by DavidT
It sounds like what you're asking is: "Are there strategies other than maximizing the available buildings and trying to make as much money as possible?"The answer is no.
The answer is no.
The answer is no.
Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
The answer is no.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
DavidT wrote:
It sounds like what you're asking is: "Are there strategies other than maximizing the available buildings and trying to make as much money as possible?"
The answer is no.
The answer is no.
I think kinda what I was getting at was "do the presence of the special buildings that offer money for various resources count as the only real way to make money in the game?"
I appreciate that building lots of buildings and then comboing them up with the Town Hall/Bank are also good ideas but they seemed like really distant goals to achieve when we were playing those first 10 rounds or so. Similarly the idea of making loads of steel and coke, and then buying Luxury Liners or shipping those resources out, all seemed like very distant options when we were playing so it was hard to know what to focus on. Comparatively, the special buildings provided ways of making money much earlier so seemed like the more obvious way to win. I just wanted to know that there was some kind of typical game plan, particularly if money providing buildings didn't show up early or if there were none at all.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by DavidT
The Sacred Voice wrote:
Gonjeshk wrote:
If one of your opponents had build the colliery, stockpiled 20 or so coal (which is not hard), turned it into Coke and shipped it, your post would sound alot different I think.
One of my opponents had built the Colliery but I think people only saw it as a way of getting coal if they had an energy intensive strategy. If we were to have taken so much coal we would've been like "what the hell are we going to do with all this coal?" From what we saw then most of the early energy requirements for conversions were pretty low. When we finally got the Steel Mill in play (very late game, barely two rounds left I think) then suddenly coal seemed a lot better because of the larger energy cost involved in making steel, but it was so late by that point that there were only a handful of actions left. The Cokery never even saw play, it was the last building in the middle stack, which had at least 2 or 3 buildings still on top of it I think.
Certainly familiarity with the buildings and game pace will have a huge effect on your future games. Also, as you play more, I think you'll discover it's unusual for buildings to be left unbuilt at the end.
At some point, you'll also realize that loans are key. Four loans is very conservative.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by DavidT
The Sacred Voice wrote:
DavidT wrote:
It sounds like what you're asking is: "Are there strategies other than maximizing the available buildings and trying to make as much money as possible?"
The answer is no.
The answer is no.
I think kinda what I was getting at was "do the presence of the special buildings that offer money for various resources count as the only real way to make money in the game?"
I appreciate that building lots of buildings and then comboing them up with the Town Hall/Bank are also good ideas but they seemed like really distant goals to achieve when we were playing those first 10 rounds or so. Similarly the idea of making loads of steel and coke, and then buying Luxury Liners or shipping those resources out, all seemed like very distant options when we were playing so it was hard to know what to focus on. Comparatively, the special buildings provided ways of making money much earlier so seemed like the more obvious way to win. I just wanted to know that there was some kind of typical game plan, particularly if money providing buildings didn't show up early or if there were none at all.
In my experience, which is more limited than some, shipping lots of coke or steel is the most common way to make lots of money. It's always an option, and it's a tough strategy to beat. Basically, shipping *is* the game.
It's possible to turn special building combos into a win, too, but it's very circumstantial. Almost like a "perfect storm" is required.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
DavidT wrote:
At some point, you'll also realize that loans are key. Four loans is very conservative.
I'd been a bit sneaky and read one or two threads on here before playing, so I understood that taking loans was a necessary evil, even going so far as to view it less as an evil and more as another resource to be managed. I saw a few threads complaining about the power of loans, but I felt assured when I read this glorious review of the game as the author's (experienced) assessment of loans in the game concluded that they were not necessarily strategically essential - which cheered me considerable because I find default strategies, like taking tonnes of loans just because the repercussions of having them aren't big enough, (something I assume not to be true from that author's appraisal), a bit dull.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
DavidT wrote:
In my experience, which is more limited than some, shipping lots of coke or steel is the most common way to make lots of money. It's always an option, and it's a tough strategy to beat. Basically, shipping *is* the game.
Ahh see when I played my first game the other night (you can find a link to that session report in my OP early on - I played solo just to get a feel for the rules) then I was like "I vaguely recall reading that the Shipping Line was important!" So I went ahead trying to get together some ships to start shipping things later in the game. Of course, being the solo game, stuff wasn't getting built terribly fast and the Shipping Line never made it to the game as I became rapidly obsessed with the Fishery -> Smokehouse -> Fish Restaurant combo and completely abandoned the idea of shipping stuff off. With that in mind then it slightly tampered with my strategy ideas going into the second game so when I felt I'd won through the special buildings again then this thread was mostly made just to check if the game was more open than my plays had seen.
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Reply: Le Havre:: Sessions:: Re: NEWSFLASH! Fanatical fish diners die due to malnutrition! A new player's first solo game
by taragalinas
The Sacred Voice wrote:
They own an OLGS
Oh, I'm sorry. They just went from awesome to divine. :D
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by Karlsen
DavidT wrote:
At some point, you'll also realize that loans are key. Four loans is very conservative.
:d10-4: LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO SIGN Sweet Point LESS THAN SIGN :d10-2::d10-6:
(forum formatting does weird things to the proper signs)
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by chally
The Sacred Voice wrote:
Faranim wrote:
In most games, the main objective is to get the buildings which generate lots of Resources (especially Coal and Iron), and then use them over and over. You usually make a single trip to the Brickworks to flip Clay into Brick. You also usually make a trip to the Bakehouse and/or Abattoir in the Midgame. Eventually make a trip to the Cokery to flip all your Coal into Coke, and then use the Coke to make Steel. Then you usually either buy Luxury Liners, or simply ship the Steel and Coke on the shipping line for 40+ Francs per Action.
