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Build SHIPS for Fame and HOnor

SHIPYARD

Sailing Ships and Steam Ships

2009 has been a successful year for the small Czech publisher Czech Games Edition (CGE). With Dungeon Lords by Vlaada Chvátil they presented one of the highlights of the year, a game that has received (Spiele Hit for Experts) and was nominated for a number of awards. A little overshadowed by this success was Shipyard, another “big” game that was published by CGE in 2009. A little unfair to Shipyard, in my opinion, because the second game by Vladimír Suchý – his first was League of Six, published in 2007 also by CGE, merits more than a glance in passing. So it is high time to take a good look at Shipyard, before the new crop of games arrives.

Players go back in time to the year 1870 and assume the role of shipyard owners, not surprisingly in a game called Shipyard. The industrial revolution is in full swing and the ship building industry is rapidly changing. Steel and coal are replacing wood and sails. Interesting times for any ship builder! New designs for ships are urgently needed. Government officials evaluate those designs and promise profitable orders.

This may sound like a game on economy and money, but that is not the case. On the contrary, you must acquire ship parts and hire personnel. As soon as a ship is finished it is launched and evaluated. This evaluation earns you victory points. Furthermore, each player receives 6 government orders for ships and may keep 2 of them that will hopefully yield a lot of victory points for the finished ships at the end of the game. You will win if you then have the most victory points.

When opening the box the first things that catch your eye are the many cardboard tiles. Preparing the game very nearly turns into work, because several hundred of those tiles must be sorted, stacked and positioned accordingly on the board. The rest of the game comprises the usual wooden parts and boards, all very attractive and functional.

Players make their moves in turns. Regardless of the number of players in a game each player will make 23 normal moves. So the time to play rises in direct proportion with each additional player. The game works well with any number of players from 2 to 4, and keeps its attraction in a game for two, partly due to the fact that interaction among players is not a main feature of the game.

In your turn you choose an action. The mechanism how to choose your action is very interesting and has not come my way like this before.  For each possible action there is an action tile. These action tiles are placed in a row on a circular action track time track. If it is your turn you first take your marker off the action tile from last round and place this tile at the start of the track. This empties the spot where the tile was before. This, coupled with a time track, keeps track of the moves and you can check for the end of the game anytime. Then you place your marker on another free action tile and implement this action. The markers of the players block the action tiles they are standing on for other players. For each action tile marked by a player that is positioned in front of his currently chosen action tile on the action track the active player receives 1 guilder. This enhances interest for somewhat unattractive actions. Should an action tile gets left behind very far, additional money could become available.

For 6 guilders players can buy additional actions. This can be any action in addition to the one you have chosen as described above. The additional action does not influence the track and you do not earn money in relation to the position of the action tile. But you can chose actions that are currently blocked by other players. I will not describe the available actions in detail in this overview of the rules. All actions, in one way or another, get you parts of ships, equipment, crew members, money or channels that will be necessary for the maiden voyage of your ship.

On the whole there are two mechanisms for those actions:

For building ships, buying raw materials and renting channels there are different tiles in a display with 5 rows. The tiles in the lowest row are free, the price for those in the second and third row is 1 guilder and for those in the fourth and fifth row it is a steep 2 guilders. Tiles are moved downwards on those displays and thus get cheaper in time.

For the actions of hiring crew, manufacturing equipment and hiring man power a marker is moved clockwise on a circle with 4 respectively 8 positions. On each position certain tiles are available. You move the marker one step forward. If you prefer a tile in another position, you may pay to move further along, one step costs 1 guilder.

For acquiring raw material the mechanism is similar, but you cannot pay to advance your marker.

A ship is finished as soon as you have assembled the main hull of the ship. A hull must comprise a prow, stern and between one and 7 middle sections. A finished ship must be completed immediately with equipment and crew and then be launched on its maiden voyage. You must take into account that the different parts of the hull show different markings for safety equipment, crew and additional structures. So you cannot equip a ship randomly but must think carefully about what to acquire. Crew, additional structures and speed of the ship will score points. Then the ship moves along channels that you hopefully have rented beforehand for that purpose. If there is not enough channel available for using the full speed of the ship your ship is wrecked without any scoring whatsoever. This also happens if there is no captain on the ship. The channels feature some observers who judge the ships safety equipment or defensive equipment in case the ship enters a corresponding position in the channel. If you plan carefully and farsightedly for these eventualities, you can score lots of important points.

In general there are very different strategies how to acquire points. Big, well equipped ships very often yield a higher score then several smaller ships, but that can be evened out by profitable government orders. These government orders are very important and can yield up to one third or even half of your total score. Therefore be well advised to gear up your game early for those orders. Especially the hiring of manpower, which yields permanent bonuses, should be planned very carefully in combination with your strategy.

During your first games the many possibilities of the game seem inscrutable and you kind of play along comfortably and may even begin to get bored, until suddenly you wake up to the fact how few of your moves still remain to be done and how much you want to do in those few moves.

With a little experience in playing this game you therefore try early to avoid unnecessary action and to concentrate on the essential features. For me the game got more and more interesting with accumulating expertise. Due to the many different strategies, partly due to the many different government orders, it remains challenging and diversified.

Due to the very much longer time to play needed in a four-player game I would rather advise against such a game with four, but otherwise Shipyard is a hot insider tip for all those that are not daunted by the many possibilities but see them as a challenge.

Markus Wawra

Spieler         : 2-4

Alter            : ages 10 and up

Dauer           : approx. 120 min

Autor           : Vladimír Suchý

Grafik          : Milan Vavron

German Title : Die Werft

Preis            : ca. 35 Euro

Verlag          : Czech Games Edition (2009)

                     www.czechgames.com

Genre                    : A game of build-up and acqusition

Zielgruppe             : For experts

Mechanismus : choose action, build ships

Kommentar:

A multitude of attractive components

Rules are formulated very clearly

many strategic possibilities

Also good for two players

Vergleichbar mit: 

Le Havre, Loyang, Puerto Rico

Meine Bewertung: 6

Markus Wawra:

Shipyard is a game that I have begun to appreciate only after a few plays. At the beginning it seemed to be unclear and a bit boring. But then the many strategic possibilities showed its long term potential!

Zufall                            1

Taktik                  2

Strategie__                  3

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Gedächtnis         

Kommunikation  

Interaktion                   1

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