Variants
I haven't playtested these variants extensively. I'm most confident in the quality of those at the top of the page and progressively less confident in those at the bottom.
Changing the Penalty for Separate Lines
You can increase or decrease the penalty of -10 points for each separate line. A larger penalty makes it more expensive to “invade” with a new line, and gives each player a more secure territory. A smaller penalty leads to a more dynamic and unpredictable game.
Development Goals
Once you are familiar with the base game, try adding development goals. Each building that satisfies the goal scores bonus points if you connect to it. You may give a different goal to each player, or use the same goal for both players.
Parks (+4) Neighboring empty spaces
Community Center (+4) Neighboring no other buildings
Low-Rise (+4) Single cubes
Cycling Infrastructure (+4) In a straight line with 4 or more buildings
Immigration (+4) On the edge of the board
Arts District (+3) In a contiguous group of buildings containing all 4 colors
Diversity (+8) Of the color with the fewest buildings on the board (if there is a tie, pick one)
Irregular Board
For an interesting challenge, try this irregular board (inspired by Mudcrack Y). It works the same way as the standard board, except that the spaces are not regular hexagons. This makes it look more thematic, and it also presents a different challenge, as the spaces may have more or fewer than 6 sides. When drawing a line, cross exactly 1 intersection, just as on the board of regular hexagons.
Using this board makes it harder to play the game because the board is more difficult to read.
You can also draw your own board by hand for even more variety, if you follow these 2 rules:
1. Start and end your lines in the middle of a line, never at an intersection.
2. Never cross lines - as soon as you hit another line, stop drawing and start a new line.
Solo and Coop
Solo or cooperative play with up to 4 players is possible using modified scoring and line-drawing rules.
There is only 1 line color, and you don't have to draw lines on every turn.
Drawing Lines: To draw lines, discard a house that you previously removed, then draw a segment of 2 adjacent lines (as in a normal line-drawing move). Each 2-line segment must connect to a building of the same color as the house you discarded. You may discard as many houses as you wish on your turn to draw multiple lines, or you may discard none and draw no lines.
You may only have 1 house of each color in your "hand" at any the end of your turn - if there are 2 houses of the same color, you must discard 1 even if you cannot use it to draw a line. If playing coop, you also may not have a house of a color that another player has in their hand at the end of your turn.
Scoring: First, score each contiguous line separately: count the number of building cubes in each color adjacent to the line, then multiply the totals in each color together. If a color is missing, don't multiply by zero – simply omit that color. Add the scores of all separate lines together to get your final score.
For example, if there are 2 blue, 5 black, 3 white, and 7 yellow cubes, that line scores 2*5*3*7=210.
Your score represents the number of new residents that your improved housing and transit policies attract to your city. You are always competing against yourself to attract the most immigrants and beat your previous high scores, but here are some guidelines:
Under 5,000 – NIMBYs win the city council. Housing is unaffordable for another generation. You lose.
5,000 and above – You vote out the NIMBYs, then go out for tacos. You win.
3 or 4 players (or 2 players on a bigger board)
Streetcar Suburb is best with 2 players, but you can easily add a third or fourth if you really want to.
Disadvantages - Streetcar Suburb is much less dynamic and interactive at higher player counts. It generally doesn't make sense to attack other players, so you will probably just stay in your own little corner. It's fine, but it's not really exciting. The coop version above is better with more players.
If you still want to do it, you will need a different-colored marker for each new player, a larger board, and some more pieces. All of the rules are the same, except for the first few turns, which use a different way to balance turn order advantage:
1st turn: draw 1 line (i.e. connect 2 adjacent intersections)
2nd turn: draw 2 lines as in a normal drawing move
3rd turn: take 1 house and draw 1 line
4th turn: take a normal turn, drawing 2 contiguous lines and taking 1 house
Playing with more players feels too cramped on the 52-space board; I suggest a 60-space board for 3 players. You will need 15 houses in each color and about 20 cubes in each color.
If you really want to go crazy, you can play with 4 players on an 80-space board. You will need 20 houses in each color, and about 25 cubes in each color. Unfortunately, if you print the board on letter paper, the spaces are too small for drawing lines comfortably without hitting the pieces. Here is a version for 11x17 paper. Many local printers such as Staples can print laminated 11x17 paper for a few dollars.
You can also use 2 pieces of paper taped together. Here is a color version and a greyscale low-ink version on 2 pages:
2 players can also play on the larger boards, but if one player gains a lot of cubes in a particular color early on, the multiplicative scoring can make it hard to catch up. If you want a longer 2-player game, I suggest a match of several games on the regular board instead.
Variable Player Powers
Give each player a different power. Use powers and Development Goals at the same time for extra variety. I haven't really tested these at all, but here are some preliminary thoughts:
1. When drawing streetcar lines, your 2 lines need not be contiguous.
2. In addition to your normal line drawing, you may move any 1 of your lines.
3. You may draw lines again instead of taking a house.
4. NIMBY - Your opponent may not remove a house next to the space from which you removed your last house.
5. If any contiguous line of the same color connects to more than 5 buildings of the same color, you win.
6. Market Failure - If your score before incurring penalties for separate lines is less than 75% of your opponent's score including penalties for separate lines, you win.
7. Start with +25 points and subtract 1 for every cube on the board in the color that has the most cubes.
8. If you draw only on the outer edge of the board on a turn, you may draw 3 contiguous lines instead of 2 contiguous lines on that turn.
Action choice
(not recommended)
On your turn, either draw lines or take 1 house. When you take a house, place it in the "cash" pile on the left side of your play area. When you choose to draw lines, you may spend any or all of the houses in your cash pile by moving them to the "spent" pile on the right side of your play area. For each house you spend, draw 2 contiguous lines (as in a normal line-drawing move). For example, if you have 5 houses in your "cash" pile, you may make up to 5 line-drawing moves on your turn. The game ends when no player can take any action.
There is no special turn-order balancing on the first turn - just take a normal turn on the first turn.
This seems like it would make the game more interesting and dramatic, but I haven't found that to be the case. Putting all the line drawing into a few large turns hurts the pacing, and there ends up being less player interaction. It kind of feels like a big game of chicken. I'm mostly listing it here as a warning: it sounds like an obvious improvement to the game, but it's not. I think it just makes the game more complex and worse.