Железный комиссар
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Madison
Wisconsin
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A Landmark Game
Le Havre is a game of construction and development in which players compete to achieve massive gains over an era spanning 60-70 years. You can become an industrial baron, a shipping magnate, a freshly minted aristocrat running Titanic-era luxury liners, or anything in between. You start out with a little cash and a small stock of coal to use as energy, and from there it’s a matter of which resources you grab and what you do with them. The one constant in Le Havre is abundant opportunity. The challenge is making the most of it.
I wrote this review for a simple reason: Le Havre is one of my favorite games. I think it is a landmark design for heavy strategy games, one that shows the tremendous growth of the resource-play genre in the last 15 years. I’ve found it extraordinarily difficult to express what is so compelling about the game. Certainly it’s easy to tell you how I feel when I play it: what a rush. Exploring where that comes from is another matter altogether. It’s hard, but I intend to do it.
Called Shot
A glance back at the rich tradition of resource games shows that most of them stick to a simple pool of materials. Settlers set the standard at five (wood, sheep, brick, wheat, ore) and even a steamroller like Caylus runs on nearly identical fuel: wood, food, cloth, stone, and gold. “The Five” are everywhere in resource-based game design, whether you’re dealing with classics like Puerto Rico (corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, coffee), experimental hybrids like Leonardo da Vinci (tools, rope, brick, wood, glass), crowd pleasers like Stone Age (food, wood, brick, stone, gold), or dense avant-guard collages like The Princes of Machu Picchu (textiles, coca leaves, llamas, pottery, corn). Five is a sufficient number of materials around which to build an engaging development game of varying complexity and depth.
Sufficiency is not one of Le Havre’s governing principles. Indeed, rigorous excess lurks in every corner of the design, and the resource pool is no exception. A full eight resources are available for creative play, heightening the sense of possibility that draws people to this genre. Fish, wood, clay, iron, grain, cattle, coal, and hide: this is Uwe Rosenberg’s called shot.
To further up the ante, the game uses conversions to double the number of resources available. Instead of asking players to take a simple input and run it through a lengthy conversion chain (e.g. Roads & Boats: wood/stone/geese → → → Stock Certificates), Le Havre implements the concept laterally to create an even more extravagant resource playground. The refined goods are smoked fish, charcoal, brick, steel, bread, meat, coke, and leather.
The potential is far from uniform across this enormous foundation.
First, two resources reproduce themselves (this mechanic is borrowed from an obscure game by the same designer, but the similarity is superficial at best). This encourages players to incorporate nest-eggs into their strategies: grab grain and cattle in the opening turns, and wait until the fields are bountiful and the herds abundant. At the same time, starting a nest-egg early is not required and allowing it to grow to its full potential is not always the best decision. Take note: non-obvious/situational decisions will be a theme in the paragraphs that follow.
Second, each resource has multiple values. Most games keep it simple: if you want to build X, you need Y and Z resources to do it. For example, in Settlers, you might want some brick and wood to build a road. Simple. In Le Havre, resources have some combination of the following values: construction, energy, food, and shipping (value in francs). I could use wood to build something or burn it as fuel. I could consume bread as food, sell it for francs. Two of these values are used to manage costs: food and energy. Two of the values are keyed to scoring: construction and shipping (francs).
Third, the scarcity/abundance of each resource varies greatly throughout the game because Le Havre lets players determine the yield of individual actions. The productivity of any one move will fluctuate. Unlike most resource games, the board is not periodically reset. Instead, the replenishment of resources is continual and gradual. At the start of each player’s turn, two new resources arrive at the docks (the rhythm for this is variable but determined permanently at the start of each game). Any individual pile of resources may be claimed with a single action, and there is no upper limit on resource accumulation. There are three important implications to this. First, there is no concept of getting to something “first.” Instead, players have to know when a pile of resources is “good enough.” Take it too soon, and you undercut yourself with a weak action. Wait too long and it disappears on an opponent’s turn. Second, the value of resources is essentially self-balancing. Let’s say a player is choosing between three wood and three fish. The wood is clearly better, so she takes it. But fish keeps piling up as long as nobody wants it. Next time, the player might be choosing between four wood and nine fish, which is a lot harder. Third, the opportunities available steadily improve with the group’s skill. If players become more discerning in their acquisition and use of resources, the game repays them by providing more stuff to play with, which, in turn, enables them to pursue more ambitious plans. The game gets better as players get better. This is not a theoretical point: I’ve seen players push this system like you wouldn’t believe.
Lastly, Le Havre incorporates both a core and auxiliary pair of resources. The core pair, coal/coke, functions as a central axis of the game. The auxiliary pair, hide/leather, takes a back seat unless ‘triggered’ by the game (further discussion of replayability below). Both pairs fall outside of the gradual replenishment described above, which means players have to work harder to get them (no creeping stockpiles). Coal is always in demand; it is the one relatively scarce good in a game of abundance. Hide is never in demand… until it is. There is always the possibility that the game will “turn it on,” which alters the paths available.
