Friday night gaming last week was a blast.  The plan was to play another Magic booster draft, but that fell through at the last minute, so we fell back to plan B - the standard Eurogame night with three players.  It was me, Jay and Brandon over at Jay's place.  After a couple of foosball games, we started with Around the World in 80 Days.  I liked this the first time I played it, but we found out that it's not a very interesting game with three players.  We'll pull it out again when we have five.  Next up, we played a quick game of Mississippi Queen.  This has been on my radar for years, but for some reason I've never bought it.  Karl gave it to me for Christmas, and it didn't disappoint.  It was lighter than I expected, but was very easy to explain and played quickly.  I'd love to play this again soon with four or five people.

The last game of the night (and certainly the best) was Capitol.  Wow, what a game!  Capitol is a game I read about a couple of years ago on BGG and filed away as something I wanted to buy.  Once I found out it was out of print, I largely forgot about it.  About 3 months ago I saw a copy appear on eBay and grabbed it for what I thought was a reasonable amount (less than $40).  It's sat on my shelf unplayed since then, lost in a pile of unplayed games that I haven't yet read the rules for.  Fortunately, that changed Friday.  Brandon had played before, and remembered the rules well enough to explain them by glancing through the rulebook.

For those that haven't played, Capitol has a lot going on.  The game is played in four rounds, with scoring at the end of each round.  Each round is broken up into separate phases - construction, auction and scoring.  The board is broken into 9 separate regions in 3 colors - 3 each of white, red and blue.  In each of these regions, there are 5-10 spaces for players to place buildings.  Buildings are made up of 1 or more wooden floor tiles capped by a triangular or rounded roof of that player's color.  Scoring is awarded in each of the 9 regions, with first place going to the player with the most total floors in the region.  

To start the game, players have a supply of four preconstructed buildings - 2x two-story buildings and 2x one-story buildings, one each of the triangular roofs and rounded roofs.  Players are also given a starting hand of cards.  The cards are of three types, representing three actions that may be taken during the construction phase - floor cards, roof cards and permit cards.  The cards also contain a number from 1 to 8, used during the auction phase.

During the construction phase, players take turn playing cards from their hand until all players have passed.  Floor cards allow a player to take 2 floor tiles and either add them to existing unfinished buildings in front of them (these buildings are not yet on the board), or start new buildings, in any combination.  Roof cards let a player take one of their wooden roofs and put it on the top of an unfinished building, making it complete.  Players may place finished buildings on the board by playing permit cards.  The permit cards come in three colors, matching the 3 sections on the board.  When a permit card is played, a finished building may be placed into any of that section's regions, using the following rules:  1) The roof must match the roofs of any other buildings in this region.  2) The first building in a region may only have 1 floor.  3) Any subsequent buildings must be either the same height or one floor taller than the tallest building in the region.  4) Once the open spots in a region are filled, no more buildings may be built there.  These rules make building very tricky!

Once all players have passed in the construction phase, the cards take on a different meaning.  The auction phase begins, where 3 features are auctioned.  Two of the features are always fountains.  Fountains are placed in spots normally reserved for buildings, and add 1 point to the value of that region when it is scored.  Then a special building is auctioned.  These buildings give either extra cards or double points in the region they are built.  Players use the cards that were not used in the construction phase to bid.  It does not matter what type of card it is - only the number is important.

Scoring comes next.  Each region is scored in turn, with points being awarded to the players with the most and second-most floors in the region.  For first place, the player scores 2 points plus 1 point for each fountain, while second place only scores 1 point per fountain.  Additional points are awarded if the doubler building tile has been placed in that region.  After all regions have scored, 6 new cards are drawn for each new player.  The cards are drawn one at a time from the three stacks of cards, giving players some control over the cards for their next hand.  If you need to build floors, floor cards may always be drawn.  However, luck plays a part of this stage, as the color of permit card you need might not come up, or one player may get lucky with the numbers that appear on his cards, giving him an advantage in the auction.  Players who are in first or second place in a region that gives extra cards receive 2 or 1 more cards, respectively.  The turn ends and the next turn is played.

The mechanics of the game are simple to grasp, and players feel right at home after the first full turn.  The game is ultimately a management game.  You must manage two main things - your hand of cards and your buildings.  While card management seems simple at first, a difficult decision arises; Which cards should you use for their actions, and which should you save for their high auction value?  This poses some very interesting decision-making.  Even more interesting are the building decisions.  Initially, decisions are limited to starting into a new region or trying to butt-in on a region where someone else has played.  However, later in the game building becomes much harder.  You may need a building of height 4, but you only have height 5.  Or maybe you have a height 4 building, but it has a triangular roof and you need a rounded roof.  Or you might have that perfect-height building, but are completely out of one type of roof shape, locking you out of a region completely!  The resources available to you diminish in the last turn, as you are faced with only a certain number of actions, floors and roofs with which to build.  All this is complicated with a basic strategy question - do you try to build lots of little buildings, hoping to get second place in lots of regions, or do you build fewer tall buildings, locking up regions that will score you for the entire game?

Capitol had some very interesting decisions without managing to feel as heavy as you might expect.  It does this by keeping mechanics simple and resources limited.

In our game, I took an early lead in turns 1 and 2.  We all thought I might walk away with the victory, as I had sealed first place in two of the regions that would score the rest of the game, including one that provided extra cards.  However, Jay was able to put out 1- and 2-story buildings in lots of different regions, letting him score in more regions overall.  He overtook my lead in the third turn and due to the configurations of my unfinished buildings, there was not a lot I could do to stop him.

We all agreed that Capitol was an excellent game, and I'm looking forward to trying it again soon.  It was definitely a great eBay purchase, and I would have paid even more had I known how good it was!  Time will tell if it will have the staying power of other recent favorites.  (*cough* Taj Mahal *cough*)