If this is the ideal goal for every player than that makes the game seem somewhat hollow, even though I know that the way in which every player reaches that ideal will be different because not everyone can take exactly the same action each round.
The Special Buildings sometimes provide an alternate route to victory (like in your example, the special building that makes Hides/Leather a viable engine), but in most games everyone will be trying to collect as much Iron/Coal as possible in order to build ships and ship Coke/Steel for points at the end. There are a few other side strategies around building the end-game buildings (Church, etc), but even in those strategies you still want to be visiting the Marketplace/Ironworks/Colliery every chance you get.
The idea of the Special Building strategies are what really appeal to me, makes me feel like there are alternative goals to pursue rather than just the race for Coal/Steel.
Other people with more experience may disagree with me, but I've never viewed Le Havre as a game where the goal is figure out the best strategy each time. You generally know the strategy, the challenge is to outmaneuver the other players (who are attempting the same strategy). There is a lot of flexibility and variety in the game, but the flexibility comes in crafting your personal path to Steel/Coke, not in choosing between Steel/Coke and some other option.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by Kelanen
chally wrote:
Other people with more experience may disagree with me, but I've never viewed Le Havre as a game where the goal is figure out the best strategy each time. You generally know the strategy, the challenge is to outmaneuver the other players (who are attempting the same strategy). There is a lot of flexibility and variety in the game, but the flexibility comes in crafting your personal path to Steel/Coke, not in choosing between Steel/Coke and some other option.
I would say that is spot on. It's a game about optimising one strategy best , not picking the best strategy from several.
The best Coke/Steel run is the winner in 90% of games. Note Coke is always required, but sometimes you can just skip steel.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
chally wrote:
Other people with more experience may disagree with me, but I've never viewed Le Havre as a game where the goal is figure out the best strategy each time. You generally know the strategy, the challenge is to outmaneuver the other players (who are attempting the same strategy). There is a lot of flexibility and variety in the game, but the flexibility comes in crafting your personal path to Steel/Coke, not in choosing between Steel/Coke and some other option.
Interesting to know. I'm used to playing 7 Wonders and Race for the Galaxy where there are several strategic avenues to follow and you remain flexible to begin with as you decide which to focus on while optimising the choices that are presented to you. I guess I was expecting something similar from Le Havre, but I still think the game's pretty fun as it is, I'll play some more games and see how it goes.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Back in stock at CSI
by cwb1014
Ordered!↧
Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Seeking reassurance - there are other strategies, right?
by kirkbauer
I have played 20+ times and probably won around half of those. I have never used the Tannery/Forest Hut/Furriery (well, perhaps here or there). I'd argue that there are tons of great strategies and they depend on a lot of factors like what other players do, how many players, which order the buildings come out in, special buildings, etc.↧
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Reply: Le Havre:: News:: Re: Reprint due in September in the US. A month or two later in Europe.
by jspan
Does anybody know if Le Havre selling via CoolStuffInc is the latest version with extra cards?↧
Reply: Le Havre:: News:: Re: Reprint due in September in the US. A month or two later in Europe.
by stlm
jspan wrote:
Does anybody know if Le Havre selling via CoolStuffInc is the latest version with extra cards?
If by extra cards you mean the "Le Grand Hameau expansion," then the description at CSI says "Includes the Le Grand Hameau expansion."
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Reply: Le Havre:: Rules:: Re: Buildings
by catmando
louper wrote:
. . . yes, initially it can be a bit confusing.
Testify! that is true about every bit of the game.
The short answer is that Only your resources can build buildings, and Only your money can buy them; and buildings which can be built can be bought instead, while building that can only be be Bought, surprise surprise, can't be Built.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Le Havre featured on a new episode of The Long View
by ayedub
I gotta admit that it took me a while to get to this because the length was a bit daunting.Thank you for answering my question!
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Le Havre featured on a new episode of The Long View
by fizzmore
Actually, I think the price of goods does vary a fair bit from game to game...it's just that the currency is not francs, but actions.The offer spaces can in a sense be viewed as a bunch of dutch auctions...as goods are added, the price per good (in fractions of an action) of the goods drops, until they fall enough that a player decides to buy them by spending an action, at which point the price of the good resets. A key strategic insight for the game is that the most valuable currency in the game is actions.
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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: Le Havre featured on a new episode of The Long View
by eekamouse
fizzmore wrote:
Actually, I think the price of goods does vary a fair bit from game to game...it's just that the currency is not francs, but actions.
The offer spaces can in a sense be viewed as a bunch of dutch auctions...as goods are added, the price per unit (in fractions of an action) of the goods drops, until they fall enough that a player decides to buy them by spending an action, at which point the price of the good resets. A key strategic insight for the game is that the most valuable currency in the game is actions.
The offer spaces can in a sense be viewed as a bunch of dutch auctions...as goods are added, the price per unit (in fractions of an action) of the goods drops, until they fall enough that a player decides to buy them by spending an action, at which point the price of the good resets. A key strategic insight for the game is that the most valuable currency in the game is actions.
That's an excellent point!
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Reply: Le Havre:: News:: Re: Reprint due in September in the US. A month or two later in Europe.
by mrblueesq
jspan wrote:
Does anybody know if Le Havre selling via CoolStuffInc is the latest version with extra cards?
Just noticed that CSI is out of stock already. Maybe they'll get more, but who knows...
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