David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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Yes, ladies and the other 99% of the Geek's user population, I had the opportunity to try out Czech Games' brand-new heavy Euro at Euroquest 2009 this weekend (I didn't have sufficient time to play Endeavour, the convention's designated "Hot New Essen Game"). This was a shakedown cruise for everyone concerned, after some instruction from (thanks) David Fair.
Gameplay
I know the publishers frequent these boards, so, if anyone feels the detail is too much, please shoot me a Geekmail and I'll take care of it.
Overview
Players score victory points by completing ships out of piece tiles with certain mixes of components, by performing shakedown cruises with those vessels, during which they score points based on spaces they land on within geomorphic canal tiles purchased by the player, and by completing secret victory conditions. In addition, certain bonus tiles also score victory points. Ships score points for equipment, crew and speed. After the action tiles lap their track a number times equal to the number of players, the game ends.
Action Track
The board is dominated by tracks of various kinds, some of which are rondels, others of which are market tracks. The most important of the bunch for driving gameplay is the action track, where the players choose an action to perform during their turn. There are several actions available, each keyed to one of the other tracks:
Market Actions:
All market tracks have three available tiers, 0, 1 and 2, representing the number of guilders each tile costs. Players can purchase trains, canal tiles and ship pieces with separate actions.
Shipyard: The heart of the scoring system, this is where you buy ship pieces. There are sterns, bows, and two tracks of middle pieces. The player picking this action may pick up to three of them, placing them on a nine-space "shipyard" track at the bottom of his player mat. A player completes a ship when he joins together a stern, a bow, and 1-7 midpieces. At this point, you can score the ship (see below, "Scoring").
Rondels:
Rondel actions allow the player to move a marker token one space clockwise on the rondel and collect the indicated reward. The player has the option to move one additional space at one guilder per, and take that reward instead. Of course, there's no point in moving more than three extra spaces, since that returns you to your starting point.
These allow acquisition of ship equipment, crew, cash, and bonus tiles, depending on the action.
Other Action:
Cash (4-player game only): The player collects 2 guilders from the bank.
Movement on the Action Track:
Essentially, this involves picking a space occupied by an action tile. If you move off an action tile to get there (i.e., every time but the first turn), the old tile moves to the head of the line. For every player ahead of you when you perform your action, collect one guilder. Only one player is allowed on a tile at a time, like Le Havre's player disks. In addition, if you take the last action in line, you get one extra guilder for every three spaces between that action and the next one in line, rounded down.
Buying Actions:
By the way, if one action isn't enough for you, you can spend 6 guilders to purchase a second, with no occupation restrictions. The only thing you can't do is repeat the action you just did.
Scoring:
Once you complete a ship, you set it aside for scoring, at which point, you load it up with all the equipment and crew you want to score with it. The various pieces have features that allow you to place this equipment (e.g., cabins for crew, mounts for sails and smokestacks, etc.). Scoring the ship depends on the crew, the installed equipment, and the ship's speed (a function of whether the ship has a captain, a smokestack, and a propeller, and what other additional "speed" equipment is aboard). However, if you've neglected to provide a captain, you get nothing! Good day, sir!
Once you've scored the ship, you move a ship marker X number of spaces on a canal tile (purchased in an action), depending on the ship's speed. As it hits certain scoring spaces, you get additional points. For example, the gun space scores a point for each gun and soldier aboard; the lantern scores a point per lantern on the ship, and the blue ribbon scores points equal to the number of spaces you traveled to reach it (but if you hit two ribbons, you only get the bigger of the two scores). Once you finish moving/scoring, you set the ship aside for any endgame scoring.
Government Contracts:
You also have secret victory conditions in the form of three blue and three green government contracts dealt out at the beginning of the game. As the game progresses, you discard contracts until you're left with one blue and one green contract. Depending on how well you've fulfilled their conditions, they score megapoints at game end.
Game End:
The game ends after the action tiles complete a number laps around their track equal to the number of players. At this point, all the players get one action of their choice with no occupation restrictions. After this, the players score points from their remaining government contracts and any bonus tiles. Remaining cash is the tiebreaker.
Observations:
Gameplay was satisfyingly deep, with all three of us spontaneously commenting on how much we liked the game during play. I wish the fourth player had stuck around for the whole thing (Euroquest has tournaments, and one of his rounds was starting), but, oddly enough, things were pretty easy to adapt mid-step to the three-player version. The only things we had to do were remove the cash action and discard the contracts at different times. One player felt the bonus tiles weren't particularly useful, and, indeed, I was the only one who collected them in bulk (for the corresponding contract), but I got a good deal of mileage out of them--particularly the foreman tile (extra movement on the bonus rondel for free) and a tile that allows you to place propellers without a mount (or an extra propeller on a stern with a mount). The third player focused on selling trains and wound up winning with a big ship at the end. I found myself at a loss to maximize my final score after scoring my last big ship with 1 turn to go, but realized later I could have used both actions to squeeze 4 more VP's out of trader bonus tiles.
Another minor bit of confusion involves what constitutes a "lap" around the action track. It took a little convincing that the "head of the snake" is what you need to pay attention to--when it winds up at the original head's start space, that's a lap.
Like "Le Havre," action choice and purchases from the market represent the bulk of player interaction, enough to avoid allegations of "multiplayer solitaire" that tend to dog games like Race for the Galaxy. On the other hand, it's really not a cutthroat game. The number of ways in which one can screw one's opponent is limited, which means this game will appeal to the less-confrontational gamer.
