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viktor_haagThis weekend was the first in a while for a Sunday boardgame afternoon. This weekend, we played a five player, full game Le Havre, and then followed up with a game of El Grande.
Le Havre
I'm not sure I like this game with five players. We played the full game, and as the last player on turn one, I was dismayed that both food fill-up options got delayed until slots six and seven. This gave the starting player not only the first turn in the game, but also the first doubled-food pick. Player two got a pair of cows on turn one, but over the course of the game, didn't quite parlay them into the machine she should have. Player four purchased the cheapest construction firm, and parlayed its marketplace bonus into strong advantage -- in the end of the game, his experience with the game, as well as player one's, managed to seat them one-two.
As with Agricola, I have a suspicion that this game is strongly vicious to the fifth player, and unlike Agricola, Le Havre gives no cookie at all to non-starting players. I might be tempted to give the starting player three dollars and player five seven dollars, but I have no idea if playtesters considered the idea of starting cookies and discarded it.
But, it's entirely possible that this perception of unbalancement at five players is a mirage: in the end, the game was very, very close with no more than 10 points or so stretching between last and first finisher. There was a horrid moment about two thirds of the way through the game when player four (who ended up winning) solidly stuck a steak knife in my eye by double-buying two buildings just before I could manage to double-build them: the fault was rather squarely on me for (a) being one resource short when I should have more carefully planned for this problem, and (b) being greedy and refusing to settle for a partial build of one of the buildings (the trouble was, the second of the two buildings, one on top of the other, was the one I really wanted, more fool me). This produced much swearing and grinding of teeth, and then frustrated thrashing about for an alternate plan.
Le Havre is an excellent game; it solves nearly all the problems one might level against Agricola. It pays a price, however, by being slightly more dry in theme, and significantly longer. I don't think I'd be keen to play either of these two games with five players: there are others that are better for five. Agricola is a very strong three player game, that can stretch to two and four, has a charming theme, and is reasonably timed in length. Le Havre is a stronger game, probably is best with four and can stretch to three: I haven't played it with two, so I have yet to see how that will go -- it has less fewer sharp corners, more genuine paths to victory, and perhaps less wackiness (which at first blush may seem dry and lack of themic charm, but at closer view, Agricola's length can make that wackiness somewhat tiring).
Le Havre is easily in the same class as the great German-style boardgames. I would say that, if you have a gaming group that can stomach games that hover around three hours in length, and has three or four regular players, then you owe it to yourself to have this game on your shelf. In fact, I would say that you should favour this game over Agricola, despite the added dryness and length.
El Grande
El Grande is perhaps the first classic example of the majority-scoring mechanic. Players seed the board with their tokens in various regions that have a variety of worth. Interaction gets injected into the game by allowing players to monkey with both the board's fundamental configuration (altering the worth of regions) and player's investments ((re)moving tokens). El Grande also contains a classic investment-versus-greed tension with the action cards bidding system that balances turn order against infrastructure development (moving tokens into a place where they can be seeded onto the board).
Should you rush out to acquire El Grande at this point if you don't own it? Well, the geek ranks it tenth, almost 15 years after it's publication. And I believe that, if you buy it now (in North America?), you'll get the "anniversary edition" that also includes all the expansions (note that I have personally never played this game with any of the expansions, though I own them, but I have played the base game many times). For my taste, El Grande is just a wee bit too long for what it offers, and it's not my favourite Kramer creation (I think I like Princes of Florence better), but it's a pure design and excellently balanced.
I remain unable to suss out exactly how one should play this game, but I can tell you some things that don't work: don't dump everyone in the castle; don't play all your low cards in the first third of the game (to empty out your provinces into your court); don't play all your high cards in the first third of the game (hoping to build up an unassailable position: there's no such thing in this game); don't depend on any one single thing to work your way. El Grande, in short, seems to be a game that's so well balanced, and so finely tuned, that every game is all about tactics and not very much about strategy, or rather that strategically it's all about contingency planning and maintaining as many options as you can for the entire game.
In the end, I'm not sure that I really like majority scoring, area control games like this as much as others, but all the other games like this that I can think of tried to make a "better" game by bolting on more chrome or messing with the pure system that this game leaves out there unabashedly.
The Geek's top 10 to 20 ranked game list is, by its nature, polluted with new hotness, but it's very hard to argue that you shouldn't own this game. If you have any notion of playing games that slip past the 60-minute entry point (i.e. Ticket To Ride, Elfenland, Settlers) into the "gamer's game" category, then El Grande should probably be one of the first ones you consider. Of all the games in the top 20, it's the oldest design, indeed you have to drop all the way to Die Macher (currently) at the 25th spot to find an older game (and Die Macher is nearly ten years older and perhaps three time as long in play length but that's a topic for another day).
