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Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: bigger board?

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by Pugnax555

Yeah, if you're familiar with the game, it's pretty easy to see what's going on. Having everyone's buildings in the center like that actually makes a whole lot of sense.

New Image for Le Havre

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: bigger board?

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by mlcarter815

igelkott255 wrote:

mlcarter815 wrote:

That looks like a mess to read and I'm impressed that you managed to build every building.


It looks to me that there are 7 buildings with no marker on them, which I would guess means that they weren't built or purchased. This seems like a good way to play once one has played the game a few times....


Except you are supposed to stack the building cards at the beginning of the game.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: bigger board?

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by ChillusMaximus

mlcarter815 wrote:

igelkott255 wrote:

mlcarter815 wrote:

That looks like a mess to read and I'm impressed that you managed to build every building.


It looks to me that there are 7 buildings with no marker on them, which I would guess means that they weren't built or purchased. This seems like a good way to play once one has played the game a few times....


Except you are supposed to stack the building cards at the beginning of the game.

Here is the game in the begining. Notice the initial building offering on the other side of the table.



It may not be beautiful, but we play the game so much quicker.

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Reply: Le Havre:: Strategy:: Re: Why would I sell a building?

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by Rex Dart

Something else I didn't see mentioned is that selling a building is a free action.

So if, for example, selling the Sawmill for 7 gives you more benefit than owning the Sawmill would, you can do it, AND you don't have to forego some other action to do so.

Actions are the scarcest resource in the game, and anything that can provide you with a benefit without using one is at least worth thinking about.

Thread: Le Havre:: General:: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by murksofus

Hey,

I played a 2p game of Le Havre many months ago and really enjoyed the multitude of options that was available to me to get points. The game took 2,5 hours, which was reasonable as a first play of a somewhat heavy game.

Last weekend we took it out again, this time for a 3p game. That play was a bit of a disaster. The play time (even though we knew the rules) ballooned to 3,5 hours, which we felt was far too long. We never felt we spent much time thinking or agonizing over decisions. It was mostly just refilling spaces and quickly doing an action.

My main concern, however, was that all 3 building stacks were empty by round 12 (of 18) or so. So for the last third of the game all we did was to use a building to get resources, use another building to flip those resources, then use either the shipping line/other buildings to sell goods or to buy ships. It felt very dull and mechanical and really soured our experience.

I'm wondering whether this is a common occurrence. Do the building stacks often go that early? Is it less of an issue in 2p games because there are relatively more buildings available?

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by cwb1014

Strange, I have experienced the opposite. In my 2p games the building are usually all built pretty early. I feel this is because the resources on the offer spots are split only two ways, rather than three. I've found the 3p games to be much tighter, resources are harder to come by. As a result people are still building in the last few rounds.

This may just come down to the order of the building cards and the order of the offer tiles. Or it may be affected by the special buildings. If you get an early special building that provides resources that could skew any one play of the game. It is hard to say exactly, but I wouldn't generalize the 3p experience after just one play. I actually prefer the 3p game most of all.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by louper

While most of my plays are at 2p, I do have some at 3p and I don't remember many times where the building stacks get completely empty at all, let alone 2/3 of the way through the game.

As you note, of course, in a 2p game there are approximately the same number of buildings (maybe exactly, I don't recall), but fewer players. That leads to each player getting more actions and, you'd think, be able to ramp up quicker (in terms of rounds). However, each player also needs to supply more food to his workers in a 2p game than in a 3p game, so I'd think that offsets the "extra" actions relative to a 3p game.

I'd wager that maybe there was some gameplay error that resulted in your skewed experience in the 3p game.

I think there are 30 buildings in the building stacks. In 12 full rounds, there are 84 turns. This means 1 building is being built every 2.8 turns - in other words, in every "round" (in which each player gets 1 turn), at least 1 player is building a building? That seems... unreasonable. Most buildings require 2 different resources and some require 3 different resources. I don't see how building a building on your every third turn, on average, is possible.

But I could be way off.

And 3.5 hours is too long if you're "refilling spaces and quickly doing an action."

But again, that's just based on my experience. Sorry I'm so long-winded!

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by Deathstroke

Without opening and counting the cards in my copy, I'm going to ask if you used all the cards required for a 3-player game? I'm pretty sure the number of building cards increases with the number of players.

Another possibility is that you may be mistaking the symbol on the round card that means to build a special building for the one that means build a regular building.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by Thunkd

That's odd. It almost sounds like maybe you weren't playing something right.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by murksofus

Deathstroke wrote:

Without opening and counting the cards in my copy, I'm going to ask if you used all the cards required for a 3-player game? I'm pretty sure the number of building cards increases with the number of players.

Another possibility is that you may be mistaking the symbol on the round card that means to build a special building for the one that means build a regular building.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.


