by gameon3948
abdiel wrote:
gameon3948 wrote:
Replayability. The order the goods accumulate in the harbor is randomly determined each game (and then remains the same throughout the course of the game once revealed). Also, the buildings available to be built are ordered differently each game. As only the top building on each of three stacks can be built at any given time, this changes strategies as well. Finally, there are quite a number of Special Buildings (36 in the base game), of which only 6 are used (chosen randomly) in any given game. These provide quite a lot of variety to each game. All these aspects combine to mean you must reevalute each game when to take goods, when to let them accumulate, which buildings to build, and when.
This sounds like there's a lot of variability in the set up, not necessarily much replayability.
If you always used the same set up--same goods/buildings order, same special buildings, etc.--would the game still be worth playing over and over again?
I don't think I'm the best person to ask. I tend to dislike games lacking any variable set up. Personally I find meaningful variable set up adds replayability to a games, but it seems we may be in disagreement regarding the particular terminology.
On the other hand, variable setup doesn't guarantee replayabilty. Some games have variable setup which ultimately does very little to change the decisions you make during the game. However, I assure you Le Havre is not one of these, the variable setup is extremely meaningful--and that is the point I was trying to make.
