A recent post I made on the Boardgaming Trading and Chat (UK) group drew a lot of comment; I'd gently mocked the choices of Heavy Cardboard in their recent 'Top 6 School Night Games' (my mickey taking post title was 'Top 6 school night games according to man who has no children and doesn't have to go to work') and, to be fair, I was mistaken in thinking that Edwards number 1 game was Princes of the Renaissance (3+ hours) and not what he actually had said, Pax Renaissance (1-2 hours).
To be clear here, although people on BGG are a lot less likely to get out the pitchforks and torches at the drop of a hat, I do very much like and enjoy Heavy Cardboard and they do make really well thought out, considered and entertaining podcasts (don't have enough time for all the You Tube stuff) and although I don't get much chance to play the sort of games that they like and talk about I do enjoy listening (I do a lot of driving so my opportunity for audio is much greater than video).
Still, my jokingly made point is that what they consider to be doable on a school night is very different to someone who, for example, has to get up at 6am, sort out kids for school, commute to work, do their 8 hours or so at whatever their profession entails, drive home, pick up kids, prepare dinner, clean up, get kids to bed, prepare lunches and clothes for the following day, etc, etc; a suggestion of "Age of Steam?" is unlikely to fly with that person.
I would consider an ideal 'School Night' game to be something that can be played in under an hour and that doesn't overly tax a tired brain. Yes, of course you can play a heavy 3 hour economic game on an evening where you have to work the following day but that doesn't make it a 'School Night' game - in much the same way that it is perfectly possible to travel to a gig and see a band playing, have a few drinks and get home late when you have to be in work the next day, it's just that is not going to fall into most people's definition of a typical school night activity.
Anyway...moving on, Gareth came round on Thursday for me to teach him something that is very much not a school night game, Le Havre.
![]()
Although it feels slightly fiddly compared to newer games to me these days, with all the chit flipping and gathering and putting out, the actual gameplay is incredibly smooth and much more elegant than many modern games - take a pile of goods or use a building on your turn - and I do really enjoy playing games that have these (what can be) snappy micro turns for players.
In retrospect you can see the seeds of what would become more prevalent in Uwe's later designs here, an abundance of goods, and choices, and points - the choice between a good option and a very good option - this game features something that things like Caverna: The Cave Farmers and A Feast for Odin, and even Fields of Arle are lacking; a clear sense of direction.
The game is about getting goods, refining those goods and shipping them off; if you don't build ships and ship goods you will find it very difficult to win (the rulebook even points this out!) This makes the game more focussed, and that for me equates to a more enjoyable experience; those later designs tend to make me feel bewildered with the amount of choice and unsure of what a good way to tackle the game is.
In fact the only thing that I wish were different are the special buildings; there are so many and the fact that only 4 of them (in a 2p game, not sure at other counts off the top of my head) come out makes me yearn for a little more variety. In this play I'd chucked in 3 from the Le Havre: Le Grand Hameau expansion and made good early use of the Wainwrights (wood for coins, as many times as you have iron) and was then taken by the Bio-Fuel Facility (use grain as 2 energy each when powering ships) so much that I bought it and prepared for a couple of monster late game shipping actions now I didn't need that coke to sail my fleet. It was a good job as I'd unwittingly taken 4 loans over the course of the game and needed to accelerate and snowball my actions in the last 3 rounds to overtake Gareth, who'd played a steady build buildings and make occasional small value shipments, allied to an astute 'use the buildings that get you coins when you convert goods' tactic as efficiently as possible (converting 12+ goods on a few occasions). I think he could see the writing on the wall a round or so before the end, as my stacks of steel and coke patiently waited on the side of the dock and were duly sent off to sea (and a Luxury Liner built) for an end result of 225, but I thought his first play total of 202 was more than competent and competitive.
We may well be revisiting this one (our Thursday night plays often being 'those games that we don't get to the table often enough') on another school night in the future!
To be clear here, although people on BGG are a lot less likely to get out the pitchforks and torches at the drop of a hat, I do very much like and enjoy Heavy Cardboard and they do make really well thought out, considered and entertaining podcasts (don't have enough time for all the You Tube stuff) and although I don't get much chance to play the sort of games that they like and talk about I do enjoy listening (I do a lot of driving so my opportunity for audio is much greater than video).
Still, my jokingly made point is that what they consider to be doable on a school night is very different to someone who, for example, has to get up at 6am, sort out kids for school, commute to work, do their 8 hours or so at whatever their profession entails, drive home, pick up kids, prepare dinner, clean up, get kids to bed, prepare lunches and clothes for the following day, etc, etc; a suggestion of "Age of Steam?" is unlikely to fly with that person.
I would consider an ideal 'School Night' game to be something that can be played in under an hour and that doesn't overly tax a tired brain. Yes, of course you can play a heavy 3 hour economic game on an evening where you have to work the following day but that doesn't make it a 'School Night' game - in much the same way that it is perfectly possible to travel to a gig and see a band playing, have a few drinks and get home late when you have to be in work the next day, it's just that is not going to fall into most people's definition of a typical school night activity.
Anyway...moving on, Gareth came round on Thursday for me to teach him something that is very much not a school night game, Le Havre.
Although it feels slightly fiddly compared to newer games to me these days, with all the chit flipping and gathering and putting out, the actual gameplay is incredibly smooth and much more elegant than many modern games - take a pile of goods or use a building on your turn - and I do really enjoy playing games that have these (what can be) snappy micro turns for players.
In retrospect you can see the seeds of what would become more prevalent in Uwe's later designs here, an abundance of goods, and choices, and points - the choice between a good option and a very good option - this game features something that things like Caverna: The Cave Farmers and A Feast for Odin, and even Fields of Arle are lacking; a clear sense of direction.
The game is about getting goods, refining those goods and shipping them off; if you don't build ships and ship goods you will find it very difficult to win (the rulebook even points this out!) This makes the game more focussed, and that for me equates to a more enjoyable experience; those later designs tend to make me feel bewildered with the amount of choice and unsure of what a good way to tackle the game is.
In fact the only thing that I wish were different are the special buildings; there are so many and the fact that only 4 of them (in a 2p game, not sure at other counts off the top of my head) come out makes me yearn for a little more variety. In this play I'd chucked in 3 from the Le Havre: Le Grand Hameau expansion and made good early use of the Wainwrights (wood for coins, as many times as you have iron) and was then taken by the Bio-Fuel Facility (use grain as 2 energy each when powering ships) so much that I bought it and prepared for a couple of monster late game shipping actions now I didn't need that coke to sail my fleet. It was a good job as I'd unwittingly taken 4 loans over the course of the game and needed to accelerate and snowball my actions in the last 3 rounds to overtake Gareth, who'd played a steady build buildings and make occasional small value shipments, allied to an astute 'use the buildings that get you coins when you convert goods' tactic as efficiently as possible (converting 12+ goods on a few occasions). I think he could see the writing on the wall a round or so before the end, as my stacks of steel and coke patiently waited on the side of the dock and were duly sent off to sea (and a Luxury Liner built) for an end result of 225, but I thought his first play total of 202 was more than competent and competitive.
We may well be revisiting this one (our Thursday night plays often being 'those games that we don't get to the table often enough') on another school night in the future!