The Tao of Gaming

I've played Indonesia three times, and I'm impressed. It's a 'business' game, so you are trying to make money. The merger mechanism, brings a fresh face to a game of operations. Indonesia is often compared to 18xx, but ownership is the key. In 18xx, you own part of a company. The president often owns 60%. So if the president can inflict a $100 loss on that company to gain $80, he's ahead. And often the president suffers huge losses, for moderate gains, and then dumps the remains on an unfortunate soul. The president, in other words, completely controls the company in spite of partial ownership.

In Indonesia, the president completely owns the company, but any player can force a merger, which combines two companies and auctions them off (splitting proceeds between the two original owners). If you build a long term giant by forgoing short term income, you won't be able to keep control. You'll get taken over, and the buyer will enjoy your investment. So you need a cash reserve to make sure that any takeovers pay a fair value.

It's possible each player would be interested in merging company A, but with a different target! You can merge to get a competitor, to free up slots, to create a new market or remove a competitor from an old market (by merging rice and spice to create siap faji), to save money on shipping. Players may want to merge two companies to shift money around so that their next merger will not be opposed.

On a (known) last turn, it's possible to figure out the value of a merged company to each player. But it's difficult to value mergers even a turn or two out.

It's a fascinating mechanism.

In addition, how to determine which 'technology' to advance each turn is interesting. Do you raise your merger rating, to allow you to propose bigger mergers? Slots, to hold more companies? Expansion, to grow faster? Hull, to have bigger ships? Another player's hull rating, because their tight shipping is forcing you to spend too much? Or turn order ... so far, turn order has been neglected, but I think that's a mistake.

And despite no luck other than initial setup (turn order and the dealing of city cards), the games feel different. Part of that is due to having played with 3, 4 or 5 players. It's practically a different game.

It's possible that a 'best strategy' will appear, but nothing looks obvious yet. A weak player can give the game away, but games like Indonesia appeal to those who like evaluation problems. Time flows quickly, with plenty to consider. This set me back a pretty penny, but it was money well spent.

I've played Indonesia five times now. My first game dragged, but it's sped up nicely. Last night (4 player) clocked in at 100 minutes, including rules. Quite different than 4-5 hours.

I'm still organizing my thoughts on strategy. The merging makes long term planning difficult, but I'm not sure that tactics dominate. However, I can't see the strategic impacts clearly. My Kung Fu (Mu-Thai?) is weak.

My initial concerns seem to be unfounded. Shipping strategies can win, although it appears difficult. Each technology track has merit. Given the city system, the game feels different between plays (last night featured a tight game where no city grew until turn 4). It is difficult to catch the leader, but that doesn't bother me. After all, the leader earned it.

Indonesia may turn into my game of the year.