Cité (2010)

In this fledgling city, things have yet to be built, and opportunities to carve out a commercial empire abound. However, in order to erect the city's largest districts, you'll have to be a shrewd negotiator and a wise spender.

Cité includes wood cubes, metal nuggets, pieces of fabric, stones, and more to represent the resources and tiles of different sizes to represent buildings. A building brings you resources and has special effects on other buildings in the neighborhood.

In each of the seven turns, you collect resources, possibly exchange them with the other players, and build new constructions. All other rules, namely the effects of buildings, are written on the tiles.

Each neighborhood tends to specialize in a few resources, but to undergo new construction you will need a little bit of everything, so there are many trade-based interactions between players. Cité illustrates the workings and limits of mainstream economic theory like the Hecksche-Ohlin model and improves your negotiation skills.

Everybody plays at the same time, so you never wait, making Cité quite quick for this category of game.