I agree with you Larry. I think Imperial is the one I still prefer ... but I have played Hamburgun just twice ... and I miss combat!

anyway I think the rondel mechanic is great and I think there are still good games to develop using it!

good play
Liga

Great overview of a game that I’ve played once and enjoyed immensely. I share your concerns regarding a possible problem with replayability, but time will tell.

One small point. The 17th century name of London was London.

I’m SO much looking forward to this!

My problem with the game was that half way through all the buildings were gone, and I was locked into a specific cycle on the rondel for the rest of the game.

Beer, trade, trade, church...Beer, trade, trade, church...Beer… you get the idea.

I liked the speed, and the lightness of the game, but it seems to get much less interesting as it goes on.

Of course, this was a 5 player game, so perhaps it’s much better with 3 or 4.

I find this to be my favorite of the rondel games.  Mainly because of the speed at which you can play it.  I didn’t have the same problems that Mark ran into, but a lot can depend on what buildings you are able to buy (or get stuck with).  Also, Mark, if you were really stuck in that rut, how did you deal with your ships?  Surely the others were moving your ships down the harbor so that you couldn’t do anything with your beer?

Dale

Well, it wasn’t really a rut, I won by a large margin! 

As I said, all the buildings were built, so no captains were left to easily move the boats.  That, and beer was $50 of course, so the difference between that and the $30 without a boat wasn’t too great.  I only produced 3 beer, and was always able to sell at least 2.  All that was left was to buy church parts, so I just built a part every time I passed by.

I think it was partly because it was the first game, and the other players were too concerned about building up, and not with scoring points.  I think I ended with only 5 buildings, and I’m not sure that I would have wanted many more.  You really need to concentrate on building the church with 5 players.  There are only so many pieces to go around.  I think you reach a certain tipping point where building your infrastructure any more won’t get you any more church pieces, and finding that point is the crux of the game.

The comments from the players who had played before was that the game went very differently each time they played, so I’ll give it another try for sure.  I mostly liked it, but the first impression was that of a game that gets less interesting as it goes on.  Still it was in the top third of the new games I tried.

This is easily my favorite of the rondel games as well, which isn’t really saying much.  I had a similar problem with Antike, where one game would be excellent, and the next would drag on in boredom.  They just seem to be somewhat fragile and dependent on the players making good choices.

Christopher:  Well, the name of the first major Roman settlement in Britain was Londinium and I just assumed that it retained that title until the time referenced.  I guess they were unrelated and Gerdts was just being cute.

Mark:  Our game was with five players as well.  I think you’ve put your finger on your problem:  your opponents were buying too many buildings and not enough church parts.  I don’t recall if we ran out of buildings or if the supply just ran low, but even if they were all built, it was soon before the end.

Actually, I thought the last part of the game was quite interesting, as you were struggling to work your engine to build multiple church parts at the same time (efficiency again), while meeting other goals (maximizing your bonus points and playing defense).  Defense came into it because one player was trying to pull off a ship bonus double play.  (He had one ship bonus church part and had just bought a bunch of ships.  He was obviously aiming to pick up a second ship bonus part with his next contribution, and score them both at the same time for big points.  It was therefore important to try to eliminate his ships by building our own.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the wherewithal to do this and that coup pretty much represented his margin of victory.  It was nicely played.)

Larry,

That’s good to hear.  Like I said, I liked everything about the game except the way it played out.  I’m looking forward to giving it another try now.

As someone who was involved in the playtesting of the game, I thought I’d pass on a few thoughts:

1) Much of the tweaking / balancing of the game had to do with trying to find the right balance between the two ‘halves’ of the game (the buildings, which improve your ‘engine’, and the churches, which give you VPs).  There were some pretty wild swings - I remember one version (prior to the church bell’s addition) that saw the churches finish before half the buildings were built.  Adding the bell (which started life as copper for the roofs, btw) slowed the churches down a little.

2) Many first-time players overbuild, thinking that a building network on the board is critical to winning the game.  It isn’t really - the last game I played was won by a player who’d built only four buildings (who had a much easier time capping churches than the rest of us with our 8 or 9 buildings).  That said, the more players there are, the faster the buildings will go, as players try and grab as many of the ones that will help their VP aspirations as possible.  The original version was for up to 6 players, but that died on the vine pretty quickly as it was clear the board was far too cramped.  I think the game’s sweet spot is four, as there’s more room to maneuver and the sense of urgency (buy! buy! buy!) isn’t there.

3) Many players buy a building not because it provides a ton of benefit to them, but to block other players.  There is value to this, but only a little.  Often, it’s not worth churning through your own resources to block someone else - because you had to pay a premium for those extra resources, they’re better off being used to promote your own interests.

4) The game is much more interesting when you play with the ‘advanced’ grey buildings and the rule that you can build whichever one you wish.  I find it slows the building down a little, as players will try and jockey for position more before pulling the trigger (ie go heavy on ships to try and get more cash from them, etc.).

5) There is a distinct asymmetry to the Hamburg side of the board that I think emphasises the buildings more - some parishes are very small, and there’s a bit of a ‘choke point’ in the middle of the board.  I would suggest trying the London side and seeing if the game dynamics change - with us they certainly did as the two sides were intended to promote differing play styles.  London seems to push the churches ahead a little more, Hamburg seems to push the buildings.  I like both sides and appreciate that they’re not just thematic washes - they have a significant impact on the game as well.

Overall I think the game succeeds well with what it tries to acheive - a fast-playing economic type game that still manages to give players some tough choices.

pk

Larry,

Good review.

With the city names I think that what the designer has done is use Latin names rather than old names.  London, of course, was a Roman city and so Londinium is what it was called during the Roman occupation.  Hamburg wasn’t, but, as an important ecclesiastical centre, it would have been given a Latin name in addition to its German one during the medieval period, because Latin was the language of the Church at that time.  Giving the game a Latin name adds a “churchy” feel.

The name of Uwe Rosenberg’s new game is also a deliberate use of Latin.  This year’s hidden Essen theme?

Hamburgum is my hit of Essen this year (slightly before Cuba), although I finally played Brass and Agricola the last weekend and want to rate them higher.

It is defintively the best of the “rondel games”. Antike is quite a good game to be a “war game”, but Imperial I’ve never understood how anyone can love it. I’ve tried it twice (both 6-player) and will rate it as one of the worst games last year. Any game where you risk to be out of the game for half an hour is terrible and it’s not worth giving it yet another chance.
/Carl

Carl, this is unlikely to change your mind, but you might to try Imperial with 4 players.  It plays very well with that number and there’s little chance of having no country to run.  Unfortunately, the number of good six-player games is low, so many of us insist on six when we play a game that features that number.  In the case of Imperial, I think it probably plays fine with six, but it’s probably much more aggressive and best left to experienced players.

I’ll also echo what you’ve no doubt heard from others, that as long as it’s planned, you can do quite well even if you don’t control a country.  I’m not sure, though, that I’d like it if it went on for half an hour.

I know, as in the second game I was out of the game for 15-20 minutes very near the end and still I got the second place, which even made the game feel weirder. But there are so many better games to play and replay, so it’s not much to worry about. We have all our Nemesises and this seems to be mine. Out of 16 games bought in Essen, there are still 4 unplayed…