by gnatbuoy
Hey everyone! I was playing the game and came to a realization. I wanted to share it as a puzzle. Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Puzzle
2-player standard game
Your opponent has a +4-point Wealth advantage. It's your turn for the final action; your opponent has already completed theirs. Try to win the game!
Notes:
Wealth is measured in Francs and to indicate value, we'll use the following notation, XF, where X is a number.
Game State
Town
• Smokehouse
• There are no Francs on the "Francs Offer" supply tile.
Opponent
• Shipping Line (10F)
• 5 Francs
Wealth: 15
+ 10F (Shipping Line)
+ 5F (5 Francs)
______________________
= 15F
You
• Clay Mound (2F)
• Tannery (12F)
• 1 Wooden Ship (4F)
• 1 loan (-7F)
• 1 charcoal
• 8 fish
• 3 hides
Wealth: 11F
2F (Clay Mound)
+ 12F (Tannery)
+ 4F (Wooden Ship)
- 7F (1 Loan)
______________________
= 11F
Gamplay/Rules Reminder
• Action: enter a building or take goods from a supply tile.
• Final Action: a permitted action all players may take at the end of the game. You are allowed to take an action already used by another player.
• You may buy/sell buildings/ships and pay-off loans at any time during your turn, however...
• ...you are only allowed to sell buildings/ships and pay-off loans during the Final Action phase. So in other words, you can't buy buildings during your Final Action.
• Selling a building/ship gives us Francs equal to half of the its value.
• Loans deduct 7F from your wealth. It costs 5F to pay-off a loan.
Available Buildings
• Smokehouse:
Value: 6F
Entry Fee: 2 Food
Action: Convert up to 6 Fish into Smoked fish. Receive .5F per Fish (round down if necessary).
Requirements: exactly 1 energy
• Shipping Line:
Value: 10F
Entry Fee: 2 Food
Action: Ship goods for Francs. Pertinent to this scenario, a Wooden Ship can ship 2 items. Payouts: 1 Fish = 1F, 1 charcoal = 2F, 1 hide = 2F.
Requirements: 3 energy per ship.
• Tannery
Value: 12F
Entry Fee: Free
Action: Convert up to 4 Hides to Leather. Receive 1F per Hide.
Requirements: None
• Clay Mound
Value: 2F
Entry Fee: 1 Food
Action: Receive 3 Clay (+1 additional Clay for each "Hammer" building. For this scenario, you do not have any "Hammer" buildings).
Requirements: None
Goods
• Fish: provides 1 food. Worth 1F shipped. Can be upgraded to Smoked Fish.
• Hide: Worth 2F shipped. Can be upgraded to leather.
• Charcoal: Provides 3 energy. Worth 2F shipped.
Solution
[o]
1. Ship 2 hides gaining 4 Francs. Now it's tied.
- 1 charcoal (fuel 1 ship)
- 2 fish (entry fee)
- 2 hides
+ 4 Francs (2 Francs per hide)
New Wealth: 15F
2F (Clay Mound)
+ 12F (Tannery)
+ 4F (Wooden Ship)
- 7F (1 Loan)
+ 4F (4 Francs)
______________________
= 15F
2. Sell Clay Mound
- 1 Clay Mound
+ 1 Franc (from sale)
New Wealth: 14F
+ 12F (Tannery)
+ 4F (Wooden Ship)
- 7F (1 Loan)
+ 5F Francs
______________________
= 14F
3. Pay off loan
- 1 Loan
- 5 Francs
New Wealth: 16F
+ 12F (Tannery)
+ 4F (Wooden Ship)
______________________
= 16F
Commentary
The highest yielding action is shipping hide which gives us +4F. Compare that to smoking fish (+3F), making leather (+3F), or shipping anything else (+2F shipping fish).
Having taken our final action, we're now only allowed to sell buildings and pay loans. We're one Franc short from paying that pesky loan.
Paying a loan essentially creates +2F (5 Francs removing a -7F impact). To help us reach 5 Francs, we can sell a building. But the key realization is that selling almost any building/ship in the game to pay off a loan is a net loss because losing half the wealth from the building is greater than the +2 wealth from paying off a loan except in one case! Take the following table for example:
Have 0 Francs and sell 10F Building/Ship | -5F (half building/ship value) + 2F (loan removed) = -3F
Have 1 Francs and sell 8F Building/Ship | -4F (half building/ship value) + 2F (loan removed) = -2F
Have 2 Francs and sell 6F Building/Ship | -3F (half building/ship value) + 2F (loan removed) = -1F
Have 3 Francs and sell 4F Building/Ship | -2F (half building/ship value) + 2F (loan removed) = +0F
Have 4 Francs and sell 2F Building/Ship | -1F (half building/ship value) + 2F (loan removed) = +1F
If you have the sufficient Francs, selling a 2F building will actually increase our net worth because the gain from paying off the loan is greater than the loss from selling the building! In all of Le Havre, only the Clay Mound and the 2F-Wooden-Ship are worth 2F!
Another thing to note is that if you have more than the Francs indicated but still less than 5 Francs (because of course if you had 5F or more you wouldn't need to sell a building to pay it off), you could come out ahead when selling a 6F or less building/ship.
So selling either the Tannery or the Wooden Ship would allow us to pay off the loan but would result in a net loss! So then we sell the little ol' Clay Mound and that propels us ahead of our opponent!
(Uwe, if you want to make another expansion(s) or a spiritual successor for Le Havre with other 2F building/ships, we'll embrace it with open arms.)
[/o]