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Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by steveg700

Redward wrote:

Looks like a user asked Tom about this and then Tom disagreed but not at length.

Right, he had no clue what the user was speaking of. Tom, of course, does not (and cannot) play one game with sufficient devotion to descend into this sort of rabbit hole.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by steveg700

grant5 wrote:

So let's discuss. Do you disagree with the definitions and examples that I laid out?

Well, I'm not clear on the distinctions that made Acres qualify as "broken" rather than "solved". Do we have a basis upon which to say that the game isn't working as its design intended? If not, then it could be argued that the game is "solved". We can't say that Acres is broken to the point of being outright unplayable, since people play the game simply by not going down that route.

Overall, I don't know how useful it is to try to offer firm definitions for terms that seem to be applied in different contexts by different people. I used Puerto Rico as an example exactly because I've heard the word "solved" applied to it multiple times. I can't tell them they're using the word incorrectly with any real authority. Even dictionaries don't really work that way; while it annoys me to hear people use the word "literally" to denote emphasis (e.g. "I literally hate Dr. Pepper" or "we've literally broken the English language"), if it continues to gain traction, it will eventually be incorporated into its denotation.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by grant5

The BGG glossary is probably as good a place as any to start from. Based on the definitions they give for broken and solved, they are definitely related and I admit they sound similar.

To me, broken means that there is something in the game that a player can exploit to guarantee victory. The Halifax Hammer and Caverna's infinite ore combo qualify as examples of this for me.

Solved means that the outcome is fixed before the game even begins (or maybe after one or two moves). The optimal outcome can be mathed out by a computer.

And there are very few BGG ranked games out there that should have either of these terms applied to them. Most often, when people use either of these terms, what they really mean is that the game has a dominant strategy.

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/glossary#solvable
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/glossary#broken

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by doctoryes0

If the idea here is that LH is solved because shipping steel is worth a lot of money, I'd like to say that I solved it in less than ten seconds.

Steel is worth the most when you ship it. I noticed that right away. So has everyone else that has played LH. Right away.

I think in most games there's something that's worth a lot of points but is hard to do. Are those games all solved too?

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by Gonjeshk

doctoryes0 wrote:

I think in most games there's something that's worth a lot of points but is hard to do. Are those games all solved too?


Not necessarily. I solved Puerto Rico when I started shipping corn. :D

New Image for Le Havre

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by h_dzso

<div>the custom inserts make the game setup much easier</div>

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by steveg700

I don't think it's too hard to figure out that for some folks the term "solved" is applied to Puerto Rico to indicate that the game doesn't have any interesting moves left to figure out. It's not just that there's a dominant strategy; you pretty much know what you need to do on any given turn, and what other players need to do as well. It's a particular risk that games run when they have no hidden information.

Don't know if that would apply to Le Havre.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by doctoryes0

steveg700 wrote:

It's not just that there's a dominant strategy; you pretty much know what you need to do on any given turn, and what other players need to do as well. It's a particular risk that games run when they have no hidden information.

Don't know if that would apply to Le Havre.


Absolutely not. The better the players, the more difficult the choices.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by RutgersKev

It was my question. I love the app and was thinking about getting the game but I'd have to consider it over Caverna and a lot of other newer workers placement games like Viticulture for example.

My question had to do with the shipping strategy which Is clearly the winning strategy. I said the strategy in my question which pissed Tom off as 'rude' for telling people what strategy was the best.

I didn't mean to set off a 2 page discussion on BGG about it. And sorry about my choice of words.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by Redward

RutgersKev wrote:

It was my question. I love the app and was thinking about getting the game but I'd have to consider it over Caverna and a lot of other newer workers placement games like Viticulture for example.


Skip the new stuff and go to the good stuff: Caylus!

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by lostphd

[q="jamuki] Thanks! That's my understanding too, but if that is the meaning, I do not think it has been solved. My humble impression is that the one-player game *may* be solved, but not with more than one player.

Just my two cents.

I think we can declare the solo game "broken". It was broken when the infinite loop that generated million point games was discovered.

But I still play the solo game. The fact it can be broken doesn't diminish the pleasure I get from it.

Flatlining...

