Machi Koro: Harbor Expansion Review - with Zee Garcia

Zee takes a quick look at this first expansion to Machi Koro, which introduces new buildings and the ability to play with 5 players.

[AnishChari]

2:20 I don't know anything about the game but your card flipping is really impressive.

[MichaelKing]

Lots of respect for you giving a honest review with the understanding that not all are as bothered by time as you are. I have not played with the expansion and when I get it I think I'll add/remove it depending on the circumstance/group dynamic.

[chrisgallo]

For that reason I do the 5-5-2 variant. Deal five cards 1-6 and 5 cards 7+ and two purple cards. This way the display doesn't get clogged up with stuff slowing down the game.

[callumreavey]

I don't have this expansion, but I was wondering, would the card display mechanic work with the base set? I may give this a try. Has anyone tried this? Did it work?

[Phlip]

The new start is great but I agree that the game is a little too long with those extra buildings. My group will usually play with either the airport or the radio tower but not both. The Harbor is integral and only costing 2 it doesn't make the game take that much longer, at most an extra two rounds usually. The other thing you could do is take out the train station and just say you can start rolling two dice from the beginning. This actually speeds up the game considerably and offsets the extra cost of the airport.

[cthulwho]

The 10 cards display is both a strength and a weakness for the game. The good thing is it stops people following the same purchasing plan they use every game (sorry, no mines available).

However it can also lead to there being 10 unsuitable cards available, such as all being activated by 7 - 12, making the start on the game really slow.

[jeremysnyder]

I respectfully disagree that this expansion makes the game too long. The City Hall gives you a coin every time you don't have a coin, which means that you have no dead turns and definitely speeds up the early game. As for the 30-coin airport, yes that seems very out-of-reach at the start of the game, but by end game you engine is producing a lot more money. It might take a few extra turns at the end - turns that are tense - but these replace the 'I have no money, I can't do anything' turns at the beginning of the game.

I agree that 5 players will make the game longer, but this is true of almost every game. I usually play the game with 2, but I've played it with 4 a few times too. I've never played with 5. With 4, you're always watching what others are doing so that you can cash in on their turn. Yes, it will go longer with more players, but because there's very little down time, I don't see this as a big issue. I don't see it as a filler though and if you put Machi Koro in the "filler" box, then yes an hour is too much time to invest.

[PonSquaredJapan]

Our group really likes Machi Koro Harbor. We don't mind the extra time one bit. So, I guess I have to politely disagree with this review.

[williamwilting]

I like both expansions. The only thing that I really didn't like that much about Machi Koro in general is the fact that coins can go back and forth between players with those red cards the whole time. I like the mechanism of the red cards; it gives some more interaction between players. But the consequences are that you'll be passing coins to each other very often. It is exactly this problem that "locks" the game, meaning that the game itself doesn't seem to advance very much, until a significant difference has been made. And besides that, no expansion really solves the problem of a runaway leader that much either.

[amit]

Played for the first time with 5 players and waay too long. I think not using the airport and/or limiting to four players could fix it.

[DerekCook]

The base game was already pretty bad, namely in that there was almost zero strategy to really employ. This would be fine for a filler game, but bad rolls can't result in dead turns, and 6's being rolled a bunch (a pretty common number) has no income being generated on the board (just swaps around). Even the base game can be too long for what it is.


I thought the Harbor expansion might improve it, but honestly it just made it worse. The game length is now twice as long, and after 1.5 hours of slogging through dice rolls in a 5 player game, we just quit. In that type of time, you could play a real game with real strategy & depth.

Light, fluffy dice rolling games should not be this long. We'll play Kings of Tokyo or Can't Stop or even Catan any day over Machi Koro.


How this game ever got nominated for Spiele das Jahres is beyond me. One of the worst buys I've had in a long time.