Fight for Prestigious Buildings and Landmarks in Paris

In 2020, Belgian-based publisher Game Brewer released Paris, a medium-weight eurogame from the famous design duo of Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling in which 2-4 players take on the role of wealthy real estate investors tasked with purchasing and developing some of the most prestigious and iconic buildings and landmarks in late 19th century Paris.

If you haven't checked out Paris — or if you have and are looking for more — you'll be excited to hear that Game Brewer is releasing Paris: l'Étoile, a new expansion that adds even more variety into the mix. A deluxe version of Paris: l'Étoile was launched on Kickstarter (KS link) in late May 2021. The deluxe edition of the base game is also available in this Kickstarter and is required to play the deluxe edition of the Paris: l'Étoile expansion. After delivery to backers in December 2021, a retail version of Paris: l'Étoile will also be available.

I recently got a chance to play Paris and the new l'Étoile expansion with a prototype review copy provided by the publisher, so I can share some insight on what you can expect.

Off the bat, Paris has an stunning table presence when it's all set up. I dare you to walk by the game and not be curious to know what it's all about if you've never played it before. Paris features a circular game board that is assembled from multiple smaller boards, starting in the center with the 3D Arc de Triomphe, moving outwards to the six surrounding districts, and then to the outer edges with the bonus tile and victory point tracks.

Each player also receives a 3D player screen to keep their money, keys, and resources hidden from other players, something that is functional for gameplay, but also adds to the visual appeal of Paris.

Paris is played over a variable number of rounds in which players take turns in clockwise order performing two game steps until the end of the game is triggered. The goal of the game is to score the most points, which you primarily earn from bonus tiles and through area-majority scoring of the districts surrounding the Arc de Triomphe...that is, if they end up with a victory point scoring tile.

Mid-game behind my player screen

On your turn, first you place an available building on the game board, then you perform an action. A turn is deceptively simple when you frame it this way, but with this simplicity comes a great deal of depth from the strategic decisions with which you are faced.

You start each turn by drawing the top building tile from one of the three draw piles and placing it on the corresponding building space on the board. If no more buildings are available when you start your turn, skip this step.

Each building tile has a district name on its back, and on the front, a building value and an icon to indicate the type of building. In addition, some buildings have a benefit, and some have an extra cost.

Examples of building tiles

When you are choosing a building to place, you can see which district it will be placed in, but you don't know its value or any other details until you choose a tile and reveal it. Your odds of knowing the value of the buildings gradually increase as the game progresses and the board fills up since each district has six available spaces for buildings with values 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8.

When you're thinking about which building tile to choose, early in the game you might lean toward the one that has the bank that gives the most francs when you place a key on it, but as the game progresses, you'll likely be targeting specific areas — and considering that you have only three piles from which to choose with at most three different district options, this part of your turn is typically pretty quick.

Each of the six districts has six available spaces for buildings, so there are 36 total building tiles. However, at the beginning of the game you shuffle all 36 tiles, then randomly remove three from the game without looking at them, so you start the game with three piles of 11 buildings and you won't know which buildings are out. This tidbit of hidden information from the players creates a subtle, yet interesting element of unpredictability to the game.

After you choose a building tile, reveal it and place it in the corresponding space on the game board based on its district and value, then perform one of the following actions:

1) Place a key on a bank or on the Arc de Triomphe
2) Move a key to purchase a building
3) Take an end game tile (which is allowed only when no more building tiles are available)

Players start the game with 7-10 keys depending on player count. Your first action option is to take one of your keys from behind your player screen and place it on a bank in one of the six districts or on the Arc de Triomphe. If you place your key on one of the banks, you gain 2-7 francs from the general supply depending on the district. This is the main way to earn money in the game, and you also need keys out on the board to start buying real estate...which leads me to the next action option.

Once you have a key on a bank or the Arc de Triomphe, you can move a key from one of those locations to an unoccupied building or landmark and pay the applicable costs to become its owner.

A late-game example of a district with keys on the bank, buildings, and landmarks

If you move a key from a bank, you can move it only to an unoccupied building or landmark within the same district. However, if you move a key from the Arc de Triomphe, you can move it to an unoccupied building or landmark in any of the six districts, so while you don't gain any money placing a key on the Arc de Triomphe, it gives you a lot more flexibility later when moving a key to purchase buildings and landmarks.

