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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
grant5 wrote:
Board games cost what they cost because people are willing to pay it.
Bang on. It's a case of supply and demand. In the case of board games supply is usually fixed until a reprint comes along.
grant5 wrote:
Their MSRP is not based solely on the cost of the raw materials used to produce them. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Not solely, correct. But mostly they are, unless Panda have got it wrong.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Effects of an early Dunny in a game?
by grant5
bygberbrown wrote:
davypi wrote:
I just acquired the 12 card promo pack in a trade an a rules question kind of came to mind. At this point its hypothetical, but I'm still curious....
In Australia a Dunny is a toilet, what is it here?
What is it where? In the context of the card it is just as you described, the Australian slang for toilet.
I'm not aware of Dunny being a word that means anything anywhere else.
Also, I reiterate what davypi said. Why did four people thumb that comment?
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Effects of an early Dunny in a game?
by turbothy
Why does two people complain that four people thumbed a comment?↧
Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Effects of an early Dunny in a game?
by grant5
turbothy wrote:
Why does two people complain that four people thumbed a comment?
Not a complaint, just curious and a little dumbfounded.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Effects of an early Dunny in a game?
by bygberbrown
davypi wrote:
Really? Four people are going to thumb resurrecting an on thread by asking a question that was posted in an even older thread?
I was in the Le Havre forums, not the main page. I hardly think resurrecting was justified when its a few months. Also, excuse me for repeating something on the internet *cough*first game that got you into the hobby*
And Id bet the thumbs were just other Aussies. Im confused, I thought Le Havre was set in France, strange to see Aussie slang in it.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
by bygberbrown
grant5 wrote:
bygberbrown wrote:
Badigel wrote:
Hi,
Just wondering, why such a price tag?
Just wondering, why such a price tag?
I came here to ask this exact question. Here is my reasoning: the Z-Man edition features quite thin boards, and quite thin cards. I haven't seen the earlier Lookout Games edition. The resource tokens are really nice and there's heaps of them.
Its weird that its priced the same as Agricola when that came with a whole tree's worth of animeeples and there's no wood in this one at all... Is cardboard and printing expensive?
Board games cost what they cost because people are willing to pay it. Board games are luxury goods, not commodities. Their MSRP is not based solely on the cost of the raw materials used to produce them. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
That doesn't help me when I open up a AU$100 game and find flimsy components. Why is my disappointment so hard to understand?
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
by grant5
bygberbrown wrote:
grant5 wrote:
bygberbrown wrote:
Badigel wrote:
Hi,
Just wondering, why such a price tag?
Just wondering, why such a price tag?
I came here to ask this exact question. Here is my reasoning: the Z-Man edition features quite thin boards, and quite thin cards. I haven't seen the earlier Lookout Games edition. The resource tokens are really nice and there's heaps of them.
Its weird that its priced the same as Agricola when that came with a whole tree's worth of animeeples and there's no wood in this one at all... Is cardboard and printing expensive?
Board games cost what they cost because people are willing to pay it. Board games are luxury goods, not commodities. Their MSRP is not based solely on the cost of the raw materials used to produce them. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
That doesn't help me when I open up a AU$100 game and find flimsy components. Why is my disappointment so hard to understand?
Fair enough, but in that case I would say you're asking the wrong question. Your question shouldn't be "why is it so expensive?" (answer: people will pay it), but rather, "given the price, why is the quality bad?"
I have the Lookout version, and I am very satisfied with the quality. I haven't seen the z-man version, so I can't speak to that.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Effects of an early Dunny in a game?
by grant5
bygberbrown wrote:
davypi wrote:
Really? Four people are going to thumb resurrecting an on thread by asking a question that was posted in an even older thread?
I was in the Le Havre forums, not the main page. I hardly think resurrecting was justified when its a few months. Also, excuse me for repeating something on the internet *cough*first game that got you into the hobby*
And Id bet the thumbs were just other Aussies. Im confused, I thought Le Havre was set in France, strange to see Aussie slang in it.
When the game was originally printed, the english language version was known as the "Australian Edition."
EDIT: here, I found a thread that talks about why: Australian edition?
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
by Guibs
I am suprised how much people don't understand how this works. A board game is more than just the cardboarx/plastic/paper it is made of.Designer, and artist get a cut of the price as well and art is not cheap. There is also the company overhead to cover from employee salaries, rent, electricity, marketing, etc. This is AL, part of the company overhead is must be added to the cost of fabrication of the game.
Add shipping from the manufacturer in China to shipping to distributer. Then the company takes a profit on it then the store also take its cut.
It's far more than just actual material cost.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
by bygberbrown
Guibs wrote:
I am suprised how much people don't understand how this works. A board game is more than just the cardboarx/plastic/paper it is made of.
Designer, and artist get a cut of the price as well and art is not cheap. There is also the company overhead to cover from employee salaries, rent, electricity, marketing, etc. This is AL, part of the company overhead is must be added to the cost of fabrication of the game.