All of which demonstrates that Le Havre’s commodity-explosion cannot be written off as a cheap special effect. The apparent excess of the resource pool is in fact a catalyst for full-blown immersion and productive choice, qualities which the gameplay treats as obligations to uphold, not carrots to dangle out of reach. If anything, Le Havre challenges players to look within for the discipline to succeed. Temptation is everywhere, and constraint difficult to espy. For all that, Le Havre is a game that makes you sweat. The game is permissive yet strict at the same time.
This requires some explanation.
Siren's Song
Le Havre condenses the process of the obtaining resources popularized by Caylus, commonly known as “worker placement.” In Caylus, a turn begins with a fixed number of available opportunities and each player has six workers that may be paid to claim them one at a time in turn order (collect resources, build structures, and so on). A lot of thought goes into chaining together these ‘micro-actions’ and predicting your opponents’ moves. Substantial maneuvering emerges in Caylus as players whittle down the possibilities. In Le Havre, players take actions one at a time, with only a single “workforce” available to them. The board never resets. Because of this, Le Havre actually has very little in common with other worker placement games. There are always a ton things you could be doing, and the “leftovers” phase of the turn never materializes. Take a moment to consider what a design risk this is. After all, if there are only three players choosing between 10-20+ available actions, choosing the best move should be obvious and getting what you want should be easy. Right?
Wrong. There are several subtle mechanics that allow Le Havre to get away with such open-ended play.
To begin with, resource offers at the docks are always getting better, adding unexpectedly strong options to the mix turn after turn. For example, a player might not be interested in cattle in the short-term, but suddenly there is a substantial herd of cattle just ripe for the taking. “Surely,” the player thinks, “I’ll find a use for these cattle before the game is over.” Le Havre constantly entices players with this sort of opportunism. Rest assured, though, that playing the game well often means passing up unusually good offers in order to aggressively pursue your short-term goals. Opportunism rarely forces your hand, and always involves careful decision-making.
To lend consequence to this atmosphere of temptation, resources are claimed without using the workforce token. It’s easy to overlook how central this is to the tension in Le Havre, and in fact a great many first-time players view this mechanic as an afterthought. The game sings a siren's song with its resources, and if I give in, my workforce remains in its current position. So let’s say my first move of the round is to visit the Brickworks (where you can spend energy to bake clay into brick). One of my opponents also needs to use the Brickworks as soon as possible. If I spend my next action claiming resources, I am actively holding up her progress. The Brickworks remains off limits because I claimed resources instead of moving my workforce to another building. A one or two action delay may sound trivial, but time is by far the most precious resource in Le Havre. Often, if a plan is not completed within a specific time-frame, the rewards drop off substantially. Being blocked is rarely disastrous (although it can be, especially in the endgame), but it does require players to adapt. Having back-up plans is a good idea. Having two or three routes to your goal is a good idea. The last thing I want to do is take a filler action, one that is merely “good,” instead of powerful, essential, and productive. Good moves in Le Havre lead to defeat. If you’re not showing off, you’re losing.
In short, the rules for action selection and resource replenishment create an environment filled with inadvertent delays. Intentional blocking goes with the territory, of course, but Le Havre is not a blocking game. Sitting still can be a fool’s errand: player A rejoices in meddling with the plans of player B but overlooks the opportunity cost to herself. Like most things in Le Havre, intentional blocking requires careful consideration. A player who is conspicuously without alternatives raises the stakes and makes blocking a more worthwhile option for her opponents, so it will happen occasionally, but it’s not a defining characteristic of the game. As a result, few turns look “bad” to the untrained eye, and this lulls some players into a false sense of security. The reality is that it requires a ton of skill to ensure access to a continual string of power plays, and that’s exactly what is required to win. Delays interfere with the ideal of constant power-play, but only to a certain extent. And so the game introduces friction.
A game like Roads & Boats has no built-in friction. If you haul a truckload of lumber to the mill, there is no cost to use it. The boards “cut themselves,” so to speak. Roads and Boats makes up for this with the threat of theft: a dastardly opponent might swoop in and steal “your” lumber. In Caylus, there is no built-in friction. You supply the resources and the building materializes. The game compensates with worker placement (gradual lockdown of the board). Le Havre sidesteps both logistics and WP “whittling,” so something else has to keep players on their toes. Consequently, most buildings in Le Havre have either an entry fee, a processing cost, or both. The system is pay-to-play. A player who wants to use the Steel Mill must pay the owner two francs and supply a substantial amount of energy to run the mill: five for every iron converted. An entire layer of planning revolves around these costs. Individually they are minor, but a player who finds herself unable to pay costs at an inopportune moment will regret it.
