Brian Bennett
United States
West Bloomfield
Michigan
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SHIPYARD
I recently played my first game of Shipyard. I have decided to try my hand at a game review. This is my first, so please be gentle. I am not sure why I am picking Shipyard as my first review, but here we go.
First off, I want to say that Shipyard is a good solid game. It is fairly weighty. As far as Euro’s go, I would put it up with Agricola and Le Havre for weight, maybe even a little heavier.
We had time for only one game. It was a three player game where all three of us were first time players. I will start with a brief overview of game play then I will do a "Opening the box!" segment followed by an explanation of the game mechanics and finally I will summarize my initial impressions of the game.
Overview
Shipyard is a 2-4 player game. The box says it plays in 2hrs. That may be possible after a few plays. Our first game was more like 2.5-3hrs, including set up. Set up was a bit daunting. There are a ton of bits and pieces to set up on the two main playing boards. In addition, there are several different symbols on all these pieces that seem very foreign at first.
The object of the game is to be the "Ship Builder" who builds ships scoring the most points by game’s end. There are several ways in which building a ship scores a player points. Some of which include the speed of the ship, the number of crew members on the ship and the equipment that has been fitted to the ship. A player will likely build several ships during the course of the game. In addition to the general scoring for a ship’s crew/speed/equipment, each player also has a number of secret government contracts that will score bonus points at the end of the game.
A ship can be fitted with a wide variety of crew members, equipment and safety features. At a minimum a completed ship must have a Bow, a middle section and a Stern. In addition, for a ship to successfully launch, it must have a captain. On top of these minimum requirements, a ship can have other crew members, including businessman, soldiers and ships officers. It can also have safety features such as life boats, lifebuoys and lanterns. Ships may also be fitted with some additional equipment, including cranes, guns, sails, smoke stacks and propellers. Each of these items will increase the value and/or speed of the completed ship. This in-turn increases the potential points earned when that ship is tested in its "Shakedown" cruise in one of your rented shipping canals.
Then, once you have completed and tested a ship, you do the whole process over again. Score as many points as you can before the end of the last round to become the winner.
“Opening the box!
I am sure that I am not alone on this. I absolutely love opening up a new game and checking it out. The "new game" smell, the pieces to punch out and the directions to read and figure out. It is a great feeling. I put a lot of weight on how I feel after opening a game. That’s why I am putting a section in my review for just that moment. Unfortunately, I have chosen a game for my first ever game review that I personally didn’t get to open. This game is the first in a very long time for our group that wasn’t purchased by yours truly (thanks Braden). But, I will summarize his experience, as he described to me, when he first opened the box.
As much as I would like to say he was pleased, this wasn’t the case. The player boards aren’t really "boards" at all, they are more like thin sheets of plastic. That didn’t impress him to start with. After that came the punching out of all the pieces. There were several sheets of pieces to punch out, which is normally quite enjoyable for me. It may take some time, but you get to check out all of the new tiles and pieces that you have to learn about while doing so. Again, this was less than perfect either. The tiles weren’t quite "punched-out" far enough. As you tried to pop them out, from either side, it tore the paper from the cardboard a bit. It made it a slow and frustrating experience. I know, so far, not so good. It really isn’t as bad as I make it out; it was just a little frustrating when you are looking forward to getting a new game out. In the end, the player mats were just perfect for their purpose. The main boards are nice quality stock and the pieces look OK, just not perfect.
Game Mechanic
Now, this is where it gets interesting. In Shipyard, there are several mechanics going on all at the same time. When first set up, there is so much going on that it can even seem a little overwhelming. There are seven different main actions that can be chosen. The Action Tracker determines which of these actions are available for each player to choose from on their turn. In addition, each of those seven actions has its own mechanic to go along with it. This is where it initially seems a bit overwhelming with so many different markets and trackers on the board that you don’t know what going on. But, it isn’t as bad as it sounds. The seven actions fall into two main types and I will describe how each works below. First, I should explain how the Action Tracker works.
The Action Tracker is an oval with 23 spaces on it. The game begins with a token representing each of the seven actions (plus one extra in a 4 player game) placed on one of the segments of the oval, all in a line with a few of them having predetermined places and a few being placed at random. When a player takes their first action of the game they place their pawn on an action tile and then take that action. For instance, if I want to take ship pieces on my first turn, I put my pawn on the symbol for "Ship Building" and then take that action. Each player after me does the same. If you place your pawn on an action tile that is behind any other players pawns on the tracker, you get one Florin for each player you are behind on the track. After your first turn your pawn will already be on an action tile. So, on your next turn you pick your pawn up, move the action tile you were just on to the front of the line and pick another action to take. Imagine leap frog if you will, the action tiles all rotate around the oval. As you move your pawn off of an action that action moves to the front. Again, each pawn in front of yours, when you choose your action, earns you 1 Florin. In this way, the less valuable actions don’t rotate forward because they aren’t chosen and therefore are behind the others which mean they will earn a player money when they are finally taken. This is a very unique mechanic. It is a nice way to balance the value of the actions. It isn’t as complicated as it sounds; there just isn’t an easy way to explain it. Now on to the actions.
The first of the two types of actions are the markets. The markets determine the price and availability of commodities, ship pieces and shipping canals. The three markets all work in the same way. There is a stack of supply freight cars/ship pieces/shipping canals. Those stacks fill the five rows of available tiles. The bottom row of tiles can be acquired for free, the 2nd and 3rd rows cost 1 Florin and the 4th and 5th rows cost 2 Florin. As an item is purchased, tiles slide down and empty spaces at the top are filled from the stock. The only difference is that on the Ship Pieces market, the player may take a combination of three ship pieces at a time, from any of the rows as long as they pay the appropriate cost for each piece. The other two markets are limited to one purchase per turn.