Yeah, I checked the card backs of the buildings before our play and took out the 3 (i think it was 3) buildings that were only for 4+ players.

The town built normal buildings (the lowest-numbered regular building) at the end of a round that showed a building on the round card. The town built special buildings at the end of a round that showed a building with an anchor on the round card.

I think we got both of those things right.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by murksofus

Thunkd wrote:

That's odd. It almost sounds like maybe you weren't playing something right.


Yeah, that was my first thought as well, but it's odd that it's the 2nd playthrough that has a rules error, and not the 1st :P

I'll go back and read the rulebook again, just in case.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by ayedub

I haven't played this 3player much, but my gut tells me that I'm more than a bit surprised that you were able to acquire the necessary materials to make that happen that quickly...everything must have fallen perfectly...

I think in an average game that can't happen because people will be more into getting boats (like lining up resources to be ready for the first Iron ship, as soon as it hits etc...)

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by UnknownParkerBrother

A quick thought because it happened to me the other day - you did notice the switch to advanced materials, right? We started to build some of the mid-late buildings with clay and iron, instead of the proper brick and steel.

We had an early run building lots of them, but the switch to the upgraded materials really slowed us down.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by sneakyninja7nz

I can see one possible mistake that could have contributed to the buildings being built too early...
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If each player starts with the resource tokens for a short version of the game instead of almost nothing, it'll lead to many buildings being built much earlier.
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Or, if you are allowing player to take goods and use a building each turn (instead of one or the other).
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Or maybe you were just forgetting to turn the round card over to a boat after a few rounds???

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by andrewfoerster

I'm going to have to echo the sentiment that it seems strange that the game would both take such a long time and also see the buildings get built so early.

The town does build buildings, but not altogether too often (only three times by round 12). For all of the buildings to get built by that time the other 21 non-start buildings would have to be done so manually, which is building nearly two buildings a round to that point.

This means several things. Perhaps players are somehow buying a lot with francs (you can buy buildings for cash outright without using your main action or using a building / construction firm), but this would typically require lots of cash and would often probably be strategically questionable. You never pay less than the building is worth (and if you sell it back get only half price), and in buying the building, you are opening up that building for others to use and open up additional buildings for others to build. It can make sense to, say, buy a wharf outright with cash and then use your main action immediately to use it to get a ship. Or maybe buy to get a special symbol to boost another action. But, otherwise, it shouldn't be something happening every round, especially as it's so cash-intensive.

Okay, so then also you could be building a bunch of these buildings. Theoretically, you could build all of the buildings in a single round (if you repeatedly buy and sell the building firms) but, again, this is unlikely to happen. It's not even all that likely for all three building firms to be used in a turn. Beyond this, building firms are likely to be blocked for some time, as the person will often be gathering resources and then, of course, intentionally blocking the building for strategic purposes. Building this way is slow, with lots of blocking, and still resource-intensive, requiring all sorts of resources and upgraded resources that could well be better used elsewhere (building ships, say).

It's certainly possible, if players aren't doing a whole lot of blocking and are collectively trying to focus on building, for all the buildings to be built. But this would seemingly mean that the players are all probably bypassing some better moves pretty often.

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by nbread

andrewfoerster wrote:

You never pay less than the building is worth (and if you sell it back get only half price), and in buying the building, you are opening up that building for others to use and open up additional buildings for others to build.

Bolding this part because I have made this exact same mistake.

"Hey... why are the buildings being built so quickly? I don't remember this the last time we played."

... Scans rulebook ...

"Oh. We can't sell back to the town for full price. *womp womp*"

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by murksofus

Al Washburn: We didn't really buy boats at all until the game was halfway or so, I think I was the first person to buy a wooden boat at turn 8 or so.

Steve Duff: That might be a reason, but we were definitely paying bricks and steel later in the game. We might have missed a building or two that way.

D M: Nope, everyone started with 5 francs and 1 coal. Players then either took a building action or took goods, not both. I definitely always remembered to flip the boats, just because it was so obvious to do so.

Zaphod Beeblebrox: Nobody sold a building in our game, so that's not a reason :P

Reply: Le Havre:: General:: Re: All buildings built early in 3p game. Need advice

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by murksofus

I guess one explanation may be that we basically only built buildings and went for food early. That was every single action. Either take wood, take clay, build a building, or somehow be sure that we had enough food for the next harvest.

That may be our failing, because that's what I enjoyed about the game, seeing fun combos of buildings to build. However, as soon as all the buildings were built, and we essentially had to go through the tedium of using those combos (which could be messed up at any time by someone else using your building), I got a bit disinterested. Maybe it's just not the game for me.

I'll be trying it out again soon, though. I put it on my 'Play 10 times in 2014' list, so hopefully I'll get back into it.
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