Review

Trains, automobiles and now ships

Ships

A new Martin Wallace on transport

Topic of this game is the development of shipping from the European beginnings in the Eastern Mediterranean up into the 20^th Century, during which, due to the development of continuously improving ships, trading was possible with all the world, if necessary also coerced by the threat of war ships.

The game board shows - in the center - Europe with several seaports, separated into three color zones which also represent the three historical epochs: The oldest with Phoenicians, Greeks and their cities in Asia Minor and Africa, then - in the Western Mediterranean - the time of the Romans, and, finally, the Atlantic, representing the time of Vikings, Hanse and Spaniards. Oher regions of the world and epochs - three in all - are only represented by a stylized band around Europe. This shows areas of the world instead of seaports, and the last zone is simply called “Rest of the World.”

The already mentioned part of the board is framed by a track showing rather attractive images of ships, beginning with „Phoenician Trader“ and „Phoenician Galley“, that is, always a pair of a trade ship and a war ship, up to “Tramp Steamer and aircraft carrier “Lexington”. All in all, we find eleven eras of ship construction represented, among them a Viking Long Ship, a Spanish war ship and Lusitania.

This game follows two chronological levels: On the one hand, the technological progress in ship construction and, on the other hand and as a consequence - the discovery of new regions of the world due to the longer range of travel. To advance technological progress or to discover new regions, players must discard so-called Navigation Counters (NC); if you are first to build a more modern boat, you receive VPs, but you lose VPs if you still have outdated ships on your board.

To open up new regions of the world also costs NC, the first to do so may choose the best harbor. New regions give higher income and more valuable goods. Other players following up do not have to pay NC, but do not receive victory points for construction of ships of the new type.

Each player receives a personal board, 17 city discs and 20 wooden trade cubes, plus - for each era - six ship counters of his color - galleys, sailing ships and steam ships. This is supplemented by general components - commodity and navigation counters, coins, 25 additional trade cubes in black to represent free actions, and 55 cards, also divided into three eras.

The player boards show five rows: From top to bottom, first the Warehouse with nine slots, three of them are empty, the remaining ones are filled with one city tile each. The next row represents the bank with ten slots, two remain empty, the rest are filled with city discs. Those discs move during the game onto the city slots on the main board, which leaves room for players’  acquired commodities and money. The third row is called “available stock”, filled at the start with two trade and two free action cubes; more can be added, which is necessary as some stay on the board rather long. The fourth row is the action track; in a turn, you have two actions plus eventual free ones (black trade cubes); you can choose from eight options:

I.) Place a ship - either in the current level of development or in the next one, for technological progress. This costs a number of NCs (five to nine). However - elegant twist - the number of ships in the current level is deducted from the cost. You can have several ships in the same level - but do I want to reduce the cost for fellow players? For a war ship you also pay a food counter - soldiers need to eat! On placing a ship,  you also place a trade cube either into the trade slot of a city and you acquire one or two tiles of the depicted commodity for your own store, or - in case of a war ship - you put a city disc on the city itself and cash the respective bonus - VPs, money, trade cubes, NCs and more. Each city slot and each trade slot can only be claimed once.

II.) Improve a ship already on the board, advancing it to a higher technological level, that is - and, again, place a city disc or a trade cube on the corresponding slot and cash the revenues.

III.) Remove a ship from the board - this is done to avoid paying penalty by losing VPs for outdated ship models.

IV.) Take one of the cards on open display - those cards can give substantial bonuses. But must be played immediately; therefore, it is often a question of when to choose this action, as some cards can - in the optimum situation - offer a plethora of new options. Of course, this option introduces an element of chance into Ships, which is good for the game and results in different game play every time. It is, however, never a deciding factor, as there are a lot of other opportunities to find your advantage by another route. This action, by the way, is the only one that can only be selected once per round.

V.) Take a coin, necessary for paying costs

VI.) Receive two NC, which are, as already mentioned, indispensable for discovering new regions of the world and to build more modern ships.

VII.) Sell commodities to receive coins - if your own bank on your board does not have enough room for them, they are automatically changed into victory points - two coins yield one VP.

VIII.) Take back trade cubes from the action track or from a region of the board and put them back into the row of available stock. If there are no cubes there, no actions are possible!

The bottom fifth row of the player board shows the number of actions that are available in each round, the number changes with the three eras of ship construction.

„Ships“ is definitely a game for experienced players, it needs time and several games until the flow of the game is established. But! Big Bonus! This game does not offer a reliable strategy for victory; the various mechanisms interlock very nicely - all what players do also influences the other players, forces them to rethink - a paradigm for interaction and almost an anti-theses to the games so much favored at the moment offering several victory points tracks - minimum one or two per player - for optimization, you play for yourself with the best mathematician usually winning.

