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.