Le Havre
When you are introducing a new game every other week, the family tends to be a little reluctant when they see dad with a new box in his hand. The latest experience of this was Le Havre. Board Game Geek (BGG) currently ranks it as the 16th best strategy game all time. The game designer is German Uwe Rosenberg, who is also well known for top ten all time games: Caverna and Agricola; and why do I tell you that? Because you will find that good games come from good game designers. So if you like Le Havre chances are you will like his others (He has 3 games in the top 20 all time).
I could only get Jana (my wife) to play this one.... mainly because the play time is 100-200 minutes depending on the number of players and their skill level. Games that long tend to scare the little ones off, fast. But do not let it scare you off, this one is worth the minutes. This game has taken us about 2 hrs each of the three times we have played it, and that was a 2 player game. BGG claims 3 players is the best way to play. It plays up to 5, but even Ewe says in the instructions to only play a 5 player game with well experienced players.
The theme: we are mariners in the town of Le Havre, the second largest harbor in France. We are building our empire of buying and selling goods, and acquiring buildings to help facilitate this venture.. The game itself takes place over 14 rounds (8 for the shorter version). Each round has 7 total turns divided up regardless of the number of plays (with 2 players: one player has 4 turns and the other 3 turns; next round it flips// with 3 players: 2 of them have 2 turns and 1 gets 3 turns, and this rotates each round).
The mechanics involve both a resource management and a worker placement. Each turn you place some goods on a dock and you get to pick one action, such as take a dock of goods, build a building,make goods, sell goods, or use the action of a building. At the beginning of the game the options are limited, but they grow more and more as the rounds go through. Where in the final rounds you may have 20+ options to choose from for your one option, increasing the likelihood of some analysis paralysis (the phenomenon of being paralyzed by the importance of a decision).
To begin this is a heavy and thought provoking game. It has a considerable learning curve, meaning you will have difficulty introducing this game to new players and having them be competitive. Also this is a gamer's game, not for the "I guess I'll play a game with you" person.
Having said all of that, we love this game. It has tons of depth, and really stretches your strategy bone. Though each action is important, I do not feel every move had to be the perfect move. As well the last game took 2 hrs and i still felt like the rounds were going by too fast. The theme is great and plays well into the game. I would recommend this to someone who is looking for a game that will challenge them every time.
Thanks guy,
Jeremy