Description

As far as rules or game mechanism goes, solo playing Steamopolis differs very little compared to the multiplayer experience.

In addition to your own supply of steam tokens, at the start of the game you will also collect a matching set from an unused player colour. These will be utilized during the Visit the City action, for each city district that contains one of your steam tokens you will add a Shadow token. On subsequent turns, your Shadow nemesis will block your access to these city districts until the next time you visit Steamopolis resulting in a new placement phase of shadow tokens.

At the end of the aforementioned action you will discard a certain number of the currently available Machine tiles, simulating progression in the market availability caused by the acquisition from another player and also acting as a timer for triggering the end-of-game state by uncovering the statue tokens as previously described.

The second key difference that separates the solo experience from the multiplayer equivalent is the fact that performing the Build Pressure or Visit the City results in you losing a victory point before taking the action in question, allowing for some pretty tense decisions early in the game when points are a scarce commodity.

--description taken from a review on BGG