A gradually increasing upkeep joins Delay and Friction as the final point of tension that helps balance the game’s ambitiously open-ended design. Every so often players have to pay back into the system (to maintain their workforces as the city grows). Obviously, everyone wants to build as much as possible as fast as possible, and that would be far too straightforward without a requirement to stop and pay overhead costs. Players who are bullish on construction must periodically come up with food/francs or suffer the consequences. Unlike some games, though, Le Havre acts more like a city parking authority than an angry boss. Nobody is going to fire you, and it’ll be a while before they tow your car. Sounds lax, doesn’t it? That’s where your opponents come in.
The upkeep in Le Havre works so well because players can tip it on top of one another. If one player goes on a building spree and ignores the upkeep for several rounds, their ultimate success depends in part on being able to kick the upkeep at the right moment and with the right force. Other players can interfere with that, blocking access to the needed actions. This type of blocking will not destroy another player, but it can lessen their momentum. Personally, I would find the upkeep in Le Havre extremely annoying if it were not an interactive point of tension that allowed players to take meaningful risks. Once again, players have real choices when dealing with the upkeep. It is not a dominant force in the game, it may be strategically ignored for several turns in a row, and it may be decisively neutralized with relatively few actions (as few as 3/42 in a particular three-player game that I won). Many readers will recognize these as key differences from the upkeep in another game by Uwe Rosenberg. Here, the bark is worse than the bite, and the game is an order of magnitude better for it.
Uwe Rosenberg’s boldest design choice in Le Havre was to give players free reign in a flourishing environment. It could easily have backfired, but the combined subtleties of delay, friction, and upkeep guarantee tension for those who would look for it. Glory in the surplus; dread the inadequacy. Have your cake and eat it too.
We’re Not In Puerto Rico Anymore
In broad strokes, actions serve two ends in Le Havre: construction and shipping. That being said, one of the biggest misconceptions about the game is that these are two distinct strategies. This is so far from the truth that I wonder how it persists over a year after the game’s release. There is no meaningful answer to the question, “did you win with a shipping strategy or a building strategy?” The vast majority of victories in Le Havre freely blend the two activities.
This is not the first game to award points to players for construction and shipping. What sets it apart?
Le Havre makes building ownership dynamic. If I build something in Caylus, I own it for the rest of the game. In Le Havre, I may sell the building to the city at any time for half of its printed value, which opens up the opportunity for other players to purchase it. Buying and selling are always “free” actions done in addition to your normal move. This mechanic is a stroke of genius that allows for some really unexpected and creative plays while challenging players with genuinely tough decisions. Lets say that I own the only Wharf in play, and that it is critical to my plans that I build a ship right now. Unfortunately for me, another player’s workforce is currently occupying the building. If I sell the Wharf, I lose half of its value but my opponent’s workforce is returned to him. I can then pay the entry fee to the town and use the building as planned. The penalty for doing so is rather steep (half of the Wharf’s value + its entry fee + [probably] all future income from the fee), so I have to weigh that against how badly I need a ship right now. The reverse is also true: let’s say my workforce occupies the Ironworks, which is currently owned by the town. An opponent may purchase the Ironworks at face value, which removes my workforce and allows them to use the building immediately.
Buying/Selling buildings is also the only way to use the same building twice in a row. Situationally, the ability to squeeze in a double-play can grant a sizable benefit to the owner of a building, even though they forfeit half of the building’s value. Even more interesting is the flexibility that selling gives players as they maneuver to develop different parts of the city. Let’s say that an opponent is clearly about to build the Shipping Line, but I want it for myself. If I think it is critical enough, I can raise the cash to purchase the Shipping Line by selling off buildings I already own, even if I don’t have the right construction materials or the build-actions are blocked by other players. This is good stuff, but it gets better…
Le Havre allows players to drastically accelerate the pace of the development within the game. The ability to sell buildings makes purchasing new ones much more feasible than it otherwise would have been (selling is one of the only ways to raise substantial cash in the first half of the game). Purchasing new buildings has a subtle ripple effect on the demand for resources, because the construction cost for that building is no longer pending. If I buy the Shipping Line, then my opponents and I no longer need three brick and two wood to build it. In essence, I have just added five more resources to the game that would not have come into it naturally. That means more stuff is available to use elsewhere: better options and faster progress for everyone. This kind of in-game acceleration is unique to Le Havre. Surprisingly, it feels vaguely akin to stock-dumping in 18xx (in which players can aggressively dump stock in companies to raise cash to start new companies). It is brilliant, and goes unnoticed way more than it ought to.
