by davypi
dkeisen wrote:
I don't know about that, but the Harbor Watch is the most significant (distorting?) special building in the game driving the game in a very different direction than it otherwise would go.
I'm a bit curious about this observation. My standard house rule is to make the Harbor Watch a start building, but its rare for it to be used more than twice per game. It can be an expensive building to use as you have to pay the owner of the Harbor Watch to use it, then pay the person you are booting out, and then still pay the normal entry fee for the building you are using. It might simply be that my group all plays a heavy loan strategy, but when entry fees are scarce, paying 1 food + 1 franc to kick someone out of a location is a high price to pay and thus generally we try to avoid doing it. Whatever action you think is that important to you, it has to be at least two points better (I would say three) than the next best alternative, because that is the point swing for giving up those resources to other players. Anyway, my point is that I don't know that it really shifts our strategies that much, but it may depend on the play style of the group.
To the OP, there are basically only two ways to get points in Le Havre, and those are building buildings and shipping goods. So yes, shipping is a very important aspect of the game. What seems odd about your particular scenario is that it is rare that a shipping action needs to be taken immediately. Once you have the goods and the energy to ship, it doesn't really matter when the shipping action occurs. (The main exception would be running out of actions/time in the game, but feeding, paying off loans before interest, or buying a key building before another player gets to it would be others.) Unless I am running out of time in the game, personally, I would be more inclined to wait a round until the shipping line is empty. It really sounds like there was a lack of experience/patience with the players in that game, but without being able to see the rest of the board I won't make that an absolute claim.