There's no "runaway leader" problem, and, indeed, we were all very close until the final scoring. The fact that the winner lapped the victory point track twice, though, may indicate that a slightly longer track is needed, since none of us had any particularly big scores. Then again, tracks that aren't "nice round numbers" (50 or 100, for instance), tend to be harder to keep track of after you lap the track.
(UPDATE: This problem was a result of us forgetting to reduce the number of game turns after the fourth player left. If we'd played the intended number of "laps," this would not have been an issue.)
The art direction is very nice, but there's a serious problem with the components in the Essen prints. It appears from anecdotal reports that the cardboard punches weren't complete, leaving some of the tokens and tiles partially unperforated, leading to rips and--in the case of a few of our set's tiles--cardboard layer separations when one attempts to punch the pieces. This is really very unfortunate, but easily corrected in later print runs.
Final Scoring:
The three of us had a very nice time with this game, to the point where I'd have no reservations against recommending a play. It sounds like there's a lot to the game (and there is), but it's not a brain-burner like Caylus. The core mechanic is straightforward enough to render the details very manageable. I even think this compares favorably to Le Havre, my favorite from last year, and I'm looking forward to my next game of this when it becomes generally available in the U.S.
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Bruce Murphy
Australia
Pyrmont
NSW
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Why are you concerned about the publishers objecting to the level of detail? The rules are available.
B>
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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Well, I think it falls within the boundaries of "fair use," since it's all paraphrases and not particularly detailed, but you'd be surprised what people object to. Plus, I can't claim any familiarity with EU copyright law. Better safe than sorry.
EDIT: Oh, I see what you're saying--someone's posted the rules here.
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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One thing I'd meant to mention above was the possibility, along with bonus tiles and the right mounts, of creating an abomination of a ship with a dozen each of smokestacks, sails, and propellers--a veritable naval leviathan, if you will. Given that all three affect the ship's speed rating, you may very well go to plaid. That possibility alone would have made replay worthwhile for me.
I amuse easily.
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Bruce Murphy
Australia
Pyrmont
NSW
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Marlowe_PI wrote: Well, I think it falls within the boundaries of "fair use," since it's all paraphrases and not particularly detailed, but you'd be surprised what people object to. Plus, I can't claim any familiarity with EU copyright law. Better safe than sorry.
EDIT: Oh, I see what you're saying--someone's posted the rules here.
The publisher posts the rules on their website. A description of play in any detail less than cutting and pasting their words verbatim is unlikely to bring you anything but praise.
B>
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Chris Shaffer
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Marlowe_PI wrote: Rondels:
Rondel actions allow the player to move a marker token one space clockwise on the rondel and collect the indicated reward. The player has the option to move one additional space at one guilder per, and take that reward instead. The only proviso is, you can't move ahead to the same place the token started from.
Actually, the rules specifically state that the place the token started from is the most expensive to move onto.
Marlowe_PI wrote: Game End:
The game ends after the action tiles complete four laps around their track.
The number of laps is equal to the player count.
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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I checked against the rules online just now. We appear to have missed both--the second because we overlooked it after the fourth player left. Indeed, the "End of the Game" section makes only a glancing mention of the fact that "each player has had one full turn." The actual scaling is elsewhere (Setup, para. 11). So, we played an extra lap, which would account for the inflated scores. I seem to recall leading at that point, more's the pity.
We missed one other rule as well, it seems. You can also obtain extra income if you take the last action in line, at the rate of one guilder per three spaces between it and the next action, rounded down (i.e., 2 spaces = 0; 3 spaces = 1; 4 spaces = 1).
These have been emended to the review above. The management apologizes for any inconvenience.
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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thepackrat wrote: Why are you concerned about the publishers objecting to the level of detail? The rules are available.
B>
It seems that real life caught up to us on this one.
At this point, I'd just like to thank Czech Games for maintaining a far-sighted and reasonable view of its intellectual property. You never know what's going to tick off in-house counsel.
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-matt s.
United States
Eugene
Oregon
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/blog/22
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Very nice review of this game -- I know how long it takes to write something of this length in a review - kudos!
In putting together my condensed rules file [ Condensed rules for Shipyard v1.4 ] I discovered there's a bit more to the end game than you noted in your review (not that you're trying to cover all the rules in detail necessarily, but I think it's important in the end game).
Quote: The game ends after the action tiles complete a number laps around their track equal to the number of players. At this point, all the players get one action of their choice with no occupation restrictions. After this, the players score points from their remaining government contracts and any bonus tiles. Remaining cash is the tiebreaker.
The missed rule is (paraphrased): After the final action, each player can THEN buy (per usual costs) one additional ship piece to complete a ship (and therefore launch it). [see bottom of page 9 to top of page 10 of original rules]
This means you don't necessarily have to take the build action for your last action selection if you only need one more piece to complete a ship.
Overall I really liked this game. Learning it was tough initially with no one having played it before, but once you get past that, it's a very solid and interesting game.
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David Matchen
United States
Baltimore
Maryland
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I'm reasonably sure we did this at the time, but, in the mad rush that usually accompanies the last turn, I'm equally confident that I forgot about it almost immediately.
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Posted Tue Nov 17, 2009 10:32 pm
