OUR REVIEW
Panama Canal
Panamax
CARGO and Property
I have to confess that as a logistician the game title made me curious about which mechanism is used to mirror the daily business at this economically most important venue in the world of transport by sea.
What is happening in Panamax?
Panamax does remind a bit of „Container“, a game that I have reviewed back in 2008. The topics featured in “Container” were production, storage, sale and shipping and auctioning of complete loads of containers, which usually changed hands about three times in a standard game. In Panamax each player is the head of a shipping and conveyance company which is based in the free-trade area of Colón. Those companies accept orders from both coasts of the United States, and also from China and Europe and deliver cargo to earn money, attract investors and pay dividends. At the same time players collect their own stock of shares and try to earn as much money as possible to win the game with the biggest private fortune.
How to set up the game?
In Panamax each player has his private fortune and complete control over the assets of his company that he guides. To avoid a mix-up between private and company assets you place all assets of the company on the company board and everything that belongs to you is placed next to the company board. On the company board you also place two ships, money and share markers.
The game board is placed on the table and on it you prepare the remaining components: Bonus cards, white dice, flag markers, special ships, passenger tiles, and contract cards, tiles for president premiums, movement markers, color dice and markers for the share notation of the various companies as well as sequence markers. The game preparations have been given a double page of size A4 with 23 explanation clauses. I admit that preparations may seem a bit excessive, but the clear presentation makes it possible to sort all out much easier than one would expect from the copious amount of game components.
What do you do in your turn?
In a turn you may implement one action: Choose an order card and/or load cargo, move ships or put into effect a market action, respectively. The market action is only possible in combination with choosing the die for executive action or of the marker on the company board.
How does a market action work?
A player can buy shares. With such a share buy the price rises by 1$. When using the executive action die a player can raise the price by 2$.
The course of the game?
The game is played in three rounds. In each round every player has four turns.
A player turn starts with the selection of the white action die. Those dice allow you to do either a movement action (blue section) or an order/cargo loading action (grey area).
Due to his turns a player reaches - with cargo dice or passengers on his ships - the end of the canal and not only receives 1$ for each dice pip on the cargo dice, but also a bonus card or money for his private fortune. For transporting passengers one is paid for with money. With money you buy shares which enhance your private means at the end of the round due to paying out of dividends. Bonus cards (financial advisers) give you advantages at the end of the game.
What must be observed when moving ships?
Ships are moved in groups through the locks. Each lock has a capacity of four cargo slots. If you move a ship and the capacity in the lock is not sufficient to accept all cargo slots the ships in front are moved forward without using up additional movement points for this. In other words, in auspicious circumstances other players move my ships with theirs.
Which advantages (bonus cards) are yielded by the various cargo slots?
When a ship with one cargo slot reaches the end of the canal the player can take the top Captain’s card. In case of two cargo slot a player takes the top Stevedore card, which gives advantages in loading cargo or the fees for cargo. In case of three slots you can choose a Financial Advisor card from the stack. Those cards, at the end of the game, either earn you additional money.
To make the course of actions clearer, let’s take a look at the preparation for round 1 in case of four players: Player Black is in 4th position and begins. He chooses one of the five start-up order cards and puts it next to his company board. Then he places as many dice in his color from the warehouse next to his cards as the card shows containers and turns each die to the value depicted on the card.
Bild 1
He loads his dice onto his available ships. He uses his ship with 2 cargo slots and constructs another ship with one cargo slot which he also loads up. Both ships are placed into the blue waiting zone in USA East.
Bild 2
As all dice of the order cards were loaded up and this the order is completely filled, Black receives the flag marker for USA East and puts the marker on his company board.
Bild 3
The next player in turn for preparations is Green. He chooses this start-up order card and places two dice next to the card. He uses his ship with two cargo slots and loads it up in the Loading Zone of China. He receives the flag marker for China und puts it on his company board. On the placement case there is the market symbol which enables the player to buy shares. Green decides to buy one share of his company. The price is 6$ which he pays from his private money. Now Green owns two shares and the price raises by 1$ to 7$.
