So I've only been doing euro board games for about 1.5 years or so now, first got started with Settlers of Catan. This is my FIRST post ever to board game geek. Posting here in the google group until BGG is back up :)
One of my favorite games so far is Agricola. I almost never turn down a game of that. I read about a new game called Le Havre that I think is made by the same guy. Last night my future wife and I played it for the first time in a 3 player game. It took a bit over 3 hours I'd say. QUICK 23 LINE OVERVIEW OF LE HAVRE FOR AGRICOLA PLAYERS: Just like Agricola you have action spaces available from turn 1 (standard) and you have additional action spaces that come out over time. There are only 3 'standard' spaces. These 3 spaces allow you to 'Build' the additional action spaces. To build an action space you need certain resources. To take an action space come your turn you need to move your player piece to an un-occupied action space. Unlike Agricola your player piece doesn't leave that space until you move it to another action space. In addition there are 'resource' spaces that accumulate resources. If you take the resources you don't move your piece (but it does count as your action for the turn). Since you can't go in an occupied building, action spaces seem to be 'held' a lot longer in this Le Havre. After taking resources or an action, your turn is done. At any time during your turn (before action, during action or after action) you can BUY a building with cash instead of taking an action to build it. The cool thing in Le Havre, you can buy the standard buildings that the town has initially. Over time the town builds buildings itself automatically if no one has built it in a long time. When you build or buy a building it goes in front of you. Players who take an action on a building you own may have to pay you a fee if the card has one. At any time in the game you can sell one of your buildings to the town for money (half of what you paid usually). Resources are basic, but can be upgraded. For example Clay turns into Brick. To upgrade a resource you need to use a building that upgrades that resource. Upgraded resources are needed later in the game to build the later buildings in the game. There are like 18 rounds (changes with # players) and at the end of each round you have to feed your family. It's a set amount for each round, starts at like 2 and increases to like 15 near the end. Unlike agricola it's much easier to get food as several resources themselves count as food and you can buy food at a 1:1 ratio. Also at the end of some of those rounds if you have grain resource you get another one (it grows), if you have two cattle they breed and you get another cattle. You can buy/build ships in the game, just like you buy/build a building. Your ship produces food at the end of each round. Better ships become available later in the game. There is a building that lets you use your ship to ship/sell your resources you own and thus convert them into gold. Taking certain actions, building a ship or shipping with your ship cost 'energy' to do. Certain resources are worth a certain number of 'energy' points. At the end of the game each building and ship is worth money and you add your money that you have. Highest money wins. THINGS I LIKED: I liked that I didn't feel as forced to do things in Le Havre as I usually feel in Agricola. Lots of times in Agricola I feel forced to take food action spaces to feed my family, or I feel like I'm forced to take reed because I need to expand, or I need to take start player because I'm always last because the player to my left always takes it. In Le Havre I felt like each time I made a choice to take something, it was to get to a goal I set myself, rather than something the game forced me to do. And Le Havre's automatic first player cycling is nice. I like how resources can be upgraded, it adds depth to the game. I also like how resources are not just resources but some also count as food and some also count as energy. Gives them multiple purposes :) I think the randomization of the order of the buildings is good too as it will add variety for the game. Sometimes more later high end buildings may come early if the stack didn't have many low numbers, or certain buildings like the wharf might be buried deeper down causing you to think about buying a ship rather than build one. Will help keep the game fresh I think. I liked how well energy needs scaled. At the beginning of the game you need very little or no energy. Near the end of the game it's much more critical. It's a nice progression. I thought I would hate being forced to buy ships. I wanted the game to be flexible enough that I wouldn't need ships if I went with a different strategy. In the end however I didn't have any such feelings anymore. The ships work out great and help a LOT with feeding your family and can earn a ton of cash near by shipping stuff. Some other reports on BGG said they had a hard time remembering what the buildings did or didn't like having to 'look around' at the players buildings. I didn't find any real issue here. When the buildings become available you read what they do, and they stick around the whole game so you just kinda remember what is available. It's not that bad. I think once you know the buildings well, you'll be able to form more complex strategies based on what buildings will be available when. I think this will quickly separate novice players from experienced ones which could be good or bad. THINGS I DID NOT LIKE OR HAVE CONCERNS ABOUT: We printed out the player aide sheets from BGG and found them REALLY valuable. I think they are nearly essential. I couldn't imagine not playing with them. My resources/gold/pieces would just be everywhere, I'd have to constantly look at that tiny single shared card and decipher it to figure out what I need when. The aides or something like them really should have been included in the original game. We're gonna laminate them ASAP. I think the 'Special Buildings' that you get are not as powerful at making the game new each time you play as the Minor Improvements/ Professions are in Agricola. Not a lot of the special buildings can come out and they didn't seem to do a super lot. I only saw five so I could be dead wrong here. I feel like the Hides into Leather resource is kinda weak. I guess it's meant as the 'money' resource but despite shipping 6 of the upgraded ones I wasn't quite sure it was worth the efforts to get them in the first place and then also upgrade them to leather. Maybe my opinion will change after more plays. It's a little on the long side, which might make it slightly tricky for a game to get going sometimes. Agricola suffers from this a little bit too, but Agricola's "theme" is so enticing it draws people in I think more than Le Havre will. Still the length of the game I think is right, the pacing of the game feels just right. The 'block a building' by sitting in it could turn into a way to really tick off other players. If two people are using cattle as their primary means of getting food, and you take the cattle conversion space and then just take resources from then on out, your really screwing up the other player pretty good potentially. Thankfully you can see that your being blocked and can pursue an alternate food strategy. Also you can take out a loan which isn't that bad. And eventually the other player will leave the spot. So it's probably not that bad, but it *could* become a point of conflict between players. CONCLUSIONS I really liked it. I'm going to play again on Thursday, this time a 4 player game. I don't think it will dampen my desire to play Agricola at all, and I think Agricola will continue to be more popular, but Le Havre is sure to be a very popular game. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BGG Down" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/BGG_down?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
