LogFAQs > #963110619

56. Machi Koro

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/143884/machi-koro

Category: Player vs player
Key mechanics: Tableau-building, economic, dice-rolling
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 2
Game length: 30 minutes
First played: 2015
Experience: 3-4 plays over 3-4 session with 4 players
Previous ranks: 61/100 and 94/100 with expansion (2018), 65/80 (2018), 109/133 (2019)

Machi Koro is a dice-rolling game where you aim to build a city by buying the requisite structures on cards. On your turn you roll a die, and depending on the number that is rolled, you - and/or other people who have that number in their tableau - gain monetary rewards. You can then spend those rewards to buy new structures to add to your city. You need for specific structure to win the game, but can also purchase other cheaper structures to build your engine on future turns.

If you've played Settlers of Catan or Space Base, Machi Koro should feel pretty familiar. That "other people roll dice, YOU get stuff!" mechanic always feels good. It's extremely simple to teach; there is only one type of resource to consider; and it's pretty transparent what you want. I have three main concerns with Machi Koro

First is that it's pretty boring to go for cards that reward you only on your own turn. Part of what keeps Machi Koro interesting is that "ding ding ding" effect on other players' turns; when you only get it on your own turn (and even then can easily roll a worse number), the game becomes less exciting.

Second is that the game doesn't feel like it rewards rolling multiple dice enough. At the beginning of the game, you can only roll one die, but once you build a train station - one of the four winning structures - you can roll two instead. The problem is that your infrastructure at this point only rewards dice rolls from 1 to 6, and no one else is yet rolling doubles. So why invest in higher numbers, and why roll for those higher numbers, other than dodging cafes (see point 3)? The game doesn't last that long, and the payoff horizon doesn't feel great compared to just mostly doubling down on single-die values. But perhaps that's just part of the game's arc and is intentional; after all, at some point you are probably likely to roll more than one die - just not necessarily on the regular.

Finally, it does not feel good to buy red cards. Red cards have the special ability that when someone else rolls your number, they pay you. It can feel really good to take money away from your opponents, but it fucking sucks to lose money on your own turn. Since the game otherwise has no real interaction, this purely negative sort of play is a weird feels-bad in a feels-good game. And because of its power, it makes sense for everyone to load up on the cafes. My only time playing MK in 2021 was with inexperienced players at a meetup. They'd enjoyed every game we played up 'til that point, but MK kind of took the wind out of their sails, especially once I had several red cafes going and I was getting rich when others rolled 3s.

The Harbor Expansion does give you more opportunities to roll more dice, but it's actually considerably worse as a game. It drags a game that is, if nothing else, short and sweet, into a 45-to-60 minutes affair. It lets you keep rolling dice repeatedly, increasing an individual turn length and thus downtime. And it forces you to evaluate a dynamic card marketplace, which you don't need in a game this simple. I'd strongly vote against that.

With all this said, I think Machi Koro is still a pretty fun gateway-level game. It was one of the first games I won when I started hobby-gaming; it is considerably smoother to play than Catan with fewer mean moments; and it can provide many feel-good moments when you start getting rich every turn. The primary factors are ones that don't seem *that* bad to fix; perhaps a few more options at each number and especially a few more attractive alternatives to red cards would really help the game out.