On the topic of acceleration, Le Havre enables intensive construction sprees with strategic debt. Debt is one approach to both upkeep and cash flow. In effect, a player who takes loans willingly takes on penalties to their score in exchange for momentum. If the momentum proves sufficient, the penalties are later shrugged off. Loans in Le Havre are not about borrowing big chunks of money. They are about opportunity cost, essentially allowing you to operate more intensively/recklessly without pausing to pay upkeep or obtain necessary fees. When used judiciously, loans allow players to build up a roaring economy that in turn allows them to overcome a large amount of debt and make a huge profit. The loan mechanic in Le Havre is fantastic because it gives players the freedom to take on sizable risk for sizable reward.
However, taking loans also makes it easier for the other players to play “above board,” because debtors no longer compete for the small subset of resources necessary to pay costs. Perhaps the strongest part of the loan system is that players may not freely take loans without “justification.” You must demonstrate to the game that you “need” the loan, and the way you do that is by pushing forward with ambitious projects. The thematic integration is far superior to most games (in which you grab large sums of money at will), and the strategic implications are juicy indeed. I have read criticisms of the loan system that say it’s too powerful alongside criticisms that say it’s too limiting. Both are wrong. My 35th play of Le Havre ended 294-278-226. Second place pushed loans aggressively (taking nine of them over the course of the game). First place took zero. Both players had over 30 games to their credit. Loans, as with most everything else, are situationally viable in Le Havre. They are not abusive or mandatory. Instead, they present players with rich decisions. There is also no “Loan Strategy” in Le Havre. Most games do not involve dramatic 9-0 splits. Instead, loans should be thought of as an additional resource to play with.
Though implied above, it is well worth noting that building values are fluid in Le Havre. Most games award players with a fixed number of points when a structure is completed. To my knowledge, the first game to add a continual scoring aspect to completed buildings was Caylus, in which the owner of a building receives a prestige point any time an opponent uses their building. This meant that getting certain buildings early in the game could be a major factor in scoring. The value was not merely two points, but two + X. Le Havre develops this concept in a number of ways. First, fees are now paid directly between players. In Caylus, building use involves two separate player-to-game interactions: one player pays a denier to the bank, the other player receives a point, but neither transaction is zero-sum. In Le Havre, if I use an opponent’s Steel Mill, I pay her two francs for the privilege, making a four point swing between us. Second, players are also exempt from fees at their own buildings. As a result, a building may be valuable because it helps preserve my score, not because it increases it. Third, fees are not uniform in Le Havre. Not only do they vary in amount, but many of them can be paid in different currencies (food or francs). This creates a two-fold decision for the active player: which currency is better to retain, and which currency is worse for the opponent to receive. Mere nuance, perhaps, but the choice can have surprising consequences if a player receives unexpected cash that interferes with an anticipated loan. Fourth, not all buildings have entry fees. This makes a handful of early game buildings prime targets for sell-off, and also gives players a freer hand at the outset, before the development hits full stride. Fifth, the fact that some buildings have higher traffic and steeper fees than others occasionally creates enough “tilt” to give one player a noticeable advantage. Their buildings may not be worth significantly more than their opponents’, but the overall flow of fees favors them which makes managing costs a breeze.
Buildings do have printed values on them (added to your score at the end of the game), but an experienced player realizes that there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. For example, the Charcoal Kiln has a printed value of 8 and requires only a single clay to build. That clay is worth one franc by itself (via the Shipping Line), making the Charcoal Kiln’s value-to-materials ratio 8, the highest in the game. To counterbalance this, the Charcoal Kiln carries no entry fee, provides no benefit for consecutive use, and will normally be used much later in the game than it is built. Additionally, the Charcoal Kiln also fits within one of several building types in the game: it is a craftsmen building, as opposed to an industrial, economic, public, labor, or fishing building. The various building types create slightly uneven scoring incentives as well as small ownership synergies. For example, the owner of a craftsmen building (e.g. the Charcoal Kiln) can obtain a bonus resource at the Marketplace, and the owner of the Bank will receive bonus points for every industrial building they own at the end of the game. In some cases, a building’s type will remain relevant long after its function becomes obsolete. As a result, several “early game” or “mid game” buildings continue to matter in small ways well after Le Havre’s massive development arc has left them behind.
To sum up, only a small part of a building’s scoring potential is fixed at the moment of construction. The rest of the building’s worth depends on its user fee, expected level of traffic (from opponents and the owner), double-play privilege, value-to-materials ratio, and building type. If this sounds overwhelming, it isn’t. In my experience, it actually makes the game more intuitive and less calculating. Awareness of the various influences at work plays a much larger role than crunching out numbers or doing in-game accounting.
Following such exegesis, I feel compelled to point out that construction in Le Havre may still be approached by new players as a simple matter of gathering the right resources. There are no nasty surprises waiting for novices only vaguely aware that buildings even have a “type.” Instead, these are progressive layers of the game that reveal themselves with experience. That too, is a defining characteristic of Le Havre: simple on the surface, packed with discovery.
