From Coal Source to Metropolis: City Building with NEOM
Watch a city transform from a tiny source of coal into a bustling metropolis of the future in NEOM.
Long ago, I absolutely loved building cities in whatever way I could. Toys were makeshift towers, and I enjoyed a fair number of video games. When I stumbled across NEOM, I couldn’t believe what I found! It has its rough edges here and there, but I always feel like I’m creating a city with every play. There was no stopping me when I set it up again!
Game Overview
Game Name: NEOM
Publication Year: 2018
Designer: Paul Sottosanti
Artists: Klemens Franz and Christian Opperer
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
It all begins with an empty city board, save for the city center. There are a variety of terrains that mainly differ in terms of the starting resource and road alignment. I was set on this little coal town! Over the course of a fairly small number of turns, the emptiness is filled in with all sorts of interesting and futuristic buildings. Let’s go!
First Play
February 1, 2020
Complexity
2
Latest Play
September 23, 2023
Expansions
0
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
26
Play Time
20 Minutes
High Score
129
Game Area
16" x 16"
Low Score
81
The Cornerstone Tiles
During setup, 3 cornerstone tiles must be collected. These offer additional options. More importantly, they typically provide some strategic paths towards victory points.
This trio looked pretty good. I needed to get the hydroelectric power off in a corner of its own for 10 points.
The resource agency rewarded me for collection sites and low-level resources. Easy enough to focus on at the start!
My biggest challenge has been to create some sort of synergy between the cornerstone tiles. It’s not always easy, and planning a city so early can be tricky.
An Important Business
As usual, time flew right on by! Including setup, I typically complete a city in about 20-25 minutes. This makes it easy to work in a play… Or possibly more. Ha ha!
Right at the end, I was in pretty good shape. My final selection of 5 tiles didn’t provide me with a lot of good options. So I went with the obvious choice.
Who doesn’t want a toy store in town?! I like to think of this as my friendly local game store. Board games galore!
This was a lucrative building that ended up yielding 8 points for my final score with all of those coins.
Miles of Resources
Don’t mind all of the natural resources! With that starting cornerstone tile, I knew I wanted to focus on maximizing the bonuses for end-game scoring.
I also picked up a few other tiles along the way that resulted in more points for resource production. Nice!
This extensive network of resources limited the damage done from the disasters. A single station each for fire and police protected the only vulnerable buildings.
My only regret was how empty the city appeared to be! Still, it wasn’t a failure. Not by a long-shot.
Self-Sufficiency
Raw resources and produced resources provide bonus points, but they’re also used for building.
See the warehouse? That image of the cement container in the upper-left means that the resource needs to be available before the building may be placed.
Resources may be purchased from the market, yet that represents a loss in coins. Sometimes it makes sense to do so, but self-sufficient cities often pull ahead.
I was pretty proud of this final assortment! Of course, I didn’t actually get into the fancy world of luxury goods.
On the Concept of Disappointing Scores
This is one of my top solo games in terms of feeling like I failed in the end. But let me explain that a little before I make the game sound bad! It’s a thrilling sort of challenge, yet I consistently fall short of the higher scoring tiers. The funny aspect is that I usually feel confident in my strategies but feel puzzled when I barely get out of the lowest bracket.
What goes wrong?! I would actually argue that it’s part of the game. Learning how to optimize each city takes a lot of experience. At the same time, the play time is so short that I typically don’t see the need to examine every decision. Going back to my childhood cities, I just loved the process of placing buildings! Nothing had to be perfect.
This also ties into my idea of setting expectations. Sometimes, it’s nice to use a board game to relax and not worry about much of anything. Other times, that same game can be a real challenge as the optimal path is explored!
Flooded Townhouses
After a barely passable score, I decided to give this coal city another whirl. I could definitely do better! With new cornerstone tiles in hand and a new strategy, off I went.
Immediately, the freshly built townhouses suffered from the storm of the century. How awful! But not really…
Disaster mitigation is a little repetitive from play to play, yet it provides an interesting strategy.
The flood appeared at the right time. It costs 1 coin per listed building type or the loss of a single building. I was more than happy to pay such a small amount!
In the Neighborhood
Era I boasted the start of a large neighborhood. Never mind the roads: Only a single path must be traced back to the city center, and dead ends are perfectly fine.
I placed the casino, a cornerstone tile, in order to start collecting income from my residential tiles.
Why the fire department? Era II features a fire that appears at a random time. With 3 of 5 buildings protected, I felt pretty confident in being able to pay for the damage!
Another small but important consideration in my choices involved the roads: I needed plenty of places to expand!
Era II Shenanigans
With a pretty large neighborhood from the first era, I followed the same strategy. Only the tiles didn’t want to cooperate as much as I needed them to.
The roads ended or didn’t point in all the directions I wanted them to. No matter: It was working out!
I made a little mistake when I placed the city council. I should have paid more attention and planned to split up my neighborhoods. Oh, what might have been!
All looked pretty good. I had a steady income of coins, though I was a little underprepared for the next disaster…
A Beautiful City
Hello, giant neighborhood! For purposes of scoring, a neighborhood is a connected section of residential tiles. That right there is an impressive size 12 region. Yeah!
Unfortunately, I didn’t maximize the points from the city council. Just splitting off a few of those houses could have been better. Oh, well! That still looked excellent.
The crime spree disaster showed up early enough so I could choose it instead of a building for no effect. Nice!
I just hoped that my usual disappointment didn’t set in like it usually did. Master builder here! Right?!
Session Overview
Play Number: 16 and 17
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Play Details: Played with the 1+, 4+, and 5 Player Tiles
Required Play Space: 16″ x 16″
Setup Time: 5 Minutes
Play Time: 15 Minutes per Play
Outcome: 101 and 129 (2 Wins)
Take that! Technically I wasn’t in the master category, but I ended up with a very impressive score for myself. So I figured I would just move into the Victorian houses and call it a day. Ha ha! Now that’s the way to win!
%
20 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
10
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
5
Quality
Components & Rules
9
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
10
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
8
Victory Conditions
Score 120+ Points
- Overall Goal Progress 67%
Goals and Milestones
Score at least 100 points.
Score at least 120 points.
Score at least 130 points.
Continue the Conversation
Do you enjoy building cities, either in board games or other contexts? NEOM continues to be a pleasant surprise for me. It offers a challenging experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome, and every city has its own little personality! What is your high score? I’m working up to the highest tier of 135+ points… Not too far to go, although only time will tell!
This is one of my favorite games along with other tile games like Carcasssonne. Love reading your take on the game. Have yet to do it solo, but looking forward to doing it
Thanks, Tony! I actually haven’t had a chance to play it multiplayer, yet I love the ability to take my time as I plan out my little cities. I’m slowly improving, but it’s still nice to just sit back and look at each completed city. There’s so much variety here!