51st State: Ultimate Edition

We are really enjoying 51st State Ultimate Edition. Highly recommended as a 2 player experience.

We have only tried out the base deck and the first 2 expansions so far as well as the basic solo game.
Really like the gameplay and choices involved. Also enjoy the artwork and how the theme comes out as a result of the location names and images.

We have mostly played with 2 players and based on our few plays with 3 or 4 we much prefer the 2 player experience. There is only a moderate amount of player interaction so the benefits of a larger player count are minimal where as the down time and game length are both extended considerably. That being said it was still an enjoyable experience with 3 and even 4. Just not our preferred experience.

The two expansions we’ve tried so far are the most straight forward ones (New Era and Winter expansions each just add another stack of cards to the deck with no new rules etc.) but we definitely enjoyed how they were thematic in how they affected the gameplay and created an interesting new experience that remained balanced. The game is intended to be played with just the base game or with the base game plus one expansion. This worked well but the only thing to distinguish the cards in the base game from the expansions is text which was not great for sorting the decks back out so we could try a different expansion. Would much prefer a symbol for each different expansion with a distinct shape and colour for sorting purposes.

The basic solo game I tried out once and it was pretty dry. But I’ve heard good things about the Borgo Automa by Joe Leone which is another solo option in the rule book. I look forward to trying this out as it apparently does a good job of recreating the 2 player experience.

My only other complaint is that I really wish this “Ultimate Edition” included the 4 extra player factions included in the Gamefound (crowdfunded) edition as I feel this could add a lot of gameplay variation. I don’t care much about the upgraded components that came with that edition (this edition is very well produced with a lot of nice wooden components) but you really feel the difference of playing the different factions and how they affect your strategy and choices in the game so the other 4 factions would have really added to the replay potential and choices for different play styles etc.

Ultimately for the price and what’s in the box (and the very functional insert) I feel this is a good buy and I highly recommend it.

51st State: Ultimate Edition

51st State: Ultimate Edition