A classic hand management, card and tile drafting, tile laying game with majority scoring by Dirk Henn (Wallenstein, Shogun). There are several mechanics which are seamlessly integrated. Spiel des Jahres winner 2003.

Available actions:

• Draw 1 of 4 currency cards or buy as many cards as their total value is less than 5
• Buy a building tile (variable currency and value) and place it in your town area
• Optional: place a reserved building tile, move a placed building tile to your reserve spot, or exchange a placed building tile with a reserved building tile

• Artwork is quite good for such an old game
• Interesting, dynamic currency system: 4 different currency cards to buy 6 different building tiles. The building tiles are randomly drawn and placed in 1 of 4 spots in the public market. The spot determines which currency must be used to buy the building tile and the value printed on the building tile determines its cost (card and tile drafting, hand management)
• There is no change in the game, so players have to decide if they want to overpay to buy a building tile or pick up more currency cards instead.
• Some strategies: focus on expensive building tiles, on a lot of cheap buildings, or on one type of buildings
• Bonus action is granted, if a player pays the exact cost of a building tile (however, no new building tile is drawn for this moment)
• There are 3 scoring rounds where players score points for having the most of a building type (depending on the round and on the type of building tile).
• Tense random scoring: triggered if a scoring card is drawn from the currency card deck.
• Tiles are easy to differentiate because each type of building has its own name and color
• Spatial puzzle: players place their bought building tile into their own town area. Buildings cannot be rotated. Each building has different walls on each edge. Two building tiles cannot be adjacent if a wall and no wall are next to each other. The longest connected wall on the outside of your town score extra points.
• Players can put a building tile into their reserve spot if they cannot place it or they can move / exchange a already placed tile from their town to with the building tile in their reserve spot (flexibility)
• Easy to teach and to learn, streamlined gameplay (gateway / family game)
• Quick playing time

Theme (neat, but dry)

Luck of the draw: available buildings and currency cards randomly drawn and placed in a shared draw pool

No hidden information

Plenty of modular expansion content and alternative versions available (high replayability and variety)

The big game board is not really necessary (placeholder for 4 currency cards and 4 building tiles + victory points track)

No direct player interaction: all players draw currency cards and building tiles from a common pool

Best with 3-4 players. The possibility to plan ahead depends on the player count: with higher player counts, the available cards and tiles change a lot until it is your turn again (more chaotic)

Game experience can be a bit on the dry side for some people (no player interaction, thinky, classic euro style game)

• Can be a bit too random and chaotic (especially with higher player counts)
• The base game offers only limited decision-making (however, the expansions add more depth to the game)

See also:

• Best expansion poll: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/549397/rate-alhambra-expansions-poll

Similar games:

• Isle of Skye (auction for tile selection, only one currency, more complex tile placement, variable tile placement scoring)
• Guilds (bidding for character cards in 2 different areas, room tile placement, some take-that)
• Abyss (similar card/resource economy)

KS 3/19 143 E Mega Designers Edition