Another Uwe classic
Playing Agricola and Caverna both for the first time got us into an Uwe Rosenberg euro-mindset, and gave us the momentum to also try 🏗️ Le Havre - which has been a part of our pile of opportunity for a longer time now. Le Havre is another highly regarded Rosenberg game, with the usual industrial-agricultural theme.
From a top-down level it shares a lot of similarities with Agricola and Caverna. 🧐 There are resource depots that are gradually filled up with resources each turn, up until someone takes them all. Of course every round is centered around having to feed your people, which is a constant struggle, especially early on. The game also gradually opens up as more and more buildings are built, which means more actions become available.
Rounds are split into 7 turns, but not per player! ☝️ So some players will have more turns than others, but in other rounds it balances itself out. The amount of rounds and what happens at the end of each one all depends on the player count, which goes from 1 to 5. We played 2p, which meant doing 4 or 3 turns each round for 14 rounds in total.
Turns are super simple: 👉 you either take all the resources from one depot, or you send your single worker into a building to do the action there. Resource depots are a constant timing dilemma: Go too soon and you only get a few resources, but wait too long and your opponent might take it all. 🙉 As for the buildings, you have to pay to use neutral or rival ones, so you do want to build quite a few yourself. The building pool is set up in a clever way, with the simpler actions popping up first, followed later by actions that bring end game points or ways to refine basic resources.
Ultimately it’s all about having the most money 💵 at the end, by gathering and selling resources and skillfully investing into ships and buildings. 🏆
Even though turns can be lightning fast, the game does go on for quite a long time. So while we definitely enjoyed playing Le Havre and want to keep it, this is maybe not one of those games you leave on the table to play multiple times back-to-back. But it is good! 🙂