Compared to construction, shipping in Le Havre is fairly straightforward. There are four types of ships: wooden, iron, steel, and luxury (also made with steel, but passenger ships, not freighters). First and foremost, ships provide players with the means to permanently dispense with upkeep costs. Thematically this is vague at best (integration with the national/international economy?), but, I digress. Because ships keep the mounting upkeep at bay, they are not optional. I repeat: ships are not optional in Le Havre. I suppose this is a game about building a famous port city, after all.
Be that as it may, players have a lot of flexibility in when and how they acquire ships, as well as what type. Once the Shipping Line is in play, players may offload goods overseas for cash. The number and type of ships owned determines volume. For example, one wooden ship and two steel ships can haul a combined shipment of 10 goods. The cost of using each ship is three energy, irrespective of type. So, let’s say I have a bunch of cattle I want to export. A single coke (10 energy) fuels all three of my ships, and the excess energy (1) is wasted. Two cattle fit on the wooden ship and four on each steel ship. I receive 30 francs for the shipment. I can keep these francs to pay costs, to add to my score at the end of the game, or to purchase any available buildings.
In any given session of Le Havre, the economy hits critical mass with some amount of time remaining (sometimes as much as a third of the game). The town is booming. Nothing is left to build save for a couple of Steel Ships and Luxury Liners. At that point, the Shipping Line becomes absolutely critical. Players with large amounts of excess goods must ensure that they have unblocked actions to sell their goods, since they are worth nothing at the end of the game. It takes practice to gauge the size of your stockpiles against the time available to sell them. Sometimes it is worth it to make an earlier, lower volume shipment in order to avoid heated competition later. Early shipments also provide an additional access point to upcoming buildings. In the endgame, shipping five cattle is weak. In the midgame, shipping five cattle earns a player 15 francs, which is enough to afford most buildings.
Scoring in Le Havre can be explained to a new player in 30 seconds: construction plus all cash on hand, most of which comes from shipping. To build, collect resources and head to one of the building/construction firms. To ship, collect resources and head to the Shipping Line. And yet, the game is mind-bendingly deep.
All of This Has Happened Before… All of it Will Happen Again
Generally speaking, there are two approaches to replayability. On one end of the spectrum, games like Indonesia remove almost all randomness and instead offer emergent variability via the players’ actions. This is the player-driven model. Other games like Dominion feature a random setup that represents one possibility out of thousands. This is the game-driven model (although obviously players still have an impact). Le Havre is one of the few games that could be said to attempt both at the same time (Twilight Struggle would be another). The core philosophy here is “small mechanics with large ripple effects.”
The rhythm of resource replenishment is different each game. There are seven turns in a round, and 14 resources will flow into the game in pairs at a fixed rate: 4 wood, 3 fish, two clay, two francs, one iron, one grain, and one cattle. But the seven-step cycle in which these goods arrive is randomly determined at the start of each game. Though it may sound trivial, consider that it almost single-handedly unscripts the game. The opening turn cannot be subjected to analysis without separate consideration for all possible strings of the seven replenishment tiles. The variable rhythm also forces players to sync up with it anew each time through the game; it cannot be learned once and for all. Loan interest is an additional subtlety triggered by one of the seven tiles; veteran players frequently base timing decisions on it’s location in the string.
The game also partially randomizes the proposed order of construction at the start of each game. Roughly thirty standard buildings (varies slightly by player count) are shuffled and divided into three decks. Then, each mini-deck is sorted numerically into rows or columns (we use rows because it’s easier to survey the order at a glance). Essentially this means that the development of the game has a general shape to it that is distorted to some degree each time you play. A veteran player can assess the initial proposal rows and make far-reaching decisions about how to approach the game. It matters if the cokery is coming out late or if the grocery market is coming out early, etc. Players themselves still have a large impact on which buildings enter play in what order, and each player’s ownership of various buildings may affect their opponents’ strategies as well.
As previously discussed, players often become so tied up in the pursuit of their own plans that unanticipated piles of resources appear at the docks. Veteran players will resist the opportunism to an extent, but that only ensures the occasional offer you can’t refuse, and these can be game-changers. Le Havre likes to tease stubborn players.
The major source of replayability is a deck of special buildings, a handful of which are randomly included in each session. For as many times as I’ve played, there are still one or two buildings that I have never seen enter play, and even if I had seen all of them, their impact varies by the timing of their appearance (early-/mid-/late-game). The special buildings disrupt the game’s already dynamic ‘norm’ in a variety of ways. A handful of them are keyed to the game’s auxiliary resource pair (hide/leather), so if those enter play, expect these resources to become much more attractive. Some modify the overall resource supply (e.g. the Labor Exchange provides additional access to coal and fish), others provide new scoring options keyed to particular resources (e.g. the Brick Manufacturer makes brick unusually profitable in the early and midgame), still others provide exclusive benefits to their owners (e.g. the Feedlot allows a herd to reproduce faster). All of them add new challenges and possibilities to the system without being mandatory or overbearing.
