

So how does it play? More abstractly than I thought it would from just reading through the rules. Ultimately, what you’re trying to do is get as many of your markers on the board, and hopefully the majority of them will be on “today” and “tomorrow” tiles by the time the game ends.  Doing that, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially since the number of markers you have is limited.  To get your markers onto 2nd and 3rd layer tiles, there first must be a reasonably good base of “yesterday” tiles on the map.  For that to happen, the players have to develop those tiles, which takes committing markers to them. 

If you have too many of your markers on the board, you won’t have them available to take advantage of the Expansion part of Implementation, which can be very beneficial.  Before playing, I didn’t understand the importance of action #4, Change.  This action is instrumental in freeing up your markers for future use.  It is also useful in another way.  Since at least one marker must remain on a tile, if one is removed, this will lock the other marker in place until the tile is built over.  So one must be cautious with the number of markers that you have locked on “yesterday” tiles because they will not bring you many points at the end of the game.

For a relatively abstract game, Ruhrtropolis does a good job fulfilling its theme.  By the game’s end, some areas will be built up, and others will be devoid of or only slightly developed.  There are times during the game when it’s advantageous to join a project that someone else has started and other times when you’ll want to be the only one on a tile.  While the game rewards shrewd tactics using Expansion, you will need to have some sort of strategy in how and when you will draw “today” and “tomorrow” tiles because those are the keys to pushing the game to its end and also gaining the most points.

For me, Ruhrtropolis feels a little dry.  Since it appears to be a kind of promotional game for Germany, I’d be interested to know how well it sold and if it appealed to the general German public.  For a non-mainstream game, it plays well and was clearly playtested.  A couple of production points could have made the game a little better, though, had it been produced by a major publishing company. 

It was a nice touch to illustrate each city tile with local sights and industries (which are labeled on the tiles) but the method that was chosen to do this, colored pencils, results in pictures that are often difficult to discern.  The colored numbers on the tiles (and even the printed name of the attraction) are hard to read against the fuzzy shading of the drawings.  Worse than that, though, is the bizarre method chosen to order the numbers on the game board.  Instead of numbering the tiles one after another in a line going from top to bottom, the publisher made the amazing choice to number the tiles horizontally so that no tile abuts another that has the next sequential number.  The result of this numbering is that you have to constantly examine the board and search out where the tiles in your hand would go.

As games go, Ruhrtropolis is decent, but not spectacular.  It’s far ahead of the kind of similar promotional games we’d see in the US (Chicagopoly anyone?), especially since the publisher gives historical information about every city explaining what is depicted on and the significance of every “yesterday”, “today”, and “tomorrow” tile in the back of the rulebook, but I can’t see that the game is strong enough to warrant an American publisher to make an English version. 

Quick Overview
Ruhrtropolis is an abstract game with a strong theme.  With the overall goal of scoring the most points for placing your markers on the most developed cities at game end, the players are allowed a single action on their turn.  The actions generally involve getting “yesterday”, “today” and “tomorrow” tiles onto the board with one or two of your markers on them.  Markers are limited, so some thought must go into the decisions of where and when your markers go on the board.  As the placement of tiles (corresponding to cities in the Ruhr region during different eras) with your markers on them can affect other tiles, there is a tactical feel to the game with some interesting chain reactions.  While the artwork in the game is colorful, a little poor planning on the game design makes it a tiny bit more fiddly than it needed to be.  If you can read German, there is an added bonus of historical information in the rulebook about the cities depicted in the game.

Summary
Number of players 2-6
Rules explanation: 10 minutes
Abstract or Theme:  Good theme, but feels abstract
Effect of Luck?:  Some, in the form of tile drawing
Game Length: About 1.5 hrs
Production Level:  Good, but with flaws
Replayability: Good

Gameboard for Ruhrtropolis




Development in action




Essen of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Who knew DaVinci was so modest?

© 2007 Scott Tepper

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Comments:

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"To tell the tiles apart, the “yesterday” tiles are printed with red numbers from 1-37, the “today” tiles are printed with the same numbers but with white printing, and the “tomorrow” tiles have the same numbers printed in red.” I’m confused.  So the numbers are red, white, and red? Posted by john TODD jensen on Sep 24, 2007 at 12:43 PM | #

Todd, Good catch!  Typo.  The “yesterday” tiles have red numbers, the “today” tiles have white numbers, and the “tomorrow” tiles have green numbers. Sorry about the confusion! Posted by Scott Tepper on Sep 24, 2007 at 01:37 PM | #

Is your summary pretty complete as far as the rules? I have a copy, but have never played it---hadn’t bothered to sit down and translate the rules. Posted by Frank Branham on Sep 24, 2007 at 04:50 PM | #

Frank, I actually did a rules translation and posted it to BGG.  I don’t think it’s up yet. I think the above review is a concise but relatively complete review of the rules.  I elieve the only thing I left out (because it’s somewhat trivial) is that a chain reaction of Expansions cannot circle back and affect the tile that started the chain reaction. Posted by Scott Tepper on Sep 24, 2007 at 05:33 PM | #

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