Between Two Cities is a 30-minute tile-drafting game for 1-7 players in which each tile is part of a city. You work with the player on your left to build one city center while simultaneously working with the player on your right to build a second city center. On each turn you select two tiles from your hand, reveal them, then work with your partners to place one of your selected tiles into each of your two cities.
At the end of the game, each city is scored for its architectural grandiosity. Your final score is the lower of the scores of the two cities you helped design, and the player with the highest final score wins the game. To win, you have to share your attention and your devotion equally Between Two Cities.
The Essential Edition combines components from the original game and the Capitals expansion into one cohesive whole. While it features a bigger box than the original game, different art on some tiles, and a scorepad instead of a board, there are no new gameplay elements (i.e., if you own Between Two Cities and the Capitals Expansion, you already have everything).
Components
- 1 box (296x296x70mm)
- 2 rulebooks (multiplayer and solo)
- 129 building tiles
- 24 duplex tiles
- 7 city tokens*
- 7 landscape mats
- 1 scorepad
- 7 district cards (44x67mm) and 3 tiles
- 20+ Automa solo components
*The rules and box show the Zollverein Mine, but the actual token that ended up in the game is the Colosseum.
Media and Other Information
- Facebook Group
- Between Two Cities reviews
- BoardGameGeek
- Favourite Foe
- Tabletop Gaming Guild (and Instagram)
- Get Into Games
- Altru No Existe (Spanish how to play)
- Board’s Eye View
- Beard and Dice (and unboxing)
- Boardgamer di Montagna
- Joculescu by howtoplay (Romanian)
- I Giochi del Topo (Italian)
- Board Game Brothers (Dutch)
- Bordspelbros (Dutch)
- All Aboard Boardgames (playthrough)
- Cafe Mais Geek (Portuguese)
- BoardGameCo
- Brettspiel Blog (German)
- The Mad Board Gamer (and podcast)
- Board Game Review
- Board Gamers Anonymous
- Natty Dice
- Around the Board
- Dice Daniel (and Dutch)
- Board Game Maniac
- Lär dig spela (rules video)
- A Couple Games
- Board Game Duel (and podcast)
- The Literary Gamers
- Our Board Game Story (and Instagram)
- Once Upon an Island
- Board Game Bite (plus Instagram and Facebook)
- Board Game Plays
- Professeur Board Game
- The Board Game Librarian
- Just Let Terence Explain It (plus setup and tutorial)
- Board Game Overlord
- Volpe Giocosa (Italian)
- Play Games, Lose Friends
- Liege of Games
- BG Port
Release Details: Between Two Cities Essential Edition is available from Stonemaier Games’ fulfillment centers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The retail release date was October 21, 2022.
Product Details: The price is as listed on the webstore. In addition to the two primary artists, Ossi Hiekkala illustrated the box and Beth Sobel illustrated the landscape and tabletop graphics.
The following graphic shows the difference between the original (top row) and the new tiles (bottom row):
Copyright 2015 Stonemaier LLC. Between Two Cities is a trademark of Stonemaier LLC. All Rights Reserved. This content is not authorized for posting on Steam.
51 Comments on “Between Two Cities Essential Edition”
Leave a Reply to Jamey StegmaierCancel reply
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Two questions – and stating in advance, I do appreciate the effort to make a reply.
First, I previously owned Between Two Castles and unfortunately sold it due to the very small size of the tiles/iconography. I found this City Essential variant which referenced the original game and I’ve searched…. but cannot find out if the tiles are same, better, worse?? I hope bigger!
Second, can you elaborate on the solo and two player variant in the Essential version? Is it the same as Between Two Castles?
Enjoyed Between Two Castles multiplayer and the solo puzzle…but everyone struggled with the iconography and tile size. Does this fix it?
Thanks Tim! Between Two Castles and Between Two Cities are different games–the solo and two-player variants are similar but also not the same (see the Cities rulebooks here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/0nykc0ph6wmcw9wlgx8l1/h?rlkey=9uqjve1rxuqdac19fyglb2l99&dl=0). We did not hear the same issues from customers about Cities as we did Castles (though we have also updated Castles with bigger icons/text too).
Thanks for the super fast reply! Your response sent me down the rabbit hole researching the difference between castles/cities. To your point, similar, but different.
The deciding factor was the fresh art and clarity in the Essentials Cities that I will lean towards it. Normally artwork is low on my rationale, but it actually is driving my decision. Fixes the major struggle that I had with Castles. Take care – Tim
Thanks for looking into this! I hope you enjoy the game. :)
Loving the game so far! I had a question about the stage when players are discussing tile placement with their neighbours, after everyone has chosen their two tiles for that turn. At this point, is a player allowed to tell the others what tiles are left over in the stack he/she just finished choosing from?
Thanks.
You’re allowed to talk openly (without looking at the passed tiles) only during the phase when you’re placing tiles.
Jamey: I have the original edition and the expansion — love the game. In fact, I just reviewed it for Meeple Mountain.
One of the things I love is the seating arrangement cards. It occurred to me that many games have effects that can only impact your opponents to the left and right.
Would you consider selling those cards (with perhaps some more ways to set up seating) as a separate product? They could certainly be quite useful as a general play-aid for a lot of games.
