The original Capital Lux game was first published in 2016. Capital Lux 2: Generations is not so much a sequel as an amended and significantly expanded reimplementation. Pretty much all the original game is here but, along with artist Kwanchai Moriya, designers Eilif Svensson and Kristian Amundsen Østby have added a whole lot more – greatly adding to the variety and replayability.
Capital Lux 2: Generations is an area control card game where 2–4 players (and there’s a solo mode too) are competing to score the most points over three rounds. The core deck is made up of 25 cards of each of four colours, numbered 2–6. Each round begins with card drafting and players start with a hand of six cards. On your turn you can play a card to the matching colour on your home base, where it adds to your total for that colour, or you can play it to the capital, where it adds to the capital’s total for that colour. If you play to the capital, you activate the power assigned to that colour at the start of the game.
To ‘win’ a colour at the end of each round, you first need to ensure that your total in that colour does not exceed the total in the capital. If it does, your cards in that colour are discarded – essentially you are bust Blackjack-style. Among those players who haven’t gone bust, then the colour is won by the player with the highest total.
It’s the various powers that make this game shine as players use them to manipulate the cards in their favour. Tho’ this is a quick game (expect most games to take around 30 minutes) played each round with quite a small hand, there’s ample scope for tactical play and careful hand management; timing of your card play can be critical to your prospect of achieving area control.
Aporta Games certainly haven’t skimped in the production of Capital Lux 2: Generations. There are four different powers for each of the four colours, and almost every one has its own set of special cards or components that are only used in games where that power is assigned at set up. Each power plays very differently, and, as you vary set up so you can combine these powers in as many as 256 different ways! This is a game where you can shake up play and vary it greatly from one game to the next, so you can certainly expect to get plenty of replayability from the game.