Suburbia Inc Review – Better Borders and Brighter Boroughs

Suburbia Inc is the first expansion to the excellent city-building board game Suburbia. It adds a whole lot of new tiles and mechanics that take the original game from great to amazing. We’ll dive into what’s changed and why it improves the base game.

Given this is an expansion review, there’s an expectation that you know how to play the base game. But for those who don’t, read the original review of Suburbia that goes in-depth on how to play.

What’s New in Suburbia Inc?

On top of all of the mechanics of the original board game, there are three new mechanics introduced in Suburbia Inc:

• Border Tiles
• Bonuses & Challenges
• New Buildings

Of these, the most impactful addition is the new Border Tiles. Physically they are long and awkward, and with only one side available for building against they are hard to accommodate within your city. Because of this, they provide significantly higher benefits than other tiles.

Bonuses & Challenges are the second new addition. They come in the form of new hex tiles that are placed on top of the B and C stacks of tiles. They provide everyone with objectives throughout the game, where you complete the challenge. Then you’re handsomely rewarded.

Given the mid-game of the original Suburbia was the weakest part of the game. As it becomes somewhat aimless, and hard to figure in what direction you want to take your city. Now the Bonuses & Challenges provide you with that much-needed direction.

Completing these objectives provides significant in-game benefits. Like increasing your income or population. So it’s usually worth completing these, despite the sacrifices made.

Surburbia Inc also brings a new set of buildings, that challenge the original design philosophy of Suburbia. Where all of the buildings in the original provided you with a positive effect, some of these new buildings offer trade-offs, like giving you a massive boost in population at an ever-increasing cost of money.

These new tiles offer additional decisions to be made and give the game just the right amount of spice to take from great, to greater.

Unfortunately, there’s a side effect of adding these new buildings to the general supply. By increasing the amount of buildings, you dilute the chance of combining multiple buildings of the same type. Where before there was a good chance of getting several airports, now that’s no longer the case.

However, as of 2019, when Suburbia Collector’s Edition was released. The rules around adding these additional buildings have changed. Now, when you add tiles, you also remove some. In effect, you’ll maintain the ratios and chance to collect multiples.

Bigger & Better Than Ever

While the above changes are all fantastic, the most exciting change is how it challenges the initial design of Suburbia. Both the new buildings and border tiles are more conditional challenging you to decide whether the risk is worth the reward.

For example, the Water Purification Plant gives seven reputation points but costs two dollars for every yellow tile in play. Using this building gives you a significant boost to your end-game score. But then you’ll be crossing so many red lines that both your income and population tracks will plummet.

Knowing when to buy such a tile takes the decision-making in Suburbia to new and exciting places.

While Surburbia Inc doesn’t change the formula too much. What is added is impactful, and ups the excitement on an already decent board game. In my mind, Suburbia Inc is a must-have expansion. It transforms a good board game into one of the best board games I’ve ever played.