Buildings and landmarks have a base cost (in francs) equal to their value, and the higher-end real estate also requires you to pay additional resources. For example, you have to spend 3 francs to move a key from a district bank to a level-3 building, and you have to spend 8 francs and a wood resource to move a key from a district bank to a level-8 building. All of the landmarks have additional resource costs, so you need to gain some gold and marble before you can think of purchasing a landmark.

With the "move a key" action, you can also move keys from a building/landmark to an unoccupied higher-value building/landmark in the same district by paying the difference in cost, e.g., moving from a value-2 building to a value-5 building costs 3 francs.

As soon as a district has a total of four keys on buildings and landmarks (not the bank), the active player may immediately place one of the available victory point (VP) tiles on an open VP-tile space in a district of their choice. These tiles offer bonus points at the end of the game to the players who occupy buildings and landmarks with the highest value in the corresponding district. This means each district can score differently each game — and in some cases it won't score at all.

VP tiles

After moving your key to a building or landmark and paying its costs, you can also receive a variety of benefits. You can gain valuable resource (wood, marble, and gold) and prestige tokens if you're the first owner of a building.

During set-up, each building location is seeded with a resource or prestige token that's all yours to stash behind your screen and spend at your leisure if you're the first one to move a key to purchase a building space. Resources can be bought and sold at any time, and prestige tokens can be sold at any time, based on the values noted on the player screens.

Resource and prestige tokens on building spaces that haven't been purchased or without a building tile

When you purchase a value-8 building, you immediately gain 2 VPs.

When you purchase a landmark, you can spend up to three prestige tokens shown on the tile to receive the corresponding amount of victory points.

Examples of landmark tiles

...and even more exciting, when you purchase a value-1 or value-2 building you can take a bonus tile for free by moving your bonus meeple forward on the bonus tile track. You can do the same when you purchase a value-3 building as long as you pay 2 francs first.

The inner track on the perimeter of the board is filled with juicy bonus tiles at the beginning of the game. When you earn a bonus tile, move your bonus meeple forward as many spaces as you'd like on the bonus track onto an available bonus tile, then take the tile and place it behind your player screen. You can move your bonus meeple only forward, so once you pass something, you won't be able to claim it later in the game.

The bonus tile track incentivizes players to purchase lower-value buildings, and when you get the opportunity to gain one, it's always a tough decision since you can move only forward on the track. On the one hand, you want to beat your opponents to get certain bonus tiles, but on the other hand, if you jump too far ahead, you are going to miss lots of other great tiles and leave them behind for your opponents. Once you gain a bonus tile, you can activate it immediately or later in the game at any moment during your turn to gain its advantage.

The bonus tiles are tiered in groups A through C, from weakest to strongest respectively, but they're really all good. In the regular rules, they are placed in numeric order around the bonus tile track, but I prefer the variant in which you shuffle the tiles for each group separately, then randomly place them in the corresponding zones on the bonus tile track, starting with A, then B, then C. Here are some examples of bonus tiles to give you an idea of what's up for grabs on the bonus tile track:

"A" Bonus Tiles

#2 - Gain wood
#5 - Gain 4 francs
#9 - Move one of your keys to a building or landmark that already has one of your keys

"B" Bonus Tiles

#14 - Pay 1 franc to receive 1 extra key from the reserve
#15 - Receive 4 VP for each value-3 building you occupy when you use this bonus tile
#19 - Use this as two prestige tokens of your choice

"C" Bonus Tiles

#25 - Move your bonus meeple up to five tiles back on the bonus track and take the bonus tile present there (This is the only way to move backwards on the bonus tile track!)
#27 - Receive 1 VP for each franc you own at the end of the game
#29 - Receive 8 VP for each landmark you occupy when you use this bonus tile

Endgame tiles

When the building tile draw piles have been depleted, instead of placing or moving a key, you can take the endgame tile of your choice as an action. Similar to bonus tiles, you can activate an endgame tile immediately or later in the game at any moment during one of your turns.

The endgame tiles aren't nearly as enticing as the bonus tiles, but you'll likely need them later in the game when you are low on resources or money.

When a player takes the last endgame tile, the end of the game is triggered. You finish the current round so that all players have an equal number of turns, after which all players play one final round, then proceed to endgame scoring.

