Regarding Qwirkle ... it may have one more level of expertise than I thought. You can set up plays to block Qwirkles ("Bingos" in scrabble, earning a bonus for long plays) and tile tracking plays a role, but as it is (to my mind) a filler I doubt I'll ever make the effort during play to do much beyond score as many points as possible.
Our second game of small world had a high variance between scores, so that's good. I still feel that the same criticism of Vinci (you just pound on the leader) is still there in Small World (you just pound on the perceived leader). In a strong group, the difference diminishes. To whit, in this game I lost 6 provinces to Berserking Ratmen (Aaiiiee) on the final turn, and lost by ... 2 points. So, kudos on proper assessment of the leader board to all involved. I like that this is smaller and faster, but think its a bit too small. I'd like a few more races/abilities. I'd like a game to have maybe 3-4 civs per player. Also, you definitely want a starting auction for player order, I think. There are some brutal combinations and many mediocre ones.
Finally played a four player Le Havre. I liked the new buildings (The arts center and storehouse) that aren't used in the 2-3 player games. I keep seeing arguments about how there are multiple loan paths to victory, and all I can say is that I've yet to encounter it. Yeterdays game had me get up to 8 loans quickly, take a ninth loan reluctantly (and get mildly hosed because an entry fee kept me from getting a 10th loan when I really wanted it), and then earn ~90 Florins from two shipments (mainly Coke and steel) to pay everything off. I think I need to emphasize to new players that you want to build powerful buildings, valuable goods and ships, and feeding your people is definitely your lowest priority. I'm ready for more variability .... in addition to buildings, maybe a mini-deck of "How the world works" cards that change a rule (before setup). Off the top of my head — roll a d6:
- Urban Renaissance — Flip up two special buildings at the start of the game.
- Poor Urban Planning — Deal the buildings into three piles as normal, but only partially sort. Make sure that buildings 1-10 are first, 11-20 and next, and 21-30 are last, but do not sort inside those groups.
- Credit Crunch — At the start of the game, roll a d6 and set it on the loan number. Any loan taken beyond that only provides 3 Fl instead of 4 Fl.
- Credit Crisis — Interest payments equal 1/2 the number of loans you have, rounded up. [Perhaps this should be 1/3rd].
- Dark Ages — After dealing out the standard buildings, randomly remove one building from the middle stack. It just won't be built. [Do not remove Brickworks, but anything else is fair game]
- Financing Burden — Any player with 2+ loans is considered to have one less "(Marketplace triggering building)" symbol. Any player with 4+ loans is considered to have one less "Fishing" symbol. Any player with 6+ loans is considered to have one less "Hammer" symbol. These effects are cumulative. [Numbers may not go negative].
I'm also ready to tweak a few buildings:
- Cokery — No money for conversion.
- Tannery — Increase limit to 8.
- Brickworks — No reprocessing brick to brick.
I increase the Tannery because converting Hides to Leather doesn't give you food (like the Smokehouse or Bakery), all it does is give you a shippable good. This way you can get enough leather to support 2-3 ships at once.
In theory, the best way to do this would be a Tikal-style auction, where the first auction determines the first player, then the remaining players hold a separate auction to determine the second player, and so on. There are ways of combining this, but they have problems, so given that this is a one-off event, this is probably the optimal way of doing things. On the other hand, given that there is only a -1 VP penalty per civ for going down the queue, this might be overkill. It also might only be necessary to determine the first couple of players, after which things start to stabilize. I won't know until I play more.
By the way, I would give the winner of the auction the right to choose a civ or pass. The option to do this then goes to the second player, who does the same. This continues until one player chooses a civ, or until it reaches the last player, who must choose a civ. The option then reverts to the player highest in the turn order who still hasn't selected and the process continues until everyone has their first civ. Sometimes, the best civs are near the bottom of the queue, so this gives the winner of the auction their best value for their bid. In Vinci, I also liked to expose a few extra civs, so that players knew what was coming up. Again, in Small World, some of this may be overkill, but that would be my thinking for now.
This, plus Larry's observations about the late game advantages of going later in the turn order, leads to a balanced game (IMO).
It's funny that LH has such a huge list of playtesters, and was apparently in the pipeline for a long time, and yet the final product feels a bit unpolished. Of course, any game like this lends itself to second-guessing on costs and effects, so I'm not sure how much is a real problem and how much is just Rosenberg designing a perfectly working game, but I wasn't the audience.
Le Havre: Cokery not giving money and Tannery limit increased are pretty important, I think. (Not sure about the brick thing, not experienced with it).
I think the unfortunately thing about the game is that food is so irrelevant, even being a disadvantage sometimes if it prevents you from taking loans. And that loans are good to take in large quantities, there is no disadvantage for taking more and more of them.
Agricola is difficult and tense because of the need to feed your people. Le Havre isnt, because you dont even want to feed all your people. Food is just a distraction that is hiding from beginners what they should be working on.