Special buildings enter play at regular intervals during the course of the game; for example, in a three player game, the town builds a new special building in rounds 4, 8, 12, and 16. The catch is that the buildings are face-down before entering play, so players who want to know which way the winds of change are blowing have to actively scout the special building stack. They do this by visiting the Marketplace (which also provides some resources). So not only do the special buildings warp the game, they create a tiny pocket of hidden information that can provide an advantage to the well-informed or hamper the oblivious. Furthermore, scouting the deck involves an interesting decision: look at the top two special buildings, choose which one remains at the front of the queue. If a player scouts the deck and proceeds to conspicuously stockpile fish, their opponents might infer that the Fish Restaurant is incoming. They could even visit the marketplace and spike the building just before it would have entered play. An entire subgame revolves around watching the special buildings and controlling the potential advantages.
As with the special buildings, the town also builds standard buildings at regular intervals. Much like the upkeep, this occasionally forces a player’s hand or puts them on a stricter timer. Or, it may break up a stand-off. If no-one wants to build the current trio of buildings (there are always three to choose from), but everyone is positioning for the ones immediately following them in the proposals, then the game will eventually resolve the impasse by skimming off the un-loved building. In a way, this is reminiscent of Power Grid, in which collective disinterest in the available plants creates a shakeup. Here, the effect is more understated, but it matters. It is painful to watch the town build something you’ve been working up to, or remove an unwanted building just in time for your rival to swoop in.
Standards for replayability are high in 2010, and in this regard Le Havre is among the most high-performing, inexhaustible titles available.
The View From the Top
What we’re dealing with here is a game that seems simple on the surface – too simple – but under scrutiny reveals layer upon layer of inspiration. The sheer fruition of this design, the cross-pollination of ideas, is astounding, but the game is a simple one to learn. This is the one heavy, longish game that my girlfriend loves to play, and I’ll let you in on a secret: this would not have happened if Le Havre could not be reduced to the classic Ticket to Ride turn-structure, “draw or play.” That’s all a turn is. Grab stuff off the docks, or go do something with what you’ve got. Nevertheless, I recommend learning this from an experienced player, if possible. I had the privilege of playing it just weeks after its release, when English Language copies were scarce and the main printing was still months away. I found the game bewildering, with barely enough interest to merit a second try. Six games later, Le Havre crashed my top 10.
So, I’m a fan. Clearly. But I’m not unwilling to discuss common criticisms.
First of all, the options slowly increase from ~10 at the start of the game to 20+ by the midgame. For some, this is rumored to create the dreaded “analysis paralysis.” My advice is “just go with it” for your first game or two. It takes experience to understand what’s viable and what isn’t. If that can be accepted, AP shouldn’t be a problem. Players who feel the need to understand the relative values of everything up front may find Le Havre daunting at best, irritating at worst.
Other players want Le Havre to feel more punishing and unforgiving. This is entirely psychological. Mistakes in Le Havre significantly undercut a player’s position, but the game doesn’t make a big show out of being a hardass. It’s not going to vote you off the island or insult your mother. If your favorite games include Goa, Antiquity, or certain wargames, you may be put off by Le Havre. Let me re-emphasize that it is a tense, interactive, and challenging game. Some players like feeling kicked around, and Le Havre doesn’t crack the whip or don the stiletto heels.
Let’s discuss the theme. In broad strokes, the theme comes off remarkably well. The context is a booming port city, and indeed, the entire economy centers around the flow of goods onto and off of the docks. In particular, the huge array of thematically detailed buildings breathes life into the atmosphere of the game. To the system’s credit, it can accommodate fan-made, thematically inspired special buildings quite easily, as demonstrated by the recently released expansion. Consider the new building, “Cannary Row.” A player with some iron and some smoked fish can go into the canning business and make a nice profit. What other heavy resource-based system can integrate this kind of thematic cleverness without disrupting the overall balance and feel of the game?
On the other hand, a single game of Le Havre represents somewhere between 60-80 years of development, maybe more. This time frame is not specified by the game but instead derives from the development arc, which moves from wooden to steel ships. In a three-player game, each player has 42 actions. That means that a single move corresponds to well over a year of time, so it’s not surprising that some players don’t see the level of finely-grained detail that they might expect. Still, I find myself wrapped up in the narrative of a booming port city each time I play.
As far as I am concerned, there is one legitimate failing, and only one, with Le Havre’s thematic integration: the upkeep. Conceptually, you are supposed to be paying your operating costs, workers’ wages, etc. But you do this with food. It’s dumb. I rate the game a 10, but this part of it is dumb. Players are allowed to substitute real money to pay food costs (upkeep/fees), and it certainly makes more thematic sense when they do. My best guess here is that playtesting indicated that a cash-only upkeep was simply unworkable in conjunction with the rest of the game’s mechanisms. The complexity of having two currencies certainly improves the gameplay, but sadly it created a bit of an Achilles Heel for the theme. I’ve made my peace with it, but it’s always going to bug a substantial number of new players, which is a shame.