This is a very, very strong design and well worth the money especially if you have only the resources for a small collection.
Le Havre
I'm not sure I like this game with five players. We played the full game, and as the last player on turn one, I was dismayed that both food fill-up options got delayed until slots six and seven. This gave the starting player not only the first turn in the game, but also the first doubled-food pick. Player two got a pair of cows on turn one, but over the course of the game, didn't quite parlay them into the machine she should have. Player four purchased the cheapest construction firm, and parlayed its marketplace bonus into strong advantage -- in the end of the game, his experience with the game, as well as player one's, managed to seat them one-two.
As with Agricola, I have a suspicion that this game is strongly vicious to the fifth player, and unlike Agricola, Le Havre gives no cookie at all to non-starting players. I might be tempted to give the starting player three dollars and player five seven dollars, but I have no idea if playtesters considered the idea of starting cookies and discarded it.
But, it's entirely possible that this perception of unbalancement at five players is a mirage: in the end, the game was very, very close with no more than 10 points or so stretching between last and first finisher. There was a horrid moment about two thirds of the way through the game when player four (who ended up winning) solidly stuck a steak knife in my eye by double-buying two buildings just before I could manage to double-build them: the fault was rather squarely on me for (a) being one resource short when I should have more carefully planned for this problem, and (b) being greedy and refusing to settle for a partial build of one of the buildings (the trouble was, the second of the two buildings, one on top of the other, was the one I really wanted, more fool me). This produced much swearing and grinding of teeth, and then frustrated thrashing about for an alternate plan.
Le Havre is an excellent game; it solves nearly all the problems one might level against Agricola. It pays a price, however, by being slightly more dry in theme, and significantly longer. I don't think I'd be keen to play either of these two games with five players: there are others that are better for five. Agricola is a very strong three player game, that can stretch to two and four, has a charming theme, and is reasonably timed in length. Le Havre is a stronger game, probably is best with four and can stretch to three: I haven't played it with two, so I have yet to see how that will go -- it has less fewer sharp corners, more genuine paths to victory, and perhaps less wackiness (which at first blush may seem dry and lack of themic charm, but at closer view, Agricola's length can make that wackiness somewhat tiring).
Le Havre is easily in the same class as the great German-style boardgames. I would say that, if you have a gaming group that can stomach games that hover around three hours in length, and has three or four regular players, then you owe it to yourself to have this game on your shelf. In fact, I would say that you should favour this game over Agricola, despite the added dryness and length.
El Grande
El Grande is perhaps the first classic example of the majority-scoring mechanic. Players seed the board with their tokens in various regions that have a variety of worth. Interaction gets injected into the game by allowing players to monkey with both the board's fundamental configuration (altering the worth of regions) and player's investments ((re)moving tokens). El Grande also contains a classic investment-versus-greed tension with the action cards bidding system that balances turn order against infrastructure development (moving tokens into a place where they can be seeded onto the board).
Should you rush out to acquire El Grande at this point if you don't own it? Well, the geek ranks it tenth, almost 15 years after it's publication. And I believe that, if you buy it now (in North America?), you'll get the "anniversary edition" that also includes all the expansions (note that I have personally never played this game with any of the expansions, though I own them, but I have played the base game many times). For my taste, El Grande is just a wee bit too long for what it offers, and it's not my favourite Kramer creation (I think I like Princes of Florence better), but it's a pure design and excellently balanced.
I remain unable to suss out exactly how one should play this game, but I can tell you some things that don't work: don't dump everyone in the castle; don't play all your low cards in the first third of the game (to empty out your provinces into your court); don't play all your high cards in the first third of the game (hoping to build up an unassailable position: there's no such thing in this game); don't depend on any one single thing to work your way. El Grande, in short, seems to be a game that's so well balanced, and so finely tuned, that every game is all about tactics and not very much about strategy, or rather that strategically it's all about contingency planning and maintaining as many options as you can for the entire game.
In the end, I'm not sure that I really like majority scoring, area control games like this as much as others, but all the other games like this that I can think of tried to make a "better" game by bolting on more chrome or messing with the pure system that this game leaves out there unabashedly.
The Geek's top 10 to 20 ranked game list is, by its nature, polluted with new hotness, but it's very hard to argue that you shouldn't own this game. If you have any notion of playing games that slip past the 60-minute entry point (i.e. Ticket To Ride, Elfenland, Settlers) into the "gamer's game" category, then El Grande should probably be one of the first ones you consider. Of all the games in the top 20, it's the oldest design, indeed you have to drop all the way to Die Macher (currently) at the 25th spot to find an older game (and Die Macher is nearly ten years older and perhaps three time as long in play length but that's a topic for another day).
This is a very, very strong design and well worth the money especially if you have only the resources for a small collection.
