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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by HuginnGreiling

You can't see it in the photo, but there is a muffin tray set on a chair off to the side containing hundreds of additional tokens for resources and goods. You sow these upon the board.

Also, you can't see it, but there are puzzle-pieced buildings underneath the grave tokens (and stand-in grave tokens) on all those large square offboard city grids.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by leemc13

Jonathan, do you have another game being played under Antiquity?

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by leemc13

Ah, the High Frontier lettering juxtaposed with those war game chits was throwing me off. I couldn't figure out what game it was at first. Thx!

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by DukeOfEarl

THis is a good review and it mirrors my experience exactly. I have played Ora only once, and it felt like Le Havre on steroids. The point is, Le Havre doesn't need steroids, in my opinion. The only thing that I find a pity in Le Havre is that the special buildings play so little a role - there is not much incentive to buy more of those cards, knowing you get only 2 or 3 of them out each game.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by johnclark

DukeOfEarl wrote:

THis is a good review and it mirrors my experience exactly. I have played Ora only once, and it felt like Le Havre on steroids. The point is, Le Havre doesn't need steroids, in my opinion. The only thing that I find a pity in Le Havre is that the special buildings play so little a role - there is not much incentive to buy more of those cards, knowing you get only 2 or 3 of them out each game.


I think I agree. The special buildings rarely play a big role in my games too.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Flyboy Connor

Physically speaking, Ora is one of the worst-designed games that I know. I do not like the gameplay either, which feels chaotic, messy, and without any interesting choices.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Horrid Beast

QBert80 wrote:

I do like the spatial aspect of Ora, but you're right that it contributes to the multiplayer solitaire feel of the game.


Have you guys played many 3-4 player games of OeL? It can be quite cut-throat using the last players meeples so that they don't get a turn. Very nasty. I do concur that this game has a solitaire feel to it but a player should always know what others own to maximise their options. I love this game and LeH is also a good one too as far as I am concerned :D

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by dabowsa

HuginnGreiling wrote:

There's a game of Advanced Civilization paused under plexiglas below Antiquity, yes. And you can see the poster map for High Frontier running under the edges of that.


This deserves its own entry in the bgg lore book of geekdom.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by rrrrupp

I'd like to get Ora to the table more (I've only played a single game) but the one game we played felt really mechanical. There was way too much, "turn this good into that good which is worth points at the end of the game" for me. The spatial component was nice though.

I feel the same as most of you.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by davypi

DukeOfEarl wrote:

there is not much incentive to buy more of those cards, knowing you get only 2 or 3 of them out each game.


We have a house variant where whenever the city builds a normal building, we build a special building instead. This puts twice as many specials in the game for more variety. It also encourages more players to work on building strategies over shipping strategies.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Ganybyte

HuginnGreiling wrote:

There's a game of Advanced Civilization paused under plexiglas below Antiquity, yes. And you can see the poster map for High Frontier running under the edges of that.


If anyone needs a Geek Chiq table, it's you. I did have 3 solo games set up in layers on one at one point and then relaized it was time to finish one.

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Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Myoman

I'm torn on that variant. In the end you have even more buildings out, increasing the clutter, and sometimes the city building a regular building helps get to more key buildings easier.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by ravenskana

I tried variants once or twice some time ago to get more special buildings out and recall not being satisfied with the result. I don't recall the details of the variants right now but we ended up going overboard with too many buildings so that is a danger.

One thing I often do in my games is allowing players to select cards that will go in the special buildings deck. I often play with my two boys and I let each of them select half the cards without looking at any myself, giving them a slight advantage in knowing what may come up. I try to have them select cards we haven't seen in awhile, but time between plays tends to be long enough we don't really recall what was played last time anyway.

If I were to try another variant today to put more special buildings out, I think I would simply select two or three cards at random and make them start buildings so they are available the whole game.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by louper

Myoman wrote:

I'm torn on that variant. In the end you have even more buildings out, increasing the clutter, and sometimes the city building a regular building helps get to more key buildings easier.