Bild 4 Bild 5 Bild 6
Player Yellow choses a start-up order card from the Loading Zone USA West with two dice (4/4) and loads up his own ship with two cargo lots. Therefore he receives the flag marker for USA West which he places on his company board.
Bild 7
As the final player Red prepares the first round: He chooses the start-up order card for USA West with two dice (5/1), loads up his own ship in the Loading Zone USA West and receives the Flag Marker USA West. Player Red has the Financial Advisor Card “Foreign Accounts”, for which a player, at the end of the game, can add the complete company money to his private money in case the player’s company did pay out dividends in the final round of the game. Red buys a share of the Black company with the market action. The price for the Black shares rises to 7$.
Bild 8
With this all players have finished preparations and Player Red begins the first round with his first turn.
Player red chooses in his first turn the executive action dice (4) from the gray section order cards, takes the order card, takes three dice of his color from the warehouse and places those three cargo dice next to his order card. He builds a ship of his company with three cargo slots and loads it up with one container in the Loading Zone USA West. The cost the company pays is 7$ for this ship. He then constructs an additional ship for his company with one slot for 5$ and loads one container on it. The third cargo die is loaded onto the Cruise ship “Game of the Seas”.
As he has completely filled the order he receives the flag marker USA West and places it on his company board.
Finally, he uses the free action depicted on the board, takes a cargo dice of value 2 and places it on the railroad table.
Note: With the executive action die (4) Red may load three cargo dice. Page 7 of the rules states that the active player in his turn may only load one cargo die onto any given ship or the railroad table - therefore Red did load up three ships!
Bild 9 (4204) Bild 10 (4206) Bild 11 (4207)
On the game board a card is taken off the Inbound Cargo space and placed on the action table. You refill the Inbound Cargo space with one card from the draw pile of Contract cards.
Player Yellow chooses a white die (5) from the grey area and takes the corresponding order card which he places next to his company board. He takes a cargo die (2) and places it on the railroad table. With this he completes the order and takes a flag marker for USA West, which he puts onto his company board. O the company board the symbol for market action is depicted. Yellow buys a share of his company and pays 6$. The share price of the Yellow company rises to 7$. This ends the turn for Yellow.
Now it is the turn of player Green. He chooses a white die from the blue area for “movement” as he hopes that his ship will be “pushed” by other players in the next round. He takes “3” from the third row and second line. He may now move his ship across three locks and two water ways. His ship starts from the Loading Zone China, forms a group with the red ship in the PEDRO MIGUEL lock and moves as far as the CULEBRA Cut.
As last player Black implements his first game turn. He chooses the movement action: He combines his two ships in the Loading Zone USA East into one group and moves the group across three water ways and three locks. In the Culebra Cut he took up the yellow ship into his group and took it along as far as the Pedro Miguel Lock.
Bild 12 (4208)
Player Red begins his second turn with the choice of an executive action die (3). This is used to move his group of ships, comprising 2 ships with three cargo slots from the Loading Zone USA West over three waterways and two slots. When entering the Culebra Cut his group encounters another group of ships. This is pushed forward and reaches the Gatun Lake with his group.
Bild 13 (4210)
Player Yellow chooses the white die (5) for order/load up cargo for his second turn. He builds a ship of his company for 5$ and loads one cargo die each onto this new ship and the red ship in Loading Zone USA West. He takes a flag marker USA West and puts it onto his company board. He has now three markers on his board and thus completed his Financial Advisor card “Favored Nation”. The symbol on the display case for the 3rd marker allows him three movements for a free action. Therefore he moves his two ships as a group forward as far as into the MIRAFLORES Lake.