Then there are the round/hexagon/rectangular tracks on the Supply Board. These all work in a very similar fashion. At the start of the game a pawn is placed on one of the spaces on the tracker. When a player chooses a particular action, they move the pawn clockwise one space on the respective tracker. Then they may perform the action based on where the pawn is sitting. The four trackers are the Recruit Crew Tracker, the Equipment Tracker, the Commodities Exchange Tracker and the Employee Tracker. On the Recruit Crew tracker the pawn movement determines which crew member you can add to your crew; Captain, Businessman, Soldier or Propeller (yes, propeller is on the "recruit crew" tracker). On the Equipment Tracker the pawn will fall on crane, smokestack, sail or gun. Again, when you chose this action, you get to take the one that the pawn is on after you move it forward one space on the tracker. For the Commodities Exchange Tracker the pawn will determine the current market value for each of the three resources in the game. For each of the first three trackers, a player can choose to pay 1 Florin for each space he would like to advance the pawn on the tracker. The final tracker is the Employee Tracker. This works in a similar way, except when the pawn is advanced you will be able to choose from as many as three different employees. Some employees cost additional Florin to employ. The employees are used to make other actions work better for you or to modify what you can add to your ship. I will not go into great detail on this since there are quite a few different employees.
With each of these actions, your goal is to gather the resources, crew, ship sections, canals and equipment required to make a ship and test it in your canal system.
Once you have completed building a ship it gets tested in your canal system to determine its score. You score points based on how many and what kind of equipment and crew you have on your ship. In general, that is how the game works.
Initial Impressions
Shipyard is a heavy Euro game. I would weigh it with or above games like Brass, Le Havre and Agricola. It is definitely heavier than game like Tigris and Euphrates, Puerto Rico and El Grande. It is also a very good game. Not a great game, but a very good game. Why not a "great" game? Well, that is hard to say. Everything worked well, the mechanic is unique and interesting and there is plenty of strategy to go around. At the same time, when I was done with my first game, I was not interested in playing it again right away. It is hard to explain. Maybe it was the play time or the level of thought required to make everything come together, not really sure, but when we were done, I was done, spent. I do want to play it again and I would guess I will play it a handful of times, but I don’t see it coming to the table on a regular basis. Plus, it isn’t a game that I would even try to teach most people. It’s a gamer’s game, no doubt about that. The initial setup and learning curve are a bit difficult. Once you have the feel of it though it moves along quite nicely and you are on your last round before you realize it. If you like heavier Euro games, you will love this one. If the weight of Agricola, Le Havre and Brass isn’t your thing, than pass on this as well. Try Vikings. That’s my next review.
Game Theme -10
Game design and mechanics- 9
Game component quality- 7
Game "playability"- 8
Luck vs. Strategy- 10
Over All- 8
Thank you for reading my first game review. I plan on doing several more as time permits. Please feel free to let me know what you think. Sorry if I was a bit wordy.
Regards,
Brian
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Walt
United States
Orange County
California
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Good review. More conventional formatting will make your reviews easier to read,
Conventionally online, since HTML kills paragraph indentation, we use a blank line to separate paragraphs. This avoids the "wall of text" effect, and the case where a new sentence starts on a new line by chance, making the reader unsure whether a new paragraph is starting or not.
Don't worry about the emoticons, but learn to use the formatting line of commands, "B I U...." The main use is to bold section titles so they stand out more. You should be able to select a Title with your mouse, then click on B to get Title.
You might want to add pictures, too, from the game's gallery.
Again, good review! Thank you!
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Darrell Hanning
United States
Jacksonville
Florida
Love women in action movies and shows. It all started with Diana Rigg, in the Avengers.
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I don't quite agree about how "heavy" the game is. Certainly, the board is very busy, what with 4 (arguably 5) rondels going, all at the same time. But all you're doing most of the time is "shopping", which is a pretty straightforward, one-step process. The shakedown cruise is a movement of your ship that you have more than likely chosen well before you execute it. The scoring system is arguably the hardest thing to handle, for a lot of players.
So, I would say it's more of a "busy system", than a "heavy design".
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Holger Hannemann
United Kingdom
Severn Beach
South Gloucestershire
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Thanks for the review. It's a great read with lots of information.
AT least now I know that I would love the game itself because of its mechanics, but I cannot imagine anything as boring as building ships.... But I guess that's just me 
Again, very nice review! I'm looking forward to you next one
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Brian Bennett
United States
West Bloomfield
Michigan
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Tall_Walt wrote: Good review. More conventional formatting will make your reviews easier to read,
Conventionally online, since HTML kills paragraph indentation, we use a blank line to separate paragraphs. This avoids the "wall of text" effect, and the case where a new sentence starts on a new line by chance, making the reader unsure whether a new paragraph is starting or not.
Don't worry about the emoticons, but learn to use the formatting line of commands, "B I U...." The main use is to bold section titles so they stand out more. You should be able to select a Title with your mouse, then click on B to get Title.
You might want to add pictures, too, from the game's gallery.
Again, good review! Thank you!
Thank you for the advice. I actually had used Bold for my headers but they went away when I pasted it from Word into BGG. My mistake.
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Victor Semensi
United States
Gloucester
Massachusetts
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Nice review but I too would call this a busy rather than a heavy Eurogame. Also all of my pieces punched out very easily with no separation of the surface paper from the rest of the piece.
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Walt
United States
Orange County
California
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EGGR0LL wrote: Thank you for the advice. I actually had used Bold for my headers but they went away when I pasted it from Word into BGG. My mistake.
Thanks for accepting it!  The Preview button is good for a last check on a post.
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David Tatu
United States
Atlanta
Georgia
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I too had a bad time punching the bits. Lots of repairs to do to fix seperation of the layers. But love the game.
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