And how does it go? Ships is not really complex, the rules are quickly explained and in no time at all I am the proud owner of a Phoenician trade ship, have received Spice in Alexandrea for it and accrued one coin and seven VPs, but had to discard a trade cube. Furthermore, powered up by success, I have acquired another boat (beginner’s mistake!) and also acquired two grain counters in the same city which I plan to use later to build a war ship. Using the free black action, I bought the “Phoenician Alphabet” card, which gives me one cube of my color to replace the one lost to Spice.

The next player builds more modern (war) ship with the help of a card, gained three VPs from it, and I begin to ponder what to do with my two boards - should a modernize them or scrap them - which will cost me both actions in the next round. But, isn’t there a card with the option to scrap all boats of the same technological type ... I hope that nobody picks up the card before me ... fortunately, I have the money to buy the card ...

Sooner or later, the next region of the world is discovered and opened up where cities and commodities are more lucrative, but, first, you need to score the „old“ region: Trade slots give VPs, as do city discs, with a better revenue if trade cubes of your own color ar in a city, but you must leave all those cubes in place. Taking back trade cubes is a separate action after all!

New markets, new regions that is, also introduce new commodities (cloth - very valuable!) and also new options, for instance industry tiles which double the revenues, for instance providing two metal instead if one. City discs offer mor bonuses; especially important is to own enough trade cubes of your own color, because otherwise scarcity of them threatens at the end of game, exactly when you can accrue the best prices for commodities. Actions to get cubes back are especially aggravating at this point as they squander actions instead of letting you use them to place them lucratively on the slots.

Commodities are not only use for sales to earn various revenues, some of them can also be bartered, and that without using up an action!! An elegant propagation medium: A barter often enables additional actions in the same turn - very valuable, as the situation on the board changes rapidly and to grab up an opportunity under the nose of one’s dear fellow players can be a lot of fun. To appreciate and use those niceties needs a few plays of the game, because many (all?) paths lead to Rome. Ships offers a plethora of opportunities to make up ground even from seemingly bad positions and to remain in the run for victory. This game forgives a number of mistakes, because there is always another opening to wipe the mistake out.

In our group, we have often helped each other, especially when a newcomer was at the table, often with the result that he was in the top scores at the end of the game - we always have learned something new in that and silently pondered which strategy could be more successful in the next game. This creation of Martin Wallace has two strengths: On the one hand, the rules are conclusive and not very copious (there is a nicely illustrated rule book, well structured, including concise historical notes); they allow quick access to the game without endless studying of rules. Of course, you will make one or another mistake at the begin, which however does not have any great consequences for the game or reduces the fun in playing, because a mistake does not put you back without a chance of catching up. After a mistake or a very smashing turn of another player you invariably get the feeling of „there must be another option somewhere“ and with this variability Ships furthers exactly this ambition, to achieve a better result next time.

The second strength of this game, on the other hand, is the fact that no game is similar to a previous one and that the replay value is very high due to this fact. The cards previously mentioned are a great factor in this, as there are never the same ones in play: There is a total of 55 cards, divided into three eras of ship construction. The first era ends, when galleys are replaced by sailing ships - eventual left-over cards are taken out of play and replaced by a deck of twelve new ones; the same happens at the begin of the steam era. Therefore, each game of Ships only uses a random selection of 36 of 55 possible cards; bonuses accrued raise in value, some copies are present multiple times.

By the way - the seating order of players at the table - you play in turn - can influence decisions in the game. Therefore, the third and fourth player receive one food counter for compensation (remember, this lets you build a war ship and thus acquire a city tile with a nice bonus). The game ends when the 11^th and last rung on the ladder of progress has been reached and there are minimum five ships on those two slots; the round is completed and the remaining players in the round, can accrue an enormous amount of victory points if they happen to have enough trade cubes. It can happen that not all regions of the world have been discovered at that point. Our in-group discussions if it is more advantageous to be the one to start or to be able to play as the last one, did not end in a unanimous result.

Another positive note - Ships does not “drag” for an eternity at the end like so many other games, but on the contrary, does speed up rather.

All in all, a felicitous economics game by Martin Wallace, not as elegant as Brass, but somewhat more varied, offering easy access while being surprisingly profound and offering many facets. A real statement and earning a big Bravo, yet  sadly - the last-but one game from Treefrog!

Christoph Proksch

Players: 2-4

Age: 13+

Time: 120+

Designer: Martin Wallace

Artist: Peter Dennis, Hans Kleinenberg

Price: -

Publisher: Treefrog Games 2015

Web: -

Genre: Transport, history, development

Users: For experts

Version: en

Rules: en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Exemplary Rules

Beautiful components

Allows to repair mistakes

High replay value

Compares to:

Automobile

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Christoph Proksch:

A challenging, very versatile game for experienced players, providing a high replay value, lots of fun and thrills.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0