The last major criticism leveled at the game is the obvious one: balance. Namely, some players insist that coke/steel strategies will always triumph. Coke and Steel are strong, but I disagree. For one thing, I’ve seen a wide variety of approaches win the game. Each time I play, I attempt, pull off, and observe intriguing maneuvers that I’ve never seen before. I’ll grant that Coke/Steel is the most straightforward way to score big, so it doesn’t surprise me that new players obsess over it.
Of note, Le Havre is not a game of long-term strategy in the first place. Often, I know what I need to accomplish in the next 3-4 actions. Depending on the context, that number could rise to seven or eight. Sometimes, I realize that my current move commits me to a certain type of activity a few rounds from now. Mostly, though, as a short-term plan is nearing completion, players need to queue up one or two more. In this sense, Le Havre is a game of chaining. Long-term strategy plays a small role. By implication, everyone at the table could dabble in coke and steel to varying degrees, and it would still be one small piece of the puzzle.
The Final Word
At the time of writing, I’ve had the privilege of trying well over 200 board games. Far from chasing the next big thing, I like to slow down when I discover a worthy game. I play my favorites a lot. My experience has affirmed, again and again, that Le Havre is the pinnacle of resource-play gaming. The only games I think are better preside over entirely different genres. Some would say that Le Havre stands on the shoulders of giants. They would be right. But it shows such mastery and confidence that refinement bleeds into originality.
A Landmark Game is Born.
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Железный комиссар
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
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Appendix
I have written a handful of more specific articles on Le Havre, which I decided not to blend with the content of this review. Refer to them as your whims allow:
1. Impact of various player counts on the game. Please read this! Le Havre delivers the best experience with exactly three players, and this post explains why.
2. Discussion of a small set of overcautious special buildings.
3. Discussion of a variant rule to partially constrain the appearance of special buildings (to help prevent cards designed for the early game from entering play in the late game and vice versa).
4. Discussion of charcoal and hide/leather. In particular, whether or not their more situational values are a flaw in the game.
5. Comparison to an unrelated game. Move along, nothing to see here.
Acknowledgements
Miika K. and Steven Duff were kind enough to upload a handful of images specifically for this review. The speed and quality of their work speaks highly of the BGG community - thanks for lending a hand, guys. Roger Leroux, James Karchut, and IndigoPotter all reviewed the near-final text.
Thanks also to Jerry Hagen for being such a brilliant opponent, Hanno Girke for publishing the game, Uwe Rosenberg for designing it, Melissa Rogerson for translating it into English, and Grzegorz Kobiela for being the online "face" of the game (and for his continued passion and insight).
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Larry Welborn
United States
Anderson
South Carolina
My new 36g aquarium -- Danios, Platies, Corys, and Ottos.
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Great review. Thanks.
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Patiently waiting for the zombie apocalypse...
United States
Colorado Springs
Colorado
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This is a phenomenal review. I agree with you whole heartedly.
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Judit Szepessy
Canada
London
Canada
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Excellent review. I liked when you said you will try to express what is so compelling about the game. I have not played Le Havre yet, but your enthusiasm and professional analysis will make me give it a try when/if opportunity comes.
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Calavera Hermosa
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Well written and exhaustive - almost enough to make me go back and give it another try. Almost.
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Steve Duff
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
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Geeze, is that all? I was expecting something comprehensive.
A Landmark Review, indeed. 
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Jay Sheely
United States
Pleasanton
California
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A great review of an average game. Although I enjoy playing it, it doesn't seem like a must-buy or a home run to me.
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Brad Bulkley
United States
Woodland Hills
California
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This is possibly the most impressive review I've ever read on the site, and not just because of its length. You get to the heart of the game, its design, and its relationship to contemporaries. You've gone beyond the superficial here. You don't just cover the "what;" you've got the "how."
This is professional caliber stuff.
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Anders Olin
Finland
Vasa
A hardcore Twilight Struggle fan, who would've guessed?
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This review made me choose this game for tonight's gathering !
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Filipe Silva
Portugal
Santa Maria da Feira
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This goes straight to the top-10 reviews on BGG!
Writing down to remember later:
"If you’re not showing off, you’re losing."
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Sergey Nikolenko
Russian Federation
St. Petersburg
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One of the best reviews I have ever read on this site. Thank you. I wish they were all like this one.
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KAS
United States
Arlington
Virginia
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Larry Welborn wrote: Great review. Thanks. +1
Incredible.
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Grzegorz Kobiela
Germany
Hanover
Lower Saxony
Stalker!!!
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Big WOW!!
