Björn D
Germany
living in Toulouse / France
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This article was initially posted in Essen 2009 - Strategic Gamer's review
In Shipyard the players become the manager of a ship construction company. They have to build ships and let them sail on a Shakedown Cruise. The manager with the most successful constructions wins.
Shipyard can be considered as a rondel driven game. Marc Gerdt's inventions was used several times.
First and most important usage is the so-called action track, which drives the decisions and actions of the game in a very innovative way.
The action track consists of 22 fields which are arranged in a circle. On 8 of the fields, the so-called action cards are placed next to each other. In the 1st round, the players decide which action they want to play and place a token on this action card and perform the action. The token remains up to the next round and indicates that this action is not available for the other players. After the first round each player has a token on the action track. In his next round, the player will have to select one of the available actions on the track and moves his token to that field. Simultaneously, the former action card is moved to the front of the action cards. In that way, the action cards "crawl" around the action track. The game finishes, once the action cards circled the action track 4 times.
Each turn, the player can generally choose one of the following actions (if not occupied by another player):
- take one fright train: 5 trains are available for selection (1 for free, 2 for 1 coins, 2 for 2 coins). Each card depicts 3 wagons. The wagons are filled with 3 types of commodities (gold, stones or coal)
- take 1 shipping canal which depicts the route for the shakedown cruise.
- recruit crew / get propeller: in a 4 space rondel, the propeller and 3 "crew" (captain, soldier, businessmen) are shown. If this action is selected, the rondel token is moved one space and the players receives the respective part. Or the player pays additional 1 coin/space to move the token further and to receive that crew.
- buy equipment: in the same manner as crew rondel, the equipment rondel allows the player to receive one equipment (sail, chimney, cannon, crane).
- exchange commodities: in another rondel, the player can exchange commodities to either crew, equipment of money.
- hire employees: This rondel has 8 fields which each offer 3 employee cards: these cards provide powerful additional features to the player and last the whole game (e.g. receive an additional crew/equipment when choosing this action, allows to put more equipment on the ships, allows to move a rondel marker further steps for free, etc). This action is typically picked at the beginning of the game. In total 48 cards are available.
- take up to 3 ship cards: ship cards can be distinguished between bow, middle and stern cards. 5/10/5 cards are openly available for selection and can each cost 0/1/2 coins. Once selected, the player has to put them on his own shipyard (9 fields available). If a ship was completed (includes a bow, stern and at least one middle section). it will sail for its shakedown cruise. Each ship card can be equipped with 1 or 2 equipment and/or crew (based on the chosen card). Generally, the longer the ship and the more equipment/crew, the more VP. On top, based on the selected canal/s, additional VP can be generated, if the ship is adequately equipped.
After this action, the players can choose to play 1 additional action for 6 coins. They can choose any action (also occupied actions but except the one they already played). For this additional action, no action card or token is moved.
Once the action track is circled 4 times, bonus VP are given for so-called "government contract" cards which are chosen by each player during the game (2 each). At the beginning of the game, each player has 6 of these contracts and successively will reduce them to 2.
Shipyard is a well designed strategy game. The players need to have a long-term strategy: which type of ships shall I build ! A first direction is given by the government contracts.
In order to successfully sail a ship, several actions are required: hire the appropriate crew, equip the ship, select the right shipping canal for my ship, buy the right ship cards that allow to attach the selected equipment/crew and select the right equipment cards.
In this game, the players usually want to do everything at once and usually an action, which is already occupied by another player. So, the key to success is to adjust the short term strategy to the current situation - and eventually perform an additional action if the preferred action was not available - but this costs more money... In our game of 4, each player sailed ~3 ships).
Due to its complex "economy" and mechanisms, Shipyard requires lots of decisions and constant adjustments to the strategy. The players are always part of the game, as they have to follow, what the other players are doing and hence their next options are changing. They can somehow plan ahead, as for most actions, the upcoming options are always visible.
I assume a high level of re-playability as the government contracts change each game leading to different strategies. Beside this, the material is excellent and the theme works very well.
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Bob
United States
Nebraska
In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.
Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
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Thanks for the review Björn!
This game's on my Wishlist. Hope Santa reads this... 
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