by davypi
tumorous wrote:
davypi wrote:
fair to say that Harbor is a lite version of Le Havre
I agree with everything you wrote except this part
At the end of the day, I think we just have to agree to disagree, but I admit that I don't think you're wrong either.
The other kind of similarity that the two games have is resource conversion. In Le Havre you have buildings that upgrade your resources (clay to brick). Harbor also has resource conversion although, unlike Le Havre, you aren't upgrading resources; you are just converting one basic resource into another. So I think the function of the buildings in two games are also similar. The relevant point here is that if you wanted to try to convert Le Havre into a 30 minute filler game, you would likely have to remove the "resource upgrade" mechanic. (Case in point, you don't have this in Inland Port either.) The various buildings that Harbour has do a good job of mimicking Le Havre's buildings and resource conversion once you consider that upgraded resources are gone. For a filler game Harbor does a decent job of condensing many of the Le Havre's mechanics. Similarly I'd rather player Harbour than play Inland Port, but I admit this is a highly subjective opinion.
The major sticking point in the comparison comes back to that market manipulation mechanic. Habour's gameplay relies on your ability to either predict what the market will look like when you're ready to buy or getting into the market one turn before the player to your right. Again, there is nothing like this in Le Havre at all and its a big enough shift to give the two games a very different feel. That said, if you took the market mechanic out of Harbour and had a fixed resource cost for building actions, I suspect you would agree that the game would be more like a "Le Havre lite."