Melissa Rogerson: Le Havre

Le Havre, by Uwe Rosenberg, is German publisher Lookout Games’ big box game release for 2008. With its runaway success, Agricola was always going to be a hard act to follow. The good news is: Le Havre delivers.

Early playtest reports suggest that it is both easier to pick up/explain and more complex/strategic than Agricola. I’ve played around a quarter of a game by email and that feels about right to me.

Like Agricola, Le Havre is an action selection game. Sort of. And like Agricola, it has enough bits to more than satisfy – this time, 6 countersheets packed with francs and resource tokens. And cards – 33 Standard buildings that appear in every game, as well as (initially) 36 Special buildings, of which 6 are dealt for every game. Super-special buildings (aka expansions) are already planned. That’s really the extent of the similarities, though.

The aim of the game is simple – to amass the largest fortune by the end of the game. Francs, the currency of Le Havre, serve a dual purpose as both consumable currency and victory points. The setting is 19th century France - the bustling port of Le Havre, to be precise.

There are three elements to a player’s turn. First, she takes a (mandatory) Supply Action – she moves her ship marker to the next available Supply space (there are 7; their order is randomised at the start of the game). Each Supply space shows 2 resources (or Francs); she adds 1 of each of these to the appropriate Offer spaces.

The second mandatory part of a player’s turn is called the “Main action”.
She may EITHER:
• Empty one Offer space – that is, take all tokens of one type of resource or Francs from the corresponding Offer space. (The player does not place a piece when taking this action)
OR
• Take a Building Action – that is, move her person disc to an available building card, pay the entry fee shown on the card and take the action that the building allows. This might be, for example, to build a new building or ship (using resources), to upgrade resources or to sell them for Francs.

Optionally, at any time during her turn, a player may take an “Additional action” – to BUY or SELL a building or ship (using Francs). While players cannot buy buildings from one another, they can buy buildings that are owned by the city, including the three “Starting buildings” that allow players to take the action to build new buildings.

After every seven player turns (the game is asymmetrical, in that different players will take a different number of turns in each round), a new Round card is resolved. Each player must pay the indicated amount of food (to feed their workers) and the town may construct a Standard or Special building (as indicated on the card). After this, the Round card is turned over – revealing a Ship card. Ships reduce the owner’s requirement for food and also allow players to use the Shipping Line building to sell resources.

The game plays over a set number of rounds, which depends on the number of players. There is both a full version and a shortened version, playable for 1-5 players, although the 5-player game is only recommended for experienced Le Havre players and masochist newbies.

Lookout Games’ Hanno Girke: “We recommend only experienced players to play the game with 5 players. Play solo for the first couple of games or with 2-4 players to get a feeling for the game. In a 5-player game, resources are scarce, and AP could overwhelm you. So boot the 5th player - or let him play a solo game with your other copy of Le Havre.”

Le Havre reunites the Agricola team of Uwe Rosenberg (designer), Hanno Girke (publisher and editor) and Klemens Franz (illustrator and designer). I managed to blackmail Hanno, Klemens and one other interested party who will be known only as Ms M – errm, Ms X – into answering a few questions about the game.

Was the decision to work on Le Havre a difficult one to make?
Hanno: No. Uwe was wielding a pointy stick and aiming in my direction.
Klemens: Absolutely not! Since Hanno told me there are less cards the descision was quite easy. What he didn’t tell me was, that the cards were much more work/complex than those in Agricola…
Ms X: After Agricola, I swore I would never do this again. So of course when Hanno told me he was doing this game, the first words out of my mouth were, “I’m in!”

What was your role in the game?
Hanno: The standard beast-of-burden routine: Editing rules and cards, linguistic checks, coordinate translating efforts, helping with typesetting, coordinating all the production workflows, hassling with distribution, and everything else no-one claims direct responsibility for.
Klemens: The breakdown of my work was around 30:70 (illustration:layout) or 10:90 (handwork/computer)
Ms X: Annoying Hanno and Uwe with copious questions; never getting back to Klemens in time; wielding the whip as required on other projects. Hopefully being at least a little bit helpful.

Uwe has spoken about his thought processes in choosing a setting for Agricola. How much input do you as the publisher have in the theming of a game?
Hanno: I never have issues with Uwe about the setting. We discussed a couple of names, but in the end, his original idea won everyone over.

I know that some of the buildings are modelled on actual buildings in and around Le Havre. LeHavre uses icons far more extensively than Agricola did, probably because the cards’ abilities are a bit more straightforward. Was this your design decision or Uwe’s?
Klemens: We’re again quite close to Uwe’s prototype - he tests them a lot and they have a clear structured layout. The most challenging part was to include an image/illustration. When I first saw the cards I did not know how (space? anywhere space left?). But Hanno insisted and we found a way (Hanno has one of my prototypes ”Robbers’n Rails” where a western city is pictured the same way - but honestly: I didn’t think of that solution for Le Havre - job-blindness)
Ms X: Ooo, I hope I get to play that in OMGESSEN!

How long did you spend working on Le Havre?
Klemens: Honestly? No idea? I didn’t count the hours - but I think nearly as much as for Agricola 200-250h.
I didn’t dare ask Hanno this question, although he did mention that his biggest challenge was probably “Finding enough time to set aside for LeHavre in all that Agricola hullaboo.”
Ms X took a vow of silence on this topic.

Do you have a favourite card?
Klemens: The “Cultural Power Plant”: So easy/quick to illustrate/color.
Ms X: The “Buttery”. I spent a long time working out what to call that – started with Dining Hall, but needed a word for a building (not just a room) that is used to store food. The canteen at my brother’s school was always called the Buttery and I assumed it was to do with sandwiches – turns out, the word actually comes from beer. Anyway, it’s richly thematic and amazingly apt, even if I did need to explain what it was in two different places in the rulebook.

You have a prototype of the game - do you still enjoy playing Le Havre, even after working so hard on it for so long?
Klemens: I’m an Eye-Person(?) - I liked the Prototype but when I see/feel how it will look like, I do not really want to play the not-so-beautiful game.

How about Agricola?
Klemens: Yep. Especially as a 2 player game. Love it. Still. Even more every day. But honestly: No time to play… have to work… Le Havre…
Meli Ms X: omgYes! We played it twice last game night and two of us were ready to go back for a third game (the boys were wimps though and didn’t want to start a new game at 1:30am)

There have been questions on BoardGameGeek about when an English edition might be going to be available. Can you comment on that at all?
Hanno: We learned from our mistakes with Agricola, where the English plough faction badly lobbiedagainst the American plow faction. Therefore there won’t be an English version. And neither an American version. We decided to do an Australian language version, with all due respect to inappropriate cursewords woven into the rulebook.
Me Ms X: *smirk* (and sigh. No inappropriate cursewords actually made it into the final version.)

Why did you make the decision to publish the EN version yourselves?”
Hanno: Stop that. We made the decision to publish the first edition of the AU version ourselves to make sure noone has to wait 8 months for the final product. At least no-one who can speak German or Australian.

What will that mean for the English market as far as distribution goes?
Hanno: The English need to cope with the fact that they have to get used to Australian English. The Americans too. I still think that the major distributors and gameshops in UK and USA will pick up the game.

All bias aside? I think they’d be mad if they didn’t!

Non-mandatory Statement of Interest: Melissa translated Le Havre into English for Lookout Games.

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