Add shipping from the manufacturer in China to shipping to distributer. Then the company takes a profit on it then the store also take its cut.
It's far more than just actual material cost.
Designer, and artist get a cut of the price as well and art is not cheap. There is also the company overhead to cover from employee salaries, rent, electricity, marketing, etc. This is AL, part of the company overhead is must be added to the cost of fabrication of the game.
Add shipping from the manufacturer in China to shipping to distributer. Then the company takes a profit on it then the store also take its cut.
It's far more than just actual material cost.
If What you're saying was true then there'd be no reason for a game to go beyond prototype quality components, and everyone would happily buy it. Component quality matters in the value proposition of a board game, its like graphics and frames per second in video games. Its not unreasonable to query these things.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
by Hanno
Guibs wrote:
Add shipping from the manufacturer in
All games from the Lookout range are being manufactured in Germany, not in China. This is true even for the localized versions by our license partners.
Keep in mind that the strong Euro made games pretty expensive. Now that the Euro and the Dollar are nearly even, prices should take a considerate hit.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: How do you speed up the game and reduce fiddliness?
by Mools
meepleraptor wrote:
How long is a 3 player short game? The rules say the 2 player short game is 45 minutes, and the 3 player short game is 120 minutes, which seems like a very big jump!
I've only played 2 and 4 player and the game goes from about an hour to 2.5 hours. So for some reason the time-per-person does increase as the number of players increases. This probably goes along with how the game plays different and feels different as well.
I suspect that when playing with 2p, there is less real serious decisions to make. The game is more about meeting the rapidly increasing food demands but there is lots of ways to get food in the 2p game between fish, meat and bread. The same can be true with regard to which resources you pick...someone grabs the wood, not a big deal because you grab some food.
But in a 3p game there is more competition and fewer turns between rounds. Each action becomes more important and therefore probably adds more time to think about your action. The number of rounds MAY also increase (can't remember off hand) as well as the number of cards which may also add extra time.
As for saving time, I keep all resource chits in these circular plastic bead containers. They all screw together into a stack so when I set up the game I just unscrew the containers and put them right on the board. Makes set-up quicker as well as slightly reduces fiddliness.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Why is the game so expensive?
Guibs wrote:
I am surprised how much people don't understand how this works.
I think you're underestimating what people understand.
From what I can gather from the op the question could be reframed as:
"How does this game hold it's price relative to other games released around the same time?".
There have been side discussions over such things as manufacturing cost etc but none of them really answer the OP's original question like this one:
neilhora wrote:
Aha, the price of gameplay... however do you value that?
If Le Havre wasn't such a popular game it wouldn't be in such demand. Obviously the other side of the supply/demand equation is supply.. I guess even the reprint didn't satisfy demand.
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Review: Le Havre:: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by gameon3948
Le Havre is my favorite Uwe Rosenberg game, the board game I have probably played the most, and one of my all time favorite games. Aside from a handful of 3, 4, or 5-player games, nearly all my (likely 300+) plays have been 2-player.Rules Overview
The object of the game is to have the most money at the end of a variable number of rounds determined by the number of players. Your end game money will be a total of your cash on hand, the value of your ships, and the value of your buildings. As goods are not worth anything at the end of the game, a popular last move (or second-to-last move) is to use the Shipping Line to sell as many high priced goods as you can for money.
Goods accumulate each turn on offer spaces in the harbor. On your turn you can claim all the goods on one of these spaces or you can let them accumulate further (and risk your opponents taking them) and use a building instead. At the beginning of the game there are only a few buildings available (so harbor offers are frequently claimed); but as players build more buildings, there are more choices available, the building actions are more efficient, the harbor offers are claimed less, and they accumulate to larger quantities. Buildings are owned by the player who built them, or by the city, and you usually must pay an entry fee to use them. In addition to the entry fee, some have usage fees as well.
After 7 turns the round ends, and you have to feed your workers. The amount you have to feed your workers increases throughout the game and, while you can always substitute money for food, if you still cannot afford to feed them, you must take a loan. Loans cost interest and points at the end of the game if not repaid.
Building ships (using the Wharf building) allows you to automatically feed X number of workers each round, lessening the amount of actions you have to waste on feeding your workers each round. Additionally, ships are required to ship goods at the Shipping Line--which makes up a large portion of your final money. The game is rarely won without ships, so do not ignore them!
What I like about Le Havre
Replayability. The order the goods accumulate in the harbor is randomly determined each game (and then remains the same throughout the course of the game once revealed). Also, the buildings available to be built are ordered differently each game. As only the top building on each of three stacks can be built at any given time, this changes strategies as well. Finally, there are quite a number of Special Buildings (36 in the base game), of which only 6 are used (chosen randomly) in any given game. These provide quite a lot of variety to each game. All these aspects combine to mean you must reevalute each game when to take goods, when to let them accumulate, which buildings to build, and when.
