Saint Petersburg

Four decks, four phases, and one long argument with yourself about whether to spend now or wait.

Peter the Great is building a new capital out of a swamp, and you are helping — by hiring workers who bring in money, putting up buildings that bring in points, and cultivating aristocrats who quietly do both and get better the more of them you collect.

The engine is beautifully tight. Every round runs through the four card types in the same order, and cards nobody buys come back cheaper next time. So there is always a case for holding off, and always the risk that somebody else takes the exact card you were waiting on. Bernd Brunnhofer's 2004 design is a card game that plays like a much larger economic game, in about an hour.

This is the original Rio Grande Games edition, new and still sealed. Out of print — later printings reworked the cards. One copy only.

Perfect for: Anyone who has ever left something in an online cart for a week waiting for the price to drop, then watched the last one sell. This game is that feeling, on purpose, repeatedly.

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