Last week on Worker Wednesday we looked at a game that splits the fence on if it counts as worker placement game in Castles of Burgundy; this week I will continue in the world of ambiguity; why? Because some men just want to watch the world burn… So let us look at Bremerhaven and ask the question is it really a worker placement game?

Released 2013
Designer: Robert Auerochs
Plays: 1-4
EPT: 90 minutes

Bremerhaven gives players the chance to take on the position of a harbor manager controlling the incoming and outgoing of goods with the end goal of having the highest score once the final round is over; this score is calculated by multiplying your remaining money by your harbor’s prestige.

The game takes place on three main boards; water, land, and town as well as individual harbor boards for each player. Setting up the game is fairly simple despite the various boards and decks of cards. The sea deck is placed on the table and the ship cards sorted so as you are only using the card with a symbol in the upper left corner equal to the number of players, players can elect to play a shorter game and remove additional cards with an arrow symbol on them. The cards are shuffled and stacked according to the number on the card backs 1. 2. 3. and 4. These are then placed on the ship board and cards are drawn and revealed on the sea board equal to the number of players. The same is done for the land board. The town board is different with ship/round indicator being placed on the space showing the number of players and the building and price cards being shuffled and placed on their respective locations on the board. The final communal deck is the newspaper rack. The newspaper cards are shuffled and placed “Ship ahoy” side up on the right side of the rack.

Each player is given a harbor mat, and the cards and tokens matching a color of their choice. The players set up their harbor which is composed of a 4×4 building zone, 4 loading docks, and 3 docks. The two columns furthest from the docks are covered with cards indicating they must first be developed if they are to be used. Players will place two Bollards on the first markers on the middle dock, set their prestige to 0, and draw one card from the contract deck placing it on the first loading dock. When getting contract cards; including the starting card players will place time markers on the card equal to the amount indicated on the card, these markers are removed one per round indicating the approaching deadline of when the shipment must go out. Players take their 12 influence cards and add the cards valued 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 to their hand with the rest set aside for future use.

Once the set up has been complete players are ready to determine play order; this is done by each player selecting one of the four resources passengers, crates, