Game: Netzwerk

Thread: Trade routes and housing upgrades

djnesq — 2008-06-08T01:51:36+00:00

I have two questions concerning the Netzwerk edition. Regarding trade routes, we've been playing that if a player starts a route in a city, the route must terminate at another city or at that player's own trade route. In other words, a player cannot tap into another player's trade route to score points for a city. Correct?

The other question concerns upgrading houses. The rules strongly imply that the houses in a city are upgraded as connections are added. A city could start with a single house when first connected and end up with five houses or even more by the end of the game. Is that right?

Thread: A Game You'll Never Trade

MENAREUS2000 — 2008-03-25T17:47:53+00:00

Netzwerk takes you On The Road Again.

I've always been a fan of Corné van Moorsel. I found myself reading many of the reviews to some of his games over and over again, trying to decide if I wanted to buy one:

Here's a partial list of some of the games that fascinated me in one way or another:

StreetSoccer - ZooSim - Subulata - Logistico - SeaSim -- Aloha - Factory Fun - Gipsy King

It wasn't until I saw and read about Netzwerk, that I finally took that extra step and actually ordered the game.

When I first saw all the beautiful tiles that come with this game and read the rules, I knew it was a game that would be a lot of fun So when I first got it, I quickly read the rules and set-up the tiles to play a few games.

Problem was I became really confused about which types of houses to place, when making city connections. Even one of the diagrams was incorrect, which was pointed out in the translated rules, which seemed to make it even more confusing. In spite of that, I still really like the game and was determined to try and figure out the correct way to place the houses in the game.

I recently pulled the game off the shelf again, to read the rules and look over the diagrams again and suddenly a light bulb went off in my head. Now I get it.

From what the instructions said, they were put together using a PC Translator and when you add in the one mistake in one of the diagrams on top of that, this game's downfall was it's instructions.

However, once you understand the game, the sun comes out and once again you'll have a clever placement game, that you'll want to play over and over again.

There are 13 titles in the game, each with 3 circles connected together like a 3 prong spoke. The colors of the circles come in red, blue, green, yellow, orange, black and grey. The black circles represent cities and have values from 2-10. The grey circles represent dessert space and can't be play upon. The other colored circles, all represent different colored countrysides.

The game also comes with 50 small blocks, in the colors yellow, orange, red, green and blue.

To start the game, each player gets one movement piece (white, grey, black, brown), 20 roads (sticks), in their color along with 3 big houses, 3 medium houses, and 8 small houses. Now the titles are mixed up while face down and then turned over to form a round like island. The game supports 2-4 players, but in a two player game, the "6" value city tile and one tile with connecting orange, red, green countrysides, is removed from play.

Now on each colored countryside, you place two small blocks on it's color. Now each player gets to place their movement pieces anywhere they'd like, with the exception of a dessert section.

A turn in the game game consists of three steps:

1) The player moves his Movement piece (Marker) to an adjacent field. If his market ends up in a country field with colored cube(s) still on it, it takes one of the cubes. Besides not being able to move to a dessert field, one cannot move to a field where an opponent has his or her marker. Although it is possible to jump over an adjacent marker in a straight line, on to the field that lays behind it.

2) The player May Use collected colored blocks to purchase roads (sticks). Each traded in block earns you one road. Ultimately these road will be used to make connections between cities and countrysides. One must have enough roads in order to complete a connection, so that their roads don't end in a dead end. Here's is what's so clever about this game. You need to collect the proper color cubes to make connection between areas of the same colors. Thus planning a proper path, is essential to winning. In other words, to collect a red road, you'll need a red block, etc.

3) Every time connections are made between cities, houses are placed. One connected city, two connected cities or three connected cites, allows you to place a small, medium, or large house respectively.

Now it's part three where the instructions can get confusing The point is when counting the number of city connection, you only count direct connections, meaning a road shouldn't pass through an occupied city, to continue to count connections. Plus a second connection to a city doesn't count.

The game ends when the last color of a block is collected. The player taking the last block, completes his or her turn and scoring takes place.

Each person get 1 point for every small building, 2 point for every medium building and 3 points for every large building on the board. In addition, you add in the value of all the cities you occupied.

What makes this such a wonderful game is that it plays well with 2-4 players and offers many interesting choices each turn. I've always felt the sign of a great game is a game that's simple to play but at the same time, offers plenty of interesting tactics, along with various strategies to try and go for the win.

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Artax — 2007-12-23T10:37:48+00:00

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Artax — 2007-12-23T10:36:04+00:00

Thread: Re: Netzwerk components?

seppo21 — 2007-01-25T05:47:47+00:00

When I received my copy of Netzwerk, I had the same problem. I couldn't tell you now for sure, but it sounds as though your contents matched mine. I queried Jumbo via email regarding this, but never received a response. I also sent an email to Funagain, who promptly supplied me with the number of roads stated in the instructions. So, I have a set of components that matches the printed manifest.

At any rate, I would bet the statement above is likely right on.

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GeoMan — 2005-11-29T15:37:39+00:00

Netzwerk version

Thread: Re: Netzwerk components?

GeoMan — 2005-11-28T22:23:13+00:00

chadm wrote:
Morisi comes with more sticks for two of the colors to support the two-player variant. Perhaps that's what you are seeing in Netzwerk.

The Netzwerk German manual states that each player should have 20 sticks. But there are 18 for White & Black and 15 for Grey & Brown.

Jumbo probably cut the number of sticks (to cut the costs down) after the manual was printed.

Thread: Re: Netzwerk components?

chadm — 2005-11-28T20:17:52+00:00

Morisi comes with more sticks for two of the colors to support the two-player variant. Perhaps that's what you are seeing in Netzwerk.

Thread: Netzwerk components?

GeoMan — 2005-11-27T13:44:46+00:00

My copy of Netzwerk comes with a different number of sticks for each player. But the manual states 20 sticks for each player.

Is my copy missing sticks or later editions of Netzwerk come with fewer sticks?

Thread: First game of Netzwerk

seppo21 — 2005-09-04T03:40:08+00:00

First Game: Netzwerk

Christine was interested in playing games tonight. So much so, that she suggested it to me At any rate, she wanted me to choose tonight. I chose Netzwerk as my first game. I have been intrigued by this game for a while, so I picked up a copy a quite a while back when Funagain had it on sale. Unfortunately, it was not complete at the time. Funagain did make sure that it was complete, but in the process, it kind of was relegated to the back burner. Since we have been trying to play through all of our games this year, I figured this was as good a time to try as any.

In Netzwerk, you are building trade routes to connect cities. In order to do this, though, you must move a pawn around a board and collect resources. Once you build a trade route, you place houses in each connected city based on the number of other cities they are directly connected to. Since you win the game as soon as all of your houses are placed, it is best to try to get a network of trade routes with many spurs going off to individual cities. The game also will end when the last of a single type of resource is taken from the board. If this happens, you total up the number of houses you have with the value of the cities you have connected to your network. In this case, highest score wins.

In our game, Christine chose to go first. At one end of the board was an area with a lot of orange regions close together. On the opposite end, there were a lot of red and green regions strung together. It was this end that we both started on. Christine was able to connect a couple of cities first. After doing this, she began working her way toward the orange region. Along the way, she was able to connect several other cities. However, she essentially connected them in series, so she did not have a lot of her houses in play. Meanwhile, I was concentrating primarily on collecting red and green resources. I used these to put together a rather wide network of trade routes. I was able to connect mine in parallel rather than in series. This allowed me to get many more buildings placed. In the end, I had six cities connected together. Since each was connected directly to five other cities, I had a total of 30 houses that should be placed. This exceeded the supply of 23 in the game, allowing me to win.

Final Result:

Stephen wins

I really enjoyed finally getting to play this game. I have a really soft spot for connection games, and this one landed squarely in it. It seems, at least in the two-player version of the game, that trying to make a good-sized network that connects six cities in parallel is the way to go. However, it seems that with more players this would become more difficult. Even our game, there were a couple of places that got kind of cramped. I could see competition for some of the routes becoming much more intense as you add more players. It will be interesting to see if this is indeed the case. Our total time, including rules explanation was right at 45 minutes.

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alkaiser — 2005-07-18T20:06:01+00:00

Wooden pieces from the Netzwerk version of the game.

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alkaiser — 2005-07-18T20:06:01+00:00

A few of the board tiles from the Netzwerk version.

Thread: Session Report

bengkohn — 2003-10-21T13:02:39+00:00

Netzwork: EYAL, Art, Brad, Mike

This reworking of Morisi basically changes the board layout to almost ensure that holes (now deserts) exist in the land layout.

Although the rules seemed simple, I will need to go back and reread them, and reference the rules to Morisi as well for further insight. Eyal pretty much walked to an easy victory as the rest of us stumbled around, and there wasn't a lot we could have done to stop him if the rules as I understood them are correct.

Additionally, he won via using up all his buildings, which seems like it would be very common with the rules as I understand them.

Basically this game involves moving a pawn to collect resources, then using these resources to connect cities via routes. I'd not recommend this again unless we played wrong.

Thread: Changes Morisi -> Netzwerk ???

bengkohn — 2003-08-11T15:24:42+00:00

I have Netzwerk and I was wondering if anyone could elaborate on the differences between this and Morisi.

Is there an english translation of this anywhere?

Thanks!

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bengkohn — 2003-08-11T12:45:51+00:00

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bengkohn — 2003-08-11T12:45:42+00:00