by Picon
razzmonid wrote:
Where is the review btw. What happened to it?
gameon3948 wrote:
Le Havre is my favorite Uwe Rosenberg game, the board game I have probably played the most, and one of my all time favorite games. Aside from a handful of 3, 4, or 5-player games, nearly all my (likely 300+) plays have been 2-player.
Rules Overview
The object of the game is to have the most money at the end of a variable number of rounds determined by the number of players. Your end game money will be a total of your cash on hand, the value of your ships, and the value of your buildings. As goods are not worth anything at the end of the game, a popular last move (or second-to-last move) is to use the Shipping Line to sell as many high priced goods as you can for money.
Goods accumulate each turn on offer spaces in the harbor. On your turn you can claim all the goods on one of these spaces or you can let them accumulate further (and risk your opponents taking them) and use a building instead. At the beginning of the game there are only a few buildings available (so harbor offers are frequently claimed); but as players build more buildings, there are more choices available, the building actions are more efficient, the harbor offers are claimed less, and they accumulate to larger quantities. Buildings are owned by the player who built them, or by the city, and you usually must pay an entry fee to use them. In addition to the entry fee, some have usage fees as well.
After 7 turns the round ends, and you have to feed your workers. The amount you have to feed your workers increases throughout the game and, while you can always substitute money for food, if you still cannot afford to feed them, you must take a loan. Loans cost interest and points at the end of the game if not repaid.
Building ships (using the Wharf building) allows you to automatically feed X number of workers each round, lessening the amount of actions you have to waste on feeding your workers each round. Additionally, ships are required to ship goods at the Shipping Line--which makes up a large portion of your final money. The game is rarely won without ships, so do not ignore them!
What I like about Le Havre
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.
Careful, tight balance. This is not a game about specialization or about mutual exclusive paths to victory. This is a game about using your limited number of actions as efficiently as possible. You have one goal, to make money, and more often than not that means getting ships, getting valuable goods, and shipping them! As such it's not a game of devising an overarching strategy (the game provides that to you); instead it's about constantly reevaluating fluctuating markets, knowing when it's too risky not to take something, knowing when your opponent is being too greedy and leaving something to accumulate that they really need, knowing when it's okay to take a loan if it means being able to build that truly critical building a turn early, and knowing when it's best to wait and make sure everyone gets fed this round.
Interaction. When you use a building you block other players from using that building until either you use another building or that building is bought or sold. Since you don't need to move each turn (if you claim an offer in the harbor you stay in your current building), blocking the Wharf when you know your opponent needs to build a ship is a real (and frequent) possibility. Similarly, you are constantly watching what your opponent does, how many resources they have, what actions they could do next turn and which ones are most likely, so that you don't get blocked out of something or an offer you want doesn't get snatched out from under you.
Art. It is no secret I love Klemens Franz's work--and this is no exception. Bright colors, high contrast, all with ample space and clarity, the game is fun to look at AND easy to understand at a glance. Furthermore, the language independent symbology on the cards is clear and easy to understand.
Game Length. My wife and I play 2-player games in just a little over an hour. There is a little setup time (10-15 minutes) and more players will add time to this. But a 2-hour 3-player game or 2 to 3-hour 4-player game is the norm and I find that's a good length for most groups.
No individual luck. The randomization of the setup is done before the game starts and affects all players equally. The special buildings are revealed throughout the course of the game, but you can preview and reorder them by using the Marketplace, to have a little more control and forewarning. And even then, these buildings are still available to everyone.
Open information. The game is not perfect information because at the start of the game you do not know the special buildings nor the order they will be revealed. Similarly, the order of goods' accumulation is revealed once per turn throughout the first round, so only in the second round is this order known. That said, the game is 100% open information among players. There are no shields, no hand of cards, nothing kept face down in front of players. You can always see exactly which resources and in which quantities each player possesses, as well as their current relative score.
Easy to learn, difficult to master. The game is much easier to teach than Agricola and the concepts of getting goods, building buildings, shipping goods are readily understood. As long as you emphasize the importance of ships and shipping high value goods at the end of the game, new players also tend to do well. That said, you will soon find yourself addicted to the nuances and the desire to maximize, striving not only to win, but to get more and more money each game. 250? 270? 300? How high can you go?
(That said, the randomization of the buildings and interaction means not every game is the same. You are playing against the game as well as your opponent. In this way you cannot really compare scores between games. Typically games where ONE player has a high score, ALL players have relatively high scores and vice-versa. Still it is fun not only to try and score higher and higher, but also to see how low you can get your opponents' scores to be :)
Conclusion
One of my all time favorites. It is amazing how tight and well-crafted it is. All the building entry costs that may seem arbitrary become so critical when you are trying to squeeze out extra points. The seemingly minor differences in the order of goods accumulations, or the order of building availability, has a dramatic impact on each game. And as someone who judges games by how often I am looking at my opponents' resources or trying to guess my opponents' next moves--this game fires on all cylinders.
