The great cities of Europe at the height of the Renaissance -a place where enlightened thought is paired with astounding feats of architecture, sculpture, and painting. It is an age of great change in the world, but above all else, it is an age of undeniable splendor.

In Cities of Splendor, you'll leave the comforting familiarity of the European gem trade and travel to the Orient, where new rules and cards invite you to adapt your strategies. With four expansions in a single box, Cities of Splendor offers you four thrilling new ways to experience the game, opening the door to new levels of replayability without sacrificing any of the original game's unique elegance.

In The Cities expansion, the noble tiles from the original game are replaced with new, double-sided city tiles. Like nobles, these cities have requirements that must be fulfilled before you can claim the city. Unlike the noble tiles, however, to win the game with The Cities expansion, you must claim a city! Naturally, you'll be competing against your opponents to be the first to claim a city - and if another player is going after the same city as you, you'll need to be ruthless if you're going to gain the upper hand.

The Trading Posts expansion from this box adds to the engine-building aspects of Splendor by introducing the Route to the Orient board. This board offers unique powers to the players provided you can unlock them by collecting the appropriate development cards. You may gain more prestige points, the ability to accelerate your game by claiming more gems, or even stranger abilities. Just take care that you don't become distracted by these new powers and lose sight of your end goal!

The Orient expansion simply adds thirty Orient development cards to the game, each offering unique new powers. These Orient development cards sit alongside the normal development cards, meaning that your options for every choice have been expanded. What's more, these cards also offer unique and unexpected abilities, such as copying the gem bonus of another development card or inviting you to reserve a noble tile. In any case, the noble tiles are placed at the heart of your games with The Orient expansion, meaning that you'll need to carefully consider how to get them faster or how to make your cards more profitable once the nobles are gone.

More than any other expansion in the Cities of Splendor box, The Strongholds enhances the interaction between the players with the addition of stronghold pieces. After you purchase a development card, you can choose to either place one of your strongholds on the board or to remove an enemy stronghold from the board. While your stronghold is on a card, only you can purchase that development card - and if all three of your strongholds are on the same card, you may have the chance to claim it by right of conquest! By enhancing the combo aspect of the base game, The Strongholds invites you and your fellow players to engage in a tightly wound battle of wits.

As with the original game Splendor, the primary mechanics include set collection and hand management. With four expansions in a single box, Cities of Splendor is an unparalleled way to expand the replayability of a classic game.

This expansion requires the Splendor base game to play.

Players: 2-4
Recommended Age: 10+
Playtime in minutes: 30

Contents:

Cities:

• 7 double-sided city tiles

Trading Posts:

• 1 €œRoute to the Orient€ board
• 20 coats of arms (5 per color)

The Orient:

• 30 Orient development cards (10 of each level)