by Sean May
When: Sunday 16th December, 2018Where: Zach's place, Seoul
Who: Me, Zach, Matthew, Erik
Jaini and I collectively brought Le Havre and Clank!, and I should probably have recommended playing Clank! instead of Le Havre. Jaini didn't play, as she had some work to work on.
Zach, Matthew and Erik had never played Le Havre. Matthew also turned up later, so, having explained the rules to Zach and Erik, played a round or so - during which time they were surprised to learn that a round wasn't once around the table, but all the way to the end of the board (I may have forgotten to explain that) - we restarted and Matthew was given a quick crash course on how to play by the others.
The game progressed with lots of good-natured questions, queries and joking (Zach insisted on calling wood 'turds' and clay 'meat') - which is to say, rather slowly. I also got a couple of minor rules wrong and corrected them as I checked things in the book.
Even though the end-of-round feeding requirements are much lower in a four-player game, the economy of balancing food and resources and actions is extremely tight. None of us - apart from Erik, maybe, who won the game with lots of buildings - felt able to get an engine in motion that could do all of those things, or even one of those things, well. And when you only get one turn per round - ouch!
As time was getting on and I had an early start the next day, I suggested cutting the game short the next time the round ended on the fourth player's turn. I came third with 54 points, but Erik won with 70-80; Matthew brought up the rear with 35. I think we still had half or 40% of the round cards to go through.
Next time this hits the table with more than three players, I think it will be time to try out the shortened game rules.