You've talked about layers of the game that I haven't even thought of, although I intuitively act in these. Indeed, a landmark review!
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Duck Farmer
Australia
Ziggurat City
Phantasmagoria
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This is the best review, bar none, that I have ever read on BGG. I had been sitting on the fence regarding this game, but I ordered it immediately after reading your review.
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KAS
United States
Arlington
Virginia
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Jack, how long have you been working on this? It is easy to tell you put tons of work into it, but did you write it up over a few days or weeks? Your 35+ plays has given you more insight to this game than most people would ever have in their lifetime
 .
BTW, do you still have occasion to play this with new players?
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Andrew Brown
United States
Lawrenceville
New Jersey
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Rarely do you find reviews that you know are written by someone who has such an intimate relationship with the game, who has played over and over. It is simply stunning to read one that is so well informed and so well thought out. Thank you.
I already own Le Havre, but you made me sad that I have only managed 6 plays. I will push to get it to the table again. And I will push to see it played with 3 (only one 3 player game so far and it was a learning game).
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ROFLed at the mentioning of "some obscure wargame". Great!
Also, reading this made me want to play right now.
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Jerry Hagen
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
age agree eek egg erg gag gage game gamer gee geek gem germ keg kegger mag mage meek mega merge reek rem
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JohnRayJr wrote:
These other people did real work, I just got to play a great game a bunch of times.
It's obvious to see the value of a review like this for newer players. I have to agree with Ponton that this article (apart from just being a good read) is most interesting to veterans in that it calls out aspects of the game that we've intuitively been engaging with for a while.
So thanks for a fantastic review, Jack. I'm proud to be your nemesis, sir.
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John Brier
United States
Aventura
Florida
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Excellent review, one of the best if not the best I've had the pleasure to read.
I'm not sure I agree that the building vs. shipping strategy dichotomy is any more applicable to Puerto Rico than it is to Le Havre. In both games, there is a spectrum of long term strategies that fall somewhere between the extremes of "pure" builder and "pure" shipper. Most games a player's strategy will fall somewhere in the middle, but certainly I have seen both extremes win in Le Havre (a player who ended the game with only 1 building owned and oodles of shipping; a player who never shipped but built lots of buildings). Puerto Rico is no different in terms of the existence of two extremes and various strategies in the middle.
Actually, Le Havre does have the additional layer of the special buildings, some of which provide significant scoring opportunities. I guess this is a potential third axis of consideration. But that's neither here nor there. My point is that I think it's unfair to classify Puerto Rico as fundamentally different from Le Havre as regards the relationship between building and shipping strategies.
Also, I can't believe that presumed lack of thematic integration actually had the ability to almost ruin your enjoyment of this game  
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Brad N
United States
Madison
Wisconsin
There are 7 games I want to play by March 31st, 2012
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Fantastic review Jack! I'm always disappointed with your lack of effort and detail when reviewing a game, but you are still somehow able to capture a point or two of interest.
I'm not sure if you've heard, but Uwe designed another game (I can't remember the name of it), it's just like this one. In fact, it sounds like practically the same game. I think you would like it a lot! 
Seriously, as a person who has never played Le Havre but seen it in action a few times, I could feel the tension that you so clearly described in this review by simply reading it. At some point, I'd like to actually experience it in the game... maybe you and Jerry can mop up the floor with me one day.
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Jeroen van der Valk
Netherlands
Gouda
Zuid Holland
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Man or Astroman wrote: A great review of an average game. Although I enjoy playing it, it doesn't seem like a must-buy or a home run to me.
My sentiments exactly.
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Better a Dull Blade than a "shape" knife!
United States
Florida
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Great review Jack!! I enjoyed it although I don't think it's a good fit for us right now. Your love of the game shines through your words and your indepth analysis and examples provide for a refreshing and enjoyable read.
Thanks!
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Jon W
United States
Aurora
Colorado
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tl;dr
Seriously, a nice review. Comments:
1. Replayability: If special cards are the key, they have to be relevant. Often, they just aren't (either too early, too late, too weak; and piling on more specials does not address this). This part just doesn't quite work.
2. Replayability redux: I sometimes wonder if having only two stacks of basic buildings would make for a more interesting, varied experience game to game. As is, it's more a minor speedbump than a genuinely interesting dilemma.
3. Balance: the concerns about coal/coke you identify are tied to how the game scales. As a 1er or 2er, coal/coke is too strong. It doesn't unfairly advantage anyone, but it makes for a forced main path that must be contested, and thus makes every game feel too similar to the last.
4. New loan rules: Surprised you didn't mention the new rules (interest = 2 if # loans >= # players). I haven't tried this yet, but I'm optimistic about it (though I do wish the ">=" was a ">", to prevent the solo game exception; there should always be a choice, IMO).
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Posted Mon Mar 8, 2010 1:51 am
