# of Players: 1-5
Playtime: 2-3 Hours
Playtime: 2-3 Hours
Core Mechanic: Worker Placement
Theme: City Building
Type: Euro
Type: Euro
Weight: Heavy
Year: 2008
Rating: 9.5*
Hot on the heels of discovering Agricola, I looked up the designer Uwe Rosenberg and found out he had released another game the year after and that it also ranked in the Top 10 Games of All-Time on BoardGameGeek at the time. Naturally, I had to try it out and it turned out to be another fantastic worker placement game that also became one of my first solo game endeavours as I tried to continually push the limits of the maximum VP score I could achieve.
In this game set in a French harbour, you take the role of a business owner trying to accumulate the most money to win the game by purchasing buildings and shipping goods. The gameplay is very simple - either move your single worker to an unoccupied building and use its effect or take one of the goods offers on the main board, which accumulates each turn. Goods can be used to construct buildings, converted into other goods or money, or sold for money, the latter of which requires ships to be constructed. Buildings can be constructed or purchased with coins by each player, thus forming a mini district that each player owns, or constructed by or sold to the city. The game is played over several rounds, at the end of which is a harvest, but it is significantly less difficult than the harvest in Agricola as you can always exchange money for food, you can take out loans and repay them before the end of the game, and you can use the previously mentioned ships to offset the food cost.
Somehow this straightforward “move your worker” or “take goods” gameplay tends to take a long time, probably because most players are trying to figure out the optimal moves to make based on the amount of money they have. The real key to a successful strategy is figuring out when to buy buildings before other players can either build or buy it themselves and when to sell buildings (for half the amount they are worth) when you no longer need the building or are in more need of cash to buy something else. The order that the buildings come out varies from game to game and there are a few special buildings that are added to the deck each game to spice it up, so your strategy will need to be adapted to what is available.
Because of this depth, new players may become overwhelmed as they see experienced players doing multiple moves in one turn and can see themselves fall behind rather quickly as the best buildings get purchased or constructed and their engine stalls. During the last few turns, it is not uncommon to find players pulling out their calculators to try to figure out which moves will net them the most points. Optimization is key in this game and it may take a couple plays to really figure out which moves are best. So even though playing the game is very simple, the strategies are definitely not.
One of my favorite things about this game is seeing your little block of businesses growing as the game proceeds, giving this game a very light city-building feel. Also, the different uses for each building is always interesting, especially when one of the special buildings comes up. So although I prefer it’s older brother Agricola more, I can see this game being more “fun” for lack of a better word, as there is usually a best action to take, but also a bunch of good actions as well. Over all these years, it has consistently remained in my Top 5. There is also significantly more interaction as you can use buildings built by other players, for a price of course.
So, where does this game fall in terms of needing to be in a collection? This is where I am going to start looking at themes and trying to round out a game from that perspective. This is a heavy game and a worker placement game, like Agricola. However, I would say that it is quite a different worker placement game from Agricola and could occupy a different space in one's collection - there are less difficult decisions, it is more of an engine-builder, and there is quite a bit more interaction. From this perspective, there is enough that separates it which would make it a good fit in a Heavyweight and Collector collection. However, the slight similarities between this an Agricola might just hold it back from being essential. Uwe Rosenberg might be my favorite designer and I think it will become increasingly difficult to not want to include all his games in any collection.
Hot on the heels of discovering Agricola, I looked up the designer Uwe Rosenberg and found out he had released another game the year after and that it also ranked in the Top 10 Games of All-Time on BoardGameGeek at the time. Naturally, I had to try it out and it turned out to be another fantastic worker placement game that also became one of my first solo game endeavours as I tried to continually push the limits of the maximum VP score I could achieve.
In this game set in a French harbour, you take the role of a business owner trying to accumulate the most money to win the game by purchasing buildings and shipping goods. The gameplay is very simple - either move your single worker to an unoccupied building and use its effect or take one of the goods offers on the main board, which accumulates each turn. Goods can be used to construct buildings, converted into other goods or money, or sold for money, the latter of which requires ships to be constructed. Buildings can be constructed or purchased with coins by each player, thus forming a mini district that each player owns, or constructed by or sold to the city. The game is played over several rounds, at the end of which is a harvest, but it is significantly less difficult than the harvest in Agricola as you can always exchange money for food, you can take out loans and repay them before the end of the game, and you can use the previously mentioned ships to offset the food cost.
Somehow this straightforward “move your worker” or “take goods” gameplay tends to take a long time, probably because most players are trying to figure out the optimal moves to make based on the amount of money they have. The real key to a successful strategy is figuring out when to buy buildings before other players can either build or buy it themselves and when to sell buildings (for half the amount they are worth) when you no longer need the building or are in more need of cash to buy something else. The order that the buildings come out varies from game to game and there are a few special buildings that are added to the deck each game to spice it up, so your strategy will need to be adapted to what is available.
Because of this depth, new players may become overwhelmed as they see experienced players doing multiple moves in one turn and can see themselves fall behind rather quickly as the best buildings get purchased or constructed and their engine stalls. During the last few turns, it is not uncommon to find players pulling out their calculators to try to figure out which moves will net them the most points. Optimization is key in this game and it may take a couple plays to really figure out which moves are best. So even though playing the game is very simple, the strategies are definitely not.
One of my favorite things about this game is seeing your little block of businesses growing as the game proceeds, giving this game a very light city-building feel. Also, the different uses for each building is always interesting, especially when one of the special buildings comes up. So although I prefer it’s older brother Agricola more, I can see this game being more “fun” for lack of a better word, as there is usually a best action to take, but also a bunch of good actions as well. Over all these years, it has consistently remained in my Top 5. There is also significantly more interaction as you can use buildings built by other players, for a price of course.
So, where does this game fall in terms of needing to be in a collection? This is where I am going to start looking at themes and trying to round out a game from that perspective. This is a heavy game and a worker placement game, like Agricola. However, I would say that it is quite a different worker placement game from Agricola and could occupy a different space in one's collection - there are less difficult decisions, it is more of an engine-builder, and there is quite a bit more interaction. From this perspective, there is enough that separates it which would make it a good fit in a Heavyweight and Collector collection. However, the slight similarities between this an Agricola might just hold it back from being essential. Uwe Rosenberg might be my favorite designer and I think it will become increasingly difficult to not want to include all his games in any collection.
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