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In the summer of 2012 before Suburbia was released, I realized that the game would probably do well, so I decided I would start working on an expansion for it. I had no idea how well it would do, or that it would win the coveted Mensa Select Mind Games award, but I was confident enough in the game to start putting together an expansion for it.
Origins of Inc
I started with building tiles. The one hundred tiles that shipped with Suburbia were a subset of the original set, all of which were chosen for a variety of reasons and many buildings that I really liked didn't make the cut. The toughest thing initially with the expansion was to figure out which of those buildings should make it in, so I started looking at them in the order they were cut from the game...backwards, that is, starting with the last tile to be cut from the base game.
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The description for that tile in the expansion takes up almost an entire column because of the clarifications needed. Even with all of those clarifications and comments, however, I knew it was a tile I wanted in the expansion, so I started to design the expansion around it. The name "Redevelopment Planner" was chosen for the tile, and the idea that your little borough has become more of a business to manage than just a sprawling mass of tiles was born. In the base game, you're an entrepreneur with this great vision for a utopian city; in the expansion, you're a businessman with the same goal of growing your borough into a great city, but now you're going to use additional tools to treat it as a successful business, too.
Borders and Bridges
Everyone expected a Suburbia expansion with new buildings. I knew I could put out a whole bunch of new buildings and people would buy the expansion and have a terrific time with it, but I wanted to add an extra dimension to the game. I started with the idea that players would be able to share borders, and this would allow them to benefit from each other's buildings and infrastructure. This concept dates back to the very beginnings of Suburbia design, when all players placed tiles in one central city instead of having their own boroughs in which to work. As I started to develop the concept, it split into two: borders, which defined the edges of a borough, and bridges, which connected different boroughs. Both were developed, but bridges were cut from the expansion for a number of reasons, the most important of which being that they didn't work with the new theme of incorporation nearly as well as borders did. Maybe bridges will see light in the future...hmmm.
Back to borders — initially they were designed as three, and then four, hexes stacked on top of each other. Some were straight, others were curved. One side of the hexes had a dark border where you couldn't place any tiles. Eventually that design changed into half-hexes where you couldn't place anything on the flat side, and then they were thickened slightly and started and ended with half hexes on each end so that tiles placed against them would be nestled comfortably on the "jagged" edge.
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During development borders were simplified and now all of them share one common attribute: they have only adjacency benefits. This makes keeping track of benefits for borders much easier and makes it clear what the value of the borders is. The number of borders was eventually reduced to twelve, mainly for gameplay purposes; while in games with the new "Guard" goal (most borders) you might actually run out of borders, typically players place only one or two borders each game, which means that you see a different mix of borders in each game in a different order...just like the A, B, and C stacks of tiles.
All borders have a better cost/benefit ratio than regular tiles, but of course they limit where you can build in the future, so you're making an interesting spatial trade-off when you build them. Because of their unique shape and impact on the layout of your borough, borders have been become the signature new component of Suburbia Inc.
More New Buildings
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One of the new buildings was a direct result of player feedback. One of the aspects of Suburbia that I've heard from players is regarding goals. About half of the goals in Suburbia are awarded to players having the fewest of something. These goals put you at the whims of other players, and while they definitely change up how you play each game, many games will result in tied goals that no one wins because no one was building a certain type of tile. If only there were a way to break those ties...
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Well, it didn't make sense to have mini-games as part of Suburbia, but then I realized...what if a tile could be purchased to be used as a tiebreaker? And if so, what would that tile be? In a game with a tiebreaker, you have a rules lawyer looking up the fine print to determine who really wins, and thus was born the "Law Office". It's probably my favorite of the new Inc tiles because anyone who owns a Law Office gets to score one goal in which they're tied. Place an investment marker on that Law Office, and now you score up to two goals in which you're tied.
Other building tiles were created and tested, all designed to fit in the Inc theme. The new "Cemetery" tile is a business of its own, with a cost of population when it's placed. (You need dead bodies to start that particular business.) The "Indoor Mall", another late-stage removal from the base game, gives you reputation from your blue (Commercial) tiles, the only tile in the game that does that directly. Finally, some respect for being a businessman!
There's one new tile that I expect will be a love-it-or-hate-it tile: the "Redistricting Office". Like the PR Firm, which if purchased by the right player at the right time can sway the game, the Redistricting Office has similar "power". It redraws your city limits, effectively stealing the population of your opponents and giving it to you. The cost and benefit are tied directly to the number of players in the game. In a two-player game, placing the tile costs you only $12, and you steal 5 population from your opponent, resulting in a ten-point swing (five more for you and five less for your opponent). In a four-player game, the tile is the most expensive you can buy, costing $24 and handing out a twenty-point swing over each of your opponents (fifteen to you, five from each of them). Of course, there is a catch...all those late-game population increases tend to move you over multiple red lines, lowering your Income and Reputation considerably.
In the end, Suburbia Inc contains a dozen new building types, split across all three stacks of tiles. They can be added to the existing tiles you have, with the caveat that some combos such as restaurants and airports are weakened due to those tiles being diluted. On the other side of the equation, because there are a bunch of new "Office" (briefcase) tiles, the Business Supply store tends to be more valuable (and there's a new goal to reflect this: "Milton", which is awarded to the player with the most Office tiles).
Bonuses and Challenges
In order to make these bonuses and challenges more achievable for players, they are treated differently than goals: Every player can achieve them instead of just one, and instead of the concepts of "most" and "least" they all require the player to have a certain number of tiles, amount of money, or certain level of stats (income, reputation, etc.). Suburbia Inc includes ten of each of them, and at the beginning of each game, you choose one at random and place a bonus face up on the B stack (which scores when the A stack is depleted) and place a challenge face up on the C stack (which scores when the B stack is depleted).
While this is a great system, the number of tiles in each stack had to be changed so that all players have an equal number of turns before the bonus or challenge is reached. As a result, the expansion includes a new "stacks" board with a different number of tiles that should be placed in the A, B and C stacks. Also, because Inc games were scoring more — thanks to some of the new tiles, borders, and the bonuses and challenges — the number of tiles in each stack is reduced slightly, resulting in one or two fewer turns for Inc games than the base game. Having slightly fewer turns keeps the game length exactly the same as the base game, even though you now have an extra option each turn (whether to buy a border or not), and you must tally the bonus and challenge when they come up.
Testing and Development
While Suburbia was designed and playtested significantly before "Master Developer" Dale Yu (he of Dominion development fame) was brought on board, Dale was involved in the creation of Suburbia Inc early on and had significant input into many of the choices that went into designing the expansion.
That said, the development of the game was fairly straightforward, and while one major component (which shall not be discussed here) was killed off in development, the pieces that made it through the process were relatively the same (at least conceptually) as they were when it all started to come together. The biggest issue was balance, to ensure that the cost/benefit ratios for all the new pieces didn't result in some freaky imbalance.
Final Thoughts and Impending Release
Suburbia Inc is a must-own expansion for anyone who enjoys the base game. The parts of the expansion all work together really well, but you can also play with only the parts you like. (If you don't want borders in your game, you don't have to have them; the rest of the expansion still works just fine.) The new tiles add to the already substantial variability of the tile mix, and the new bonuses and challenges add some midgame goals to keep things interesting throughout. And none of the new additions are so dramatic that first-time Suburbia players can't just jump right into the expansion, too!
As the Spiel 2013 release of the expansion approaches, I can't wait for people to try out all the new things in the game!
Ted Alspach
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