by Marc Maier
I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog on BGG for many months now, but couldn't pull the trigger because I thought I'd need some kind of exceptional beginning. I've decided to just start in medias res as it were, just jumping right in because otherwise, I'd never get going.
So this inaugural post is a simple session report about Le Havre; enjoy.
Le HavreDate: July 3, 2014
Location: Darien (2014 DarienCon 2, Home)
Ilan: 188
Me: 117
Matt: 117
After a false start with another game, we chose Le Havre. It had been awhile since any of us had last played, but we were able to get back into it without any trouble. This is due to the elegantly simple mechanics which still stand out compared to newer games in the crowded worker placement genre. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the setup which, true to Rosenberg's M.O., requires lots of card and component sorting. I was freshly impressed with forest's worth of cardboard included in this game. But is it just me, or are the board pieces somewhat flimsier than is the norm in more recent games? I was also bemused at the separate three-part board; you don't see that much these days either, with gameboards tending toward single, segemented folding pieces.
Personally, I found it easy to get back into the flow of Le Havre, and it seemed as if Ilan and Matt did as well. I was chosen start player, so I engaged in the standard build marketplace/buy building firm opening. My plan going forward was to build a couple of early buildings, then sell them back to purchase a wooden ship. While this worked out alright, it seems to be a better strategy for the full game; in the short version we played, there isn't enough time to recover from selling the buildings and make those francs back before the end. I also messed up the sequencing on my initial sales; should have sold the Marketplace first and kept the Building Firm for the hammer icon to boost future Marketplace visits, but c'est la guerre.
My other idea was to build up a big supply of grain and bake it up mid game which addressed my food needs for the remainder of the game as well as giving me a potentially valuable stock of cargo since bread sells for $3 the same as cattle does. I also had a bunch of cattle, the idea being that I'd ship a lot in the final two turns while building a steel ship and a luxury liner. I eschewed iron ships because iron ships are for suckers.
Ilan aimed straight as an arrow at a Bank-based, building strategy, and happily accumulated buildings, even purchasing some from the town in order to have them for the bank bonus at the end. I managed to build the Steel Mill out from under him a bit, but he got the Cokery which we were all forced to use a few times. Matt had the Bakery, which I used twice. At one point, Matt had a bunch of grain and I was convinced that he was going to try the same thing as me, but he ate all of his bread due to not having a ship for quite a long time.
Both Matt and I took loans, although I had two, and he paid his off almost immediately whereas I was content, as is my wont in Le Havre, to let the loans ride until nearer the end. I shipped mid game in order to get the money to pay it off, and then I set about trying to accumulate steel and coke so as to be able to build a steel ship, ship once or twice more, then build the last luxury liner.
All this would have worked out, but we forgot that the game ends with the introduction of the final luxury liner. We'd all been planning on one more complete round, so we were taken by surprise that there was only the final action. Matt would have made steel to build a ship or a liner, and I certainly would have shipped again while building the liner with the final action. As it happened, I was left with a choice of shipping or building the liner -- I was only one with steel to do so. It turned out that I could add more to my score by shipping the steel along with most of my cows than by building the liner.
Ilan's strategy of building suffered the least from the surprise end because he'd managed to build the Bank. Even so, I don't think either Matt or I could have caught him since he was so far ahead, but we'd definitely have made it more respectable if we'd planned for the end of the game to happen when it did.
The session overall did not overstay its welcome; my conclusion that Le Havre is best with three was confirmed once again. It was great to play with others who knew the game well enough to jump right in and play well. I will have to keep Le Havre in mind for the future; it's gotten pushed back by the flood of new games that are released every year, a golden age that one could argue Le Havre and Agricola played a large role in starting.
