It is the early 1800s, a time of immense construction and urbanization. You are a world-renowned urban planning master who has been asked to redesign two different cities. Projects of such significance require the expertise of more than one person, so for each assignment you will be paired with a partner with whom you can discuss and implement the grand plans. Will your planning and collaboration skills be enough to design the most impressive city in the world?

Between Two Cities is a partnership-driven tile-drafting game in which each tile represents part of a city: factory, shop, park, landmarks, etc. You work with the player on your left to design the heart of a city, and with the player on the right to design the heart of another city. On each turn, you choose two tiles from your hand, reveal them, and then work with your partners individually to place one of those tiles in each of your two cities before passing around the remaining hand of tiles.

At the end of the game, each city is scored on its livability. Your final score is the lowest score of the livability scores of the two cities you helped design. To win, you must share your attention and dedication between two cities. The player with the highest final score wins the game.

The Essential Edition combines components from the original game and the Capitals expansion into one cohesive whole. While it has a larger box than the original game, different artwork on some tiles, and a scorepad instead of a board, there are no new gameplay elements (i.e. if you own Between Two Cities and the Capitals Expansion you'll have everything already) .