I agree - the town building regular buildings is very important for getting key buildings into play. It can also figure prominently into strategies - knowing when a certain building (like, oh, say, the Wharf) will become available (to use, build, or buy) is an important strategic element.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Myoman

I like the idea of starting the game with some special buildings already built by the town. Maybe 1 special building per number of players?

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Ponton

Myoman wrote:

I like the idea of starting the game with some special buildings already built by the town. Maybe 1 special building per number of players?


I didn't test any variants like this, but this idea is one I'd recommend people to try. Instead of x special buildings per player, you can also try a fixed number of extra start buildings, like 3 shouldn't be too many.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by louper

Ponton wrote:

Myoman wrote:

I like the idea of starting the game with some special buildings already built by the town. Maybe 1 special building per number of players?


I didn't test any variants like this, but this idea is one I'd recommend people to try. Instead of x special buildings per player, you can also try a fixed number of extra start buildings, like 3 shouldn't be too many.


Maybe 1 fixed special building and then give each player a hand of 2 or 3 and they get to choose one of those to put into play - seems more combo-rific. Of course, with 4 players, that's a total of 5 specials in play immediately, and maybe that's too many. But in a 2-player, gets 3 special buildings into play immediately and opens up the door to more powerful plays, potentially (plus players get to at least SEE more special buildings).

I'm not one for variants and don't play Le Havre terribly often, but might try to give this one a go next time around.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by krux

I've only played Ora et Labora three times and Le Havre maybe six or seven times, but so far I put them on fairly equal terms. They scratch different itches, by and large (if anything, they've both made me less likely to play Agricola).

I don't entirely disagree with you on the theme - I've argued before that Le Havre actually has a particularly well implemented theme. All the same, the lack of verisimilitude in Ora doesn't bother me in the least. The wheel is a wonderful tool and I just don't have enough of an imagination to pretend that my fingers are workers picking up a shipment off the pier. I'm simply too lost in all the choices to care.

All those choices remind of of your final point, about player interaction. Again, I agree with you here with a caveat. Two of my three games with Ora were with two players, and the game particularly struggles with the multi-solitaire feeling here, as there's not enough competition for buildings to keep anyone from their ideal strategy. Nonetheless, if one person pays attention to his competitor's board more than the other, they have a huge leg up. It's harder to do because of all the choices that have to be made in Ora compared to Le Havre, but it's nonetheless essential to a cohesive strategy. In both games a potent strategy is to find the opposition's strategy and take key buildings in that strategy. Sometimes there's a work around they can find, but sometimes there isn't. I feel that BOTH game suffer from a solitaire feel in some regards, but I feel they each have demand enough attention of the competition to remain interactive.

I definitely agree about the variety of setup problem, but this happens to be a non-issue for me because I never get to play enough of these games for a lack of variety to bother me. :cry: Plus, in most of my favorite games, the variety for me is trying out every strategy.

Reply: Le Havre:: Reviews:: Re: Why I like Le Havre better than Ora et Labora

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by Kaffedrake

HuginnGreiling wrote:

Also, you can't see it, but there are puzzle-pieced buildings underneath the grave tokens (and stand-in grave tokens) on all those large square offboard city grids.


leemc13 wrote:

Jonathan, do you have another game being played under Antiquity?


You can't see it, but there's a game being played underneath each of the puzzle-piece buildings.

I actually played my first game of Ora just a few hours ago and my feelings were that it was fiddlier and less intuitive than LH. Of course, it was a somewhat chaotic 4-player game, I didn't know anything about the buildings, and I made several newbie mistakes (thinking you should set up conversion chains and purchasing early buildings that no one ever used; not slowing the game down to keep track of everyone else's buildings and options; getting a district with forests which just prevented me from building on it; putting buildings in illegal spots and getting lousy settlement configurations in correcting this; wasting no less than three turns at the end aiming to do something that never paid off). I do think LH grows the available options in a more organic way whereas OeL splurts some stuff onto the table at regular intervals. People like to say that OeL gets rid of feeding, but penalty avoidance is just replaced with a scoring opportunity so what really is the difference?

I rate LH an 8, which is quite high for me; I will probably give Ora a preliminary 6 with the prospect of going up or down.
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