The atomic revolution
We are a bit late to the party with ☢️ Nucleum, but now it’s time. 💪 Let’s cut into this crunchy euro cake. Most people compare it to Brass and Barrage - two games we aren’t particularly fond of, so Nucleum will have to be good on its own merits. It has a 4 out of 5 complexity rating on BGG, and I guess it’s a fair assessment: there are a lot of things you can do in the game, and countless ways to do them in, so the decisions are quite layered, with a lot of room for optimization. We were surprised though that learning the rules was relatively simple (even if it takes some time).
But what is the game about? 🤔 It is played in an alternate timeline in the past in Saxony as someone invents the Nucleum 🏭 - basically a nuclear power plant that can use uranium to produce electricity. This brings forth a burst of industrialization and makes Saxony a hub of science and engineering. As players you have to build urban buildings, rail lines, uranium mines and turbines for the power plants, and then use these networks you have built to bring power to the buildings and energize ⚡ them. Whoever does this most effectively will gather more victory points and thus win the game!
The main feature to highlight is how action selection works! ☝️ You have tiles that show 2 actions/symbols on them. On your turn you either place one above your player board, getting to activate both effects, or place it as part of a railway on the board and activating only the parts of it that have a color match 🔗 - cities and the ends of these tiles are colored, so you want to use the ideal tiles in the ideal spots. Unlinked edges can be activated later when someone places another tile next to them.
Placing tiles to the board is important, because that is the way you can grow your network and connect power plants with sources of fuel. However those tiles are then lost forever and you have to spend a worker too to mark it as yours.
But playing tiles above your player board has some advantages too!
There is a lot of fun nuance to when you should play which tile in which way, that makes every turn engaging! 🙃