Bonus tile #27 is scored at the end of the game if anyone claimed it, then all districts that have a VP tile are scored. For each district, players add up the value of all of their buildings and landmarks with their key(s) on it, then players with the highest, second highest, and third highest total value receive VPs based on the VP tile. After all districts with a VP tile are scored, the player with the most points wins.

Paris: l'Étoile Expansion

Paris already has a lot of variability, especially when you play with the variants to randomly place bonus tiles and resource/prestige tokens on the game board. The Paris: l'Étoile expansion manages to crank this variability up to 11 thanks to eleven new bonus tiles that are shuffled in with the base game tiles, then randomly distributed in the corresponding zones (A/B/C).

More variety is typically welcomed to keep games fresh and interesting, but perhaps even more exciting than new bonus tiles are the strategy tiles Kramer and Kiesling have added in the l'Étoile expansion. Strategy tiles give players unique powers that can be swapped out throughout the game. They add a whole new, interesting dimension to the gameplay of Paris.

At the beginning of the game, you randomly deal each player a starting strategy tile, then place the remaining starting strategy tiles and the seven other strategy tiles face up near the game board as an available display.

Each strategy tile grants its owner an ongoing effect that can be used during a player's turn until it's swapped with a strategy tile in the display. Every time you place a key on the Arc de Triomphe, you may swap your strategy tile with another available strategy tile, then your previously used strategy tile becomes available for all players. Similar to bonus tiles, strategy tiles come in a variety of flavors. Here are a few examples:

From left to right:
• You can secretly look at the top tile of each building tile pile before choosing one
• You're allowed to place multiple of your keys on the same bank or the Arc de Triomphe
• If you place a key on a value-4 building, you can gain a bonus tile

From left to right:
• You can place a key on a building owned by an opponent
• Gain 2 additional francs each time you place a key on a bank
• Each time any player pays 2 francs for a bonus tile on a 3-value building, you receive those 2 francs

As you can see from the strategy tiles above, these are some really juicy abilities. They all feel very strong, and the kicker is that the expansion includes six others to be explored as well. In my games of Paris with the l'Étoile expansion, it's not uncommon for some players to stick with their starting strategy tile the entire game because they tailored their entire strategy around it, whereas other players would leverage the the Arc de Triomphe more to swap out their strategy tile a couple of times throughout the game. Regardless, twelve different options for unique abilities is great and probably won't get stale for a while...especially combined with the eleven new bonus tiles the expansion also adds.

I have enjoyed my plays of Paris, and I dig what the l'Étoile expansion adds to the mix, especially the strategy tiles. Unique player powers add a new layer to the gameplay, and they can also help give players something to focus on.

My second game when I snagged the Eiffel Tower landmark!

With or without the expansion, I'm a big fan of the player interaction in Paris. It seems like you're constantly racing to beat your opponents to higher-value buildings, landmarks, and bonus tiles, which feels engaging and sometimes a tad frustrating at the same time.

One thing I didn't mention yet is that when you decide to buy a landmark, either you place your key on one that is already on the game board, or you can first add an available landmark from the general supply to the district that your key is in. The landmark tiles range in value from 9 to 16, and when you place new landmarks, they have to be placed in sequential order, which means that if someone decides to place the value-16 Eiffel Tower landmark as the first landmark in a district, no other landmarks can be added there since all the other landmarks have a lower value. Whoever does this is likely to have the most influence in that district and they box people out since you can't place any other landmarks. It's also just an awesome landmark because if you spend gold prestige tokens when you purchase it, you can gain up to 15 VPs!

The Eiffel Tower burned me on my first game (I'm only slightly bitter...still), but I learned and made sure I was the one to claim it in game #2. My opponents were feeling just as salty as I felt the first game, and I couldn't have been more thrilled. Of course, I lost the game, but I still felt good about that one play. I love that Paris can have these cutthroat moments.

While the area majority struggle brews, you will also have this urge to set yourself up to place the fourth key in as many districts as you can so that you can control where the VP scoring tiles are placed. You are constantly struggle to be first at all the things. There's surprisingly a lot going on for a game that also feels so simple, with you placing a building, then performing an action.

Paris certainly isn't the most thematic-feeling game, but with its attractive table presence, it does capture the spirit and beauty of Paris well, and it manages to be great at what it is — a solid area majority-driven euro with simple mechanisms and a ton of depth. Paired with the l'Étoile expansion, it gets spicier and adds so much variety that I'm sure no two games will ever play out the same.