Careful, tight balance. This is not a game about specialization or about mutual exclusive paths to victory. This is a game about using your limited number of actions as efficiently as possible. You have one goal, to make money, and more often than not that means getting ships, getting valuable goods, and shipping them! As such it's not a game of devising an overarching strategy (the game provides that to you); instead it's about constantly reevaluating fluctuating markets, knowing when it's too risky not to take something, knowing when your opponent is being too greedy and leaving something to accumulate that they really need, knowing when it's okay to take a loan if it means being able to build that truly critical building a turn early, and knowing when it's best to wait and make sure everyone gets fed this round.
Interaction. When you use a building you block other players from using that building until either you use another building or that building is bought or sold. Since you don't need to move each turn (if you claim an offer in the harbor you stay in your current building), blocking the Wharf when you know your opponent needs to build a ship is a real (and frequent) possibility. Similarly, you are constantly watching what your opponent does, how many resources they have, what actions they could do next turn and which ones are most likely, so that you don't get blocked out of something or an offer you want doesn't get snatched out from under you.
Art. It is no secret I love Klemens Franz's work--and this is no exception. Bright colors, high contrast, all with ample space and clarity, the game is fun to look at AND easy to understand at a glance. Furthermore, the language independent symbology on the cards is clear and easy to understand.
Game Length. My wife and I play 2-player games in just a little over an hour. There is a little setup time (10-15 minutes) and more players will add time to this. But a 2-hour 3-player game or 2 to 3-hour 4-player game is the norm and I find that's a good length for most groups.
No individual luck. The randomization of the setup is done before the game starts and affects all players equally. The special buildings are revealed throughout the course of the game, but you can preview and reorder them by using the Marketplace, to have a little more control and forewarning. And even then, these buildings are still available to everyone.
Open information. The game is not perfect information because at the start of the game you do not know the special buildings nor the order they will be revealed. Similarly, the order of goods' accumulation is revealed once per turn throughout the first round, so only in the second round is this order known. That said, the game is 100% open information among players. There are no shields, no hand of cards, nothing kept face down in front of players. You can always see exactly which resources and in which quantities each player possesses, as well as their current relative score.
Easy to learn, difficult to master. The game is much easier to teach than Agricola and the concepts of getting goods, building buildings, shipping goods are readily understood. As long as you emphasize the importance of ships and shipping high value goods at the end of the game, new players also tend to do well. That said, you will soon find yourself addicted to the nuances and the desire to maximize, striving not only to win, but to get more and more money each game. 250? 270? 300? How high can you go?
(That said, the randomization of the buildings and interaction means not every game is the same. You are playing against the game as well as your opponent. In this way you cannot really compare scores between games. Typically games where ONE player has a high score, ALL players have relatively high scores and vice-versa. Still it is fun not only to try and score higher and higher, but also to see how low you can get your opponents' scores to be
)Conclusion
One of my all time favorites. It is amazing how tight and well-crafted it is. All the building entry costs that may seem arbitrary become so critical when you are trying to squeeze out extra points. The seemingly minor differences in the order of goods accumulations, or the order of building availability, has a dramatic impact on each game. And as someone who judges games by how often I am looking at my opponents' resources or trying to guess my opponents' next moves--this game fires on all cylinders.
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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by Dark_Knight
Stupendous game....have loved it for years-just another reason that Uwe is "the man" when it comes to Euros....↧
Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by rjginther
Thanks for the review. I have been eyeing this one and you have put me over the ledge I already had one foot off of!!:)Ron
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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by gameon3948
rjginther wrote:
Thanks for the review. I have been eyeing this one and you have put me over the ledge I already had one foot off of!!:)
Ron
Ron
What are ledges for, if not leaping off? :)
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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by Kyellan
One thing I really like about Le Havre is that the decision space starts very small and grows over time, allowing new/less experienced players to adapt gradually.At the beginning, the only buildings available have only one effect: build another building. Your first turns just consist of picking up resources, either to pay a building cost or to have enough food at the end of the round. Only as buildings appear do you have more options open up, and each early building has a pretty clear cost and effect.
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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Le Havre: A tightly balanced, highly replayable masterpiece
by gameon3948
Kyellan wrote:
One thing I really like about Le Havre is that the decision space starts very small and grows over time, allowing new/less experienced players to adapt gradually.
At the beginning, the only buildings available have only one effect: build another building. Your first turns just consist of picking up resources, either to pay a building cost or to have enough food at the end of the round. Only as buildings appear do you have more options open up, and each early building has a pretty clear cost and effect.
At the beginning, the only buildings available have only one effect: build another building. Your first turns just consist of picking up resources, either to pay a building cost or to have enough food at the end of the round. Only as buildings appear do you have more options open up, and each early building has a pretty clear cost and effect.
I totally agree. Well articulated. I wish I would have thought to mention that in my review!
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