Just a thought.
Thanks David! I’m glad you like those cards. They’re available as a free download here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/peucvd9u9hrc4fc65df25/seating-order-cards.PDF?rlkey=pccqnziyjgjoszr6n21t0zyr6&dl=0
Wow! Thanks, I will make a spare set of these tonight.
Still think it would make for a great little product to sell. :)
Is there any way to work out playing Between Two Cities (Essential Edition) with 8 players?
Definitely! You can combine two copies of the game to play with up to 14 players.
Thanks! Would it work to combine one copy of the essentials edition with one copy of the original edition, or would they be too different? Would having both of the copies be essentials edition work better?
If that’s what you have, it could work–the icons are the same, but the art is different.
What if you can’t make a legal move?
In round 2, you could find yourself with 2 horizontal or 2 vertical without room for both.
Or with the landscapes you could isolate a spot you can’t legally reach.
I wondered that too, Rusty, but it’s actually impossible to not have room for both due to the flexible nature of the grid at that point in the game. Feel free to prove me wrong (post a photo on BGG or the Between Two Cities Facebook group), but I think it’s mathematically impossible.
Hello, we found the game “between two cities” on a list of games for 10 people, that says if you buy two copies you can play with more people easily. Would that be true of the “between two cities essential edition” as well, or do the added components make it not work for 10 people anymore?
Absolutely, it still scales up to any player count as long as you have enough copies. :)
Amazing! Thank you! And thank you for your quick reply!
Hi! I have a big favor to ask, is there a link to the previous version’s rule book that you could share? I just bought a copy of the original at my local game store in Seoul and it would be helpful to see the English version side by side when I’m learning it with my friends.
Trying to hunt down the capitals expansion in the meantime….
Absolutely! It’s already on Dropbox–same place as the rulebook link on the above page. :) It’s the files that was last updated in 2020.
Bonjour, très joli jeu. serait-il possible d’avoir les règles de l’essential edition en français?
I don’t think there is a French version planned, but feel free to ask Matagot. Also, the game is language independent, so even the English version can work for anyone. :)
Like magic! 🥰 Thank you. 🤩🤩
Is there an ETA on when this might be back in stock?
I think this is just a glitch–I’m pretty sure we still have it in stock, but just in case, we’ll check with the warehouse.
Marc: Unfortunately, it does appear that we’re out of stock, but we’ll make more. In the meantime, feel free to check with your preferred retailer(s) to see if they have it.
Hello Jamey, thanks for checking. Was hoping to add this to Wingspan Asia and use my Champions discount, but I will look around. In hindsight, I should have pre-ordered.
Does this version come with the game trays from the original? I didn’t see them in the unboxing, just everything loose in the box.
Jacob: I’m sorry, I missed this comment before. Between Two Cities has never had Game Trayz–that’s Between Two Castles. Between Two Cities’ cardboard insert is designed so that the tiles float loosely in a large pool in the box–that way they’re always shuffled, making for really easy setup, cleanup, and drafting.
Would it be possible to see a side by side comparison of just one set of tiles from old version vs the new version? Maybe one of the double tiles? Just so that people have a bit of an idea of what the updated art looks like. I know you have previously said it is not much difference but it would still be great to be able to look and see :)
Absolutely! I just took and added such a photo to the page above. :)
Thank you so much! Wow, the differences are small but amazing none the less!
On the punch boards, a few say to place the large empty ones under the insert. Does this refer to the blank tiles that get punched out or the actual punch boards. What is the purpose? Thanks
Thanks for asking, Nick! The reason is to raise up the insert to prevent tiles from sliding around.
Ah, smart! Thanks for clarifying!
Do you know roughly when this will be possible to buy in the shop? I’m hoping to order it this month to get in on that Smitten deal too :)
Both the Smitten offer and Between Two Cities Essential will become available at the same time whenever they arrive (hopefully next week). Stay tuned to our enewsletter for a notification!
Can you post a picture of the new scorepad?
I’ll do you one better–I’ll upload the file in case you want to properly print it at home! https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qlgeliymj2uyak1/AAAg1I8r9cF1guMfZX_G7Fn1a?dl=0
Finally!!!
Will definitely buy this!
Still waiting for a second expansion though. ;)
Also: Any chance of reproduction of the promo city tokens? Really want to expand the selection of tokens for our games!
Thanks Simon! I appreciate your interest, but we don’t have any plans for a second expansion or for reprinting the city tokens. Maybe there will be renewed interest in them with the release of this new edition–we’ll see! :)
Incredible new cover art! Excited to pick this up for sure.
Any chance this got the GameTrayz treatment Between Two Castles got? :)
All components are listed above, so no. It’s easier just to have an open area in the box to shuffle tiles for Between Two Cities.
Does this version have any of the promo city tokens like Himeji or Dallas?
I’ll upload the rulebook so you can see. :)
Will the art on the cards and other game components be updated?
We have slightly different art on the primary building tiles–very similar, but slightly different.
Will this now be the only way to get the capitals expansion moving forward (outside of the secondary market)?
Yes, it’s no longer an expansion–it’s part of the core game. Capitals is available on the secondary market (it’s been available there since 2017).
Beautiful Cover Art! I’m just blown away! Will definitely be picking this up!