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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Rio Grande Games | Hamburgum

Hamburgum

Price: £49.99

Currently unavailable

Board Game; 2-5 Players; Ages 12+ by Rio Grande Games Hamburg in the 17th century! Mighty walls protect the city against the devastationsof the Thirty Years War. Thanks to Protestant religious refugees, Hamburghas become the biggest and most prosperous city of Germany. From far away theskyline shows the steeples of huge churches and the masts of mighty trade ships displaying the citizens’ pride and prosperity.The players guide families of Hamburg in the pursuit of wealth and prestige. They produce beer, sugar and cloth and sell these goods with their ships overseas. They compete over the best sites for their buildings and the best berths for their shipsin the harbour. But ultimately they vie for the most prestigious church donations, because neither gold nor goods, but only prestige decides the game.Hamburgum is a strategy game for 2 - 5 players without any luck of cards ordice. The actions are selected according to simple rules on a rondel. The reverse of the big doublesided game board offers another city, Londinium, a different strategic challenge. ++++++++++++++++++++ Counter magazine review ++++++++++++++++++++ 2-5 players, 75-90 minutes designed by Mac Gerdts reviewed by Alan How Eggert-Spiele have moved from interesting new boy to one of the companies to watch out for. Last year\'s Imperial, also from Mac Gerdts, showed how a clever system - the rondel - could be used to produce a business game of conflict during the time of great European powers. The newest use of this system is in Hamburgum, where players guide a great family in the pursuit of wealth and though this, the acquisition of prestige. Hamburg in 16th century Germany is the location this time. Hamburg emerges from the Thirty Years War as a wealthy city, where opportunities exist to earn prestige, which is the currency of victory points in this game. In order to earn prestige players need to make donations to the 6 churches, who accept various forms of resource from bricks to money and bells. These resources can be obtained through trading, and the money raised can be used to buy these building resources. So the first issue to consider is how to raise money. From your starting capital, players select which resources to trade. The method of trading is always the same - using ships located in the three harbour berths. Each player starts off with one ship in the best berth, where 3 goods of the same type can be traded. Purchases of ships when the best berth is full causes all ships in the best berth to shift down one berth where the limit is two goods of the same type per ship. Finally, ships in the least valuable berth can only trade one good. The price of the goods starts off at a high level - £100 - but will reduce later in the game when buildings are acquired. The rondel has 8 spaces and your marker is moved on this to indicate which action will be taken. Movement around the circle of 8 spaces is free for up to 3 spaces, but costs 1 prestige point for each space beyond the third. Unlike previous games using this device, there is no limit to how far you can move your marker, other than, early in the game, the amount of your prestige. The rondel device is the key to the game, and it features three different types of space. The first is where goods are acquired, and there is an inherent rate of 1 good for all players. The goods are beer, sugar and cloth. The second type of space is where players act on a specific area of the board. The dockyard is where more ships are purchased and these have two effects: an increased capacity to sell goods for cash, and the impact of keeping your trading options open, while reducing those of other players. It is possible to buy several ships, the limits being the 5 in the game\'s components and the timber you have available, as each ship costs 1 timber. The guildhall is the location where players are allowed to buy buildings. These are arranged in 6 stacks at the beginning of the game and each building confers an advantage. Mainly these are a faster rate of acquiring goods, so for example, each brewer adds one more beer when a player selects the beer area of the rondel. In order to erect a building, a player needs the site to be either adjacent to a church where they have made a donation or to a site where they already have a building. Not only that, but the links are to specific building types, so there are restrictions on the type of building to build. The links are recorded with player markers, representing a citizen working at the building just acquired. The stacks of buildings match up with the number on the board, so you can quickly determine how many buildings of each type remain. Several buildings can be built at once, subject to the links on the board being available and the resources a player has in stock - each building costs 1 brick and 1 timber. The church is where donations are made and these increase in cost for each donation at the same church. Initially, these costs are small - 1 brick - but by the fifth and final donation is made this costs 1 brick, 1 timber, a bell and £10 for each citizen on the game board. So success at getting more buildings/citizens comes at a cost for the final donations. These are important as they confer additional bonus prestige points that decrease with each completed set of donations. The main gain from the donation is a chit which will confer a number of prestige points. The first donation is always worth exactly 5 prestige points, while others may depend on the number of ships a player has in all berths of the harbour or the number of breweries a player has in the game. There is usually a multiplier, so each chit could be worth a small to large number of prestige points. Generally these can be cashed in later in the game when the church is selected, so it is worth saving up to increase the value of prestige earned. Finally, the rondel has two spaces where players can trade. The choices here are to sell goods (beer, cloth and sugar) for money or acquire building materials (timber, brick and bells) for later purchase of ships, buildings or making donations. The selling prices depend on the number of the production buildings that have been sold, with each one permanently reducing the price. The limitation on number of ships means that you try to sell to maximize your ship usage, but the price does have some bearing too. Players needing additional cash over the available ships can sell for £30 for each good, but this is a significant discount on the normal price. Material acquisitions follow another chart with a mechanism that means each marginal product purchased costs more. So for example 3 units cost £100, but it costs £150 for 4 units and a maximum purchase of 10 units. This might seem strange to those of you used to the idea that buying in bulk is cheaper, but here you are paying the extra in order to save time and actions. The choice of building materials bought is each player\'s choice, but you can only have one bell (required to complete each final donation at a church) at a time in your stock. The game is fast paced, because many moves just involve getting a number of goods and there are always things you want to do and quickly, as the next turn beckons, when you will probably have a plan for what you want to do then. As donations are taken, the number of options reduces, but you need more resources to complete. This means building up a good production set; so that you can produce more than one good when you select that action, as well as maximizing your selling options by selling when the ships are well placed for you. One feature that did stand out for me was the presentation of the rulebook. Some companies struggle to get the rules across in a digestible form, but Hamburgum\'s rules are outstanding. Firstly, the game board has extremely well laid out arrows displaying where the different actions take place. Then there is a quick introduction into the game on the next two pages. Using an example of game play the main mechanics are described. This quick introduction provides an overview before reading the rules, making understanding of the rules so much easier and you can more or less walk straight into the game. I cannot remember a clearer example of rules presentation. Additional features in the game have been well considered: for example, some of the buildings include a set of building that house the cities officials. The merchant provides a cash bonus, while others affect the ship placement, or earn money from earlier player actions. As these buildings are important you can only build one of these a turn but they provide an interesting alternative to buying goods producing buildings. Additionally, the game variants include a different set of officials and related benefits so the game has more legs just in this option. As if this wasn\'t enough, the board is 2-sided and you can play the same game, but based in London, which has a different make-up of churches, links and areas, further extending what is already a good game into one that provides great value for money. My early experience of the game is that it provides great challenges, a variety of ways to win and speedy, exciting game play. Downtime is really low, the presentation is very good and the game choices during play are meaningful and determine how well you do. Interaction between players is indirect - that is by competing for limited board position, buildings and donations you deny others, rather than direct action against specific opponents. I really enjoy the game for this composition of issues and already feel the Essen crop to be very good. The problem for Eggert-Spiele is that, having raised the bar to new heights with this game and Cuba, they have given themselves hard acts to follow. Their next productions will be anticipated very highly.

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Main Catalogue | Board Games & Card Games | Rio Grande Games | Hamburgum

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