London - Tips & Strategies

This old adage holds true for London. Don’t be afraid to take out loans. Players need to invest to get their engine running and in turn make money. So go ahead take out 4 or 5 loans. A well oiled engine should have no problem paying 4 or 5 loans back at the end of the game.

If you can manage to acquire both the ‘University of London’ and ‘Parliament’ cards and build them to your display, this can create a powerful combination as you are allowed to draw up to 3 cards off the top of the draw deck and keep up to 2 of them, while putting the others back on top of the draw deck in any order you choose

In the 2-player game, a single player getting (and keeping) both Omnibuses can turn the game into a landslide. It isn’t insurmountable, but it’s an awfully big advantage that doesn’t require much thought or strategy. Our solution has been to outlaw a single player having both Omnibus cards. If you get dealt both Omnibuses, you need to figure out a way to keep it away from your opponent or discard it and give them a shot at picking it up.

Some folks have gone as far as outlawing duplicates of any kind in the 2-player game. We haven’t done that (though we recently tried upping the starting poverty from 5 to 15 to make poverty more of a factor). We’ve played 20+ games of London with this variant and it’s one of our favorites.