Bild 14 (4211) Bild 15 (4212) Bild 16 (4213)
Player Green chooses the white die (2) for movement for his second turn. He forms a group with his two ships and moves the group over one waterway and two locks forward to the last lock before the Atlantic Ocean.
Bild 17 (4214)
Player Black chooses the white die (2) for movement in this second turn. He moves his group of ships out of the PEDRO MIGUEL lock and moves the group over one waterway and 2 locks up the last lock before the Atlantic Ocean.
So now all players have done two turns.
Bild 18 (4215)
After two turns you now have a good impression of the course of the games.
What happens when all players have implemented their four turns?
When all dice have been taken from the action table the round ends and the following actions are implemented:
1. Railroad table:
All dice of the first car are moved to the left onto the second car. The new player order is determined according to the sum of dice values of players with dice in the second car, from high to low. All dice from the second car are relocated to the platform. Each player with at least one die on the platform chooses a flag marker, in order of the sum of players’ dice values of dice on the platform, from high to low.
2. Pay Cargo Fees
Each company pays the bank for cargo fees for each of its cargo cubes on the way and in the canal or a Loading Zone, as indicated in the Zone. For each cargo die in the warehouse the company pays 5$. For each Cargo die on an order card the company must pay 4$.
3. Pay Dividends
Each company must now pay with its money dividends to players. Should the company not have enough money to pay all dividends due, the company does not pay dividends at all.
4. Managing Director Awards
The player who is director of the company in highest position on the market table now receives the premium of this round. The money for the premium is received at the end of the game: 3$ for 1st round, 5$ for 2nd round and 7 for 3rd round.
And now for my evaluation:
Components:
The game is well and in very detailed manner equipped with clear and harmonious components. The board is designed also in great detail, and yet the individual elements are presented clearly and strikingly. The ship tiles offer room for the container dice which represent cargo and passenger transport. The order cards are nicely designed, too, and comprise the most important elements in a very attractive way.
The rules, however, are very hard to read and some of the paragraphs in the text are partly unintelligible, that is, you will have to pay extra attention when reading those paragraphs.
What gives the game its allure and challenge?
You start the game hoping that in one round you can load a ship, transport its cargo and reap the reward for success. This one will be able to manage with one or maximum two ship loads, but the real challenge of the game and its most interesting part begins when you manage to choose the right action at the right moment
In my opinion, the share business part of the game does not offer enough compared to transporting cargo to be considered a working alternate strategy.
If you take a die from the lowest line in the first or second row, shops can only be moved over part of the distance. This dice mechanism has consequences for ship movement. A player who chooses a die from the third row (top line) will have a distinct advantage, as this gives him up to for more water or lock movement than a die from the first row (lowest line). At the end of the round a player pays up to 4$ out of company money for each cargo cube that did not reach its destination, the end of the canal.
As an alternative you could choose a die from the grey area of the action table. But this results in another problem: When the cargo dice remain on the order card to the end of the round you pay 4$ per die. When cargo dice remain in the warehouse you must even pay 5$ per die.
I repeat myself: It is important, to choose the right action at the right time.
I find the game absolutely interesting and challenging, even if the rules demand extra attention and several read-throughs.
Definitely a recommendation to frequent players and calculation buffs!
Erwin Koczan
Players: 2-4
Age: 12+
Time: 100+
Designer: Gil d'Orey, Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro, Paulo Soledade
Artist: Gil D’Orey, Filipe Alves
Price: ca. 40 Euro
Publisher: Heidelberger Spieleverlag 2014
Web: www.heidelbaer.de
Genre: Economy
Users: With friends
Version: multi
Rules: de es fr pt + en it
In-game text:
Comments:
Coproduction with Mesaboardgames
Good components
Demanding, not easily understood rules
Compares to:
Worker placement and choice of action games
Other editions:
Stronghold Games, HC Distribuzione
My rating: 5
Erwin Koczan:
Fun for experienced players featuring an interesting and unusual topic taken from real life.
Chance (pink): 2
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 1
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0