Review

Coal Saga, Part three

Haspelknecht

Above ground, below ground

Over the last few years, two games by Thomas Spitzer were published, both by Spielworxx, Ruhrschifffahrt 1769-1890 in 2012 and Kohle und Kolonie in 2013, both dealing with the topic of coal mining in the Ruhr region. The third part of the series, Haspelknecht, was published in 2015 by the Dutch publisher Quined Games, in which we relive the history of the emerging coal mining in the 16^th century - at the start of the game we begin to mine the coal on the surface of our farm land, while later in the game we move below ground. The title-giving Haspelknecht, by the way, was a journeyman who worked the Haspel, that is, the bobbin, which pulled the coal out of the shaft.

At the start of the game, each player receives an identical player board, on which are placed small black cubes at marked positions - the coal, that each player can mine from his board during the game. You also set up a grid of six-sided tiles, in random order and in relation to the number of players. Each of these hex tiles represents a technology that can be developed during the game to acquire - directly or indirectly - victory points or small advantages for your game play.

The game is played over three years. Each of those years is divided into four seasons. Winter is reserved for scoring; spring, summer and autumn all follow basically the same course and are the equivalent of one round each.

In each round, each player first selects his action discs, which you then can use to do actions in the upcoming action phase. This selection of action discs is the highlight and heart of the game, the like of which I have not yet encountered, and is done in two parts. The action discs are available in three colors - black, brown and yellow. For each player, a pool is filled with six action discs, randomly drawn from a bag. Then, beginning with the starting player, each player chooses one pool and takes all action discs of one color from this pool. In a second round, each player again chooses one pool and one of the remaining colors in that pool and takes all those discs, but you cannot have more than five discs in total. Then, in relation to the selection of action discs made in the first round, a new turn order is determined.

Thus, each player has now maximum five action discs, in maximum two distinct colors, which can be used for actions; discs that you cannot use are forfeit. At the start of the game we have three characters which can be activated with the action discs. Farmer and Farmhand can use all colors. Black action discs are placed to mine coal or to remove pit water; brown discs are used to acquire wood and yellow ones to acquire grain. Each worker can only do one type of action, but as many times as you want. The Farmhand, for instance, can cut down wood three times with three brown discs, but not acquire one wood with a brown and one grain with a yellow disc at the same time. As an alternative, the Farmer can develop a technology. To to this, you must place the corresponding action discs on the farmer, as stated on the respective technology tile.

The Coal digger can only be activated by spending exactly one yellow action disc, one grain or one Thaler, to be able to mine coal and pit water somewhat more efficient than Farmer or Farmhand. Thaler, however, are a very valuable and rare resource that can only be acquired by technologies. As soon as the coal near to the surface, from the so-called Pinge, has been mined, the Coal digger is replaced by Miner and Farmhand, both mine underground and bring out pit water and coal from the shaft.

Of course, you need to consider some details for implementing the respective actions; coal can only be mined from segments, when the wood necessary for shoring up is available. The randomly arranged technology grid is, so to say, a technology tree; technologies of higher value can only be developed when one of the predecessors is already known.

All these actions serve to acquire, in one way or another, victory points or assorted items, which are converted - in a rather complicated final scoring - into victory points. After a total of nine action phases, you win, if you could make optimum use of them to collect most victory points.

Fortunately, there are several ways to accrue many victory points to keep you in the running. Mining of coal gives you a lot of points, and they can be much increased by using suitable technologies. As an alternative, you can decide on play with an emphasis on technology and mostly neglect mining coal, even if this slightly misses the game’s topic.

The deciding element, however, is the selection of action discs, which is highly interesting for game tactics. With turn order, number and color of the action disc you need to consider three important aspects at the same time, all of them of course dependent on the current situation and therefore evaluated differently for each player.

The graphic design for me is a bit dark, but fits the topic well and works well for the game play, too. But I have one major point to criticize: The final scoring is not intuitive at all, as nearly all elements are scored differently. So, a small scoring overview for each player would be really helpful and desirable, unfortunately it is missing. The rules, too, are rather simply arranged. They leave no question unanswered, but for graphic layout and structure a much higher standard has developed over the last years.

Markus Wawra

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 90+

Designer: Thomas Spitzer

Artist: Johannes Sich

Price: ca. 45 Euro

Publisher: Quined Games 2015

Web: www.quined.com

Genre: Development, worker placement

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Complete, but simply-layouted rules

Good action mechanism

In-depth use of topic

Scoring overview is missing

Compares to:

Amerigo, Orleans

Other editions:

Capstone (en)

My rating: 6

Markus Wawra:

I like the mechanism which I use to select my action discs in Haspelknecht. The multi-dimensional decisions which I must take each time to balance turn order against type and efficiency of action is suiting my tastes exactly. However, I deduct one point, because I feel that the strategic options are too restricted. I believe that the already present technology element could have been put to better use.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0