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by Marcus Boyce

I'm still struggling to summon the usual high levels of interest in gaming* that I had previously. On Monday night I dragged myself out to the local, weekly, games night and it was full of old friends and new people and was positively thrumming with energy.

There was a game of Le Havre going on - my pulse didn't even flicker with anticipation - and that would turn out to be a very interesting game of Le Havre. I was asked if I'd like to play Kemet. I passed with a shrug of my shoulders and a polite "Five players? ARE YOU FUCKING MAD?"

Eventually I had no choice, was backed into a corner and had to play a game. *sigh* It was just the two of us, and so I picked Flip City by Tasty Minstrel Games, as that is a good game that plays well with two. Probably should never be played at a higher player count though. With a laissez faire attitude to the game I pushed my luck far too much and those Residential Areas and bastard frowning faces got me nearly every time. My opponent, who had never played the game before, destroyed me in record time. C'est la vie and all that.

Onward to a three player game of Harbour (Tasty Minstrel night it seemed) and although my gaming libido started to rise from the shadowy depths a tiny amount - I really do enjoy Le Havre...erm...Harbour - it was soon killed by so much AP that I just wanted people to get on with their moves. Also their was points counting. POINTS COUNTING! Yes the last few rounds came down to number crunching and the associated slow the bloody game to glacial speeds. Well that ruined my mood.

A game of Splendor came out and I did the wise move and ran, ran for the hills.

Great people though and for that reason alone I had fun. Now back to that game of Le Havre, turns out my Canadian friend who loves Le Havre and can score well over 200 managed to get 133 negative points worth of loans. I think he is still recovering from the shock.

Oh and I haven't purchased a singe game in over a month. I did buy the Deluxe Upgrade Kit for Orleans though, there is still hope my gaming heart can be restarted.

Youtube Video

* I became a Priest Of The Euro at one point, now I am fallen.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Upgraded Coins

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Upgraded Coins

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by turtleback


The Viticulture coins are great and that price is pretty good.

I ended up finding something else and I'm happy enough with them.


Thread: Le Havre:: General:: Special Building Question

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by Rekarm

I just finally got around to getting this game and I am very excited to try it. One small rule has me a bit vexed however. During the setup it tells us to draw 6 special buildings at random but the game only ever seems to scale up to using 5 (and as low as 4 in 2 player). Am i missing something? Are thete other ways for special buildings to come into play other than the anchor icon during harvest? If not why are we told to take 6 cards?

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Special Building Question

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by ddyer

If you use the black market, you can peek and swap the top two if you want.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Special Building Question

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by Jasonbartfast

^You mean the market place ;)

And yeah, it's normal for not every special building drawn to make it into the game.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Special Building Question

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by jocar84

Rekarm wrote:

I just finally got around to getting this game and I am very excited to try it. One small rule has me a bit vexed however. During the setup it tells us to draw 6 special buildings at random but the game only ever seems to scale up to using 5 (and as low as 4 in 2 player). Am i missing something? Are thete other ways for special buildings to come into play other than the anchor icon during harvest? If not why are we told to take 6 cards?


Hey Matt,
the point is, when you play with 4 or more players the town can build 5 special buildings plus the market ability where you can sort the cards - makes 6 possibilities.

If you play 3 and less players (like me), then you are right, you just need 5 special building cards on the starting pile, due to the fact that the town builds just 4 plus the market ability.

hope that helps.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by steveg700

RutgersKev wrote:

It was my question. I love the app and was thinking about getting the game but I'd have to consider it over Caverna and a lot of other newer workers placement games like Viticulture for example.

My question had to do with the shipping strategy which Is clearly the winning strategy. I said the strategy in my question which pissed Tom off as 'rude' for telling people what strategy was the best.

I didn't mean to set off a 2 page discussion on BGG about it. And sorry about my choice of words.

Nothing wrong with starting discussions, Kevin. I'm sure it's been had before, and it'll be had again.

Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: "The Game's Been Solved"?

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by Macrawn

I don't know if it has been "solved" but changing coal to coke, then shipping it (or going a step further and making it steel) is just such a money factory that it seems so much harder to try and win any other way. Owning the colliery also gives a good leg up because everyone needs to use that building and it costs 2 food. It makes the game feel narrow and solved. I personally would like to see a second edition of the game open up some more avenues for victory.
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