Rules Overview
The object of the game is to have the most money at the end of a variable number of rounds determined by the number of players. Your end game money will be a total of your cash on hand, the value of your ships, and the value of your buildings. As goods are not worth anything at the end of the game, a popular last move (or second-to-last move) is to use the Shipping Line to sell as many high priced goods as you can for money.
Goods accumulate each turn on offer spaces in the harbor. On your turn you can claim all the goods on one of these spaces or you can let them accumulate further (and risk your opponents taking them) and use a building instead. At the beginning of the game there are only a few buildings available (so harbor offers are frequently claimed); but as players build more buildings, there are more choices available, the building actions are more efficient, the harbor offers are claimed less, and they accumulate to larger quantities. Buildings are owned by the player who built them, or by the city, and you usually must pay an entry fee to use them. In addition to the entry fee, some have usage fees as well.
After 7 turns the round ends, and you have to feed your workers. The amount you have to feed your workers increases throughout the game and, while you can always substitute money for food, if you still cannot afford to feed them, you must take a loan. Loans cost interest and points at the end of the game if not repaid.
Building ships (using the Wharf building) allows you to automatically feed X number of workers each round, lessening the amount of actions you have to waste on feeding your workers each round. Additionally, ships are required to ship goods at the Shipping Line--which makes up a large portion of your final money. The game is rarely won without ships, so do not ignore them!
What I like about Le Havre
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.
Careful, tight balance. This is not a game about specialization or about mutual exclusive paths to victory. This is a game about using your limited number of actions as efficiently as possible. You have one goal, to make money, and more often than not that means getting ships, getting valuable goods, and shipping them! As such it's not a game of devising an overarching strategy (the game provides that to you); instead it's about constantly reevaluating fluctuating markets, knowing when it's too risky not to take something, knowing when your opponent is being too greedy and leaving something to accumulate that they really need, knowing when it's okay to take a loan if it means being able to build that truly critical building a turn early, and knowing when it's best to wait and make sure everyone gets fed this round.
Interaction. When you use a building you block other players from using that building until either you use another building or that building is bought or sold. Since you don't need to move each turn (if you claim an offer in the harbor you stay in your current building), blocking the Wharf when you know your opponent needs to build a ship is a real (and frequent) possibility. Similarly, you are constantly watching what your opponent does, how many resources they have, what actions they could do next turn and which ones are most likely, so that you don't get blocked out of something or an offer you want doesn't get snatched out from under you.
Art. It is no secret I love Klemens Franz's work--and this is no exception. Bright colors, high contrast, all with ample space and clarity, the game is fun to look at AND easy to understand at a glance. Furthermore, the language independent symbology on the cards is clear and easy to understand.
Game Length. My wife and I play 2-player games in just a little over an hour. There is a little setup time (10-15 minutes) and more players will add time to this. But a 2-hour 3-player game or 2 to 3-hour 4-player game is the norm and I find that's a good length for most groups.
No individual luck. The randomization of the setup is done before the game starts and affects all players equally. The special buildings are revealed throughout the course of the game, but you can preview and reorder them by using the Marketplace, to have a little more control and forewarning. And even then, these buildings are still available to everyone.
Open information. The game is not perfect information because at the start of the game you do not know the special buildings nor the order they will be revealed. Similarly, the order of goods' accumulation is revealed once per turn throughout the first round, so only in the second round is this order known. That said, the game is 100% open information among players. There are no shields, no hand of cards, nothing kept face down in front of players. You can always see exactly which resources and in which quantities each player possesses, as well as their current relative score.
Easy to learn, difficult to master. The game is much easier to teach than Agricola and the concepts of getting goods, building buildings, shipping goods are readily understood. As long as you emphasize the importance of ships and shipping high value goods at the end of the game, new players also tend to do well. That said, you will soon find yourself addicted to the nuances and the desire to maximize, striving not only to win, but to get more and more money each game. 250? 270? 300? How high can you go?
(That said, the randomization of the buildings and interaction means not every game is the same. You are playing against the game as well as your opponent. In this way you cannot really compare scores between games. Typically games where ONE player has a high score, ALL players have relatively high scores and vice-versa. Still it is fun not only to try and score higher and higher, but also to see how low you can get your opponents' scores to be :)
Conclusion
One of my all time favorites. It is amazing how tight and well-crafted it is. All the building entry costs that may seem arbitrary become so critical when you are trying to squeeze out extra points. The seemingly minor differences in the order of goods accumulations, or the order of building availability, has a dramatic impact on each game. And as someone who judges games by how often I am looking at my opponents' resources or trying to guess my opponents' next moves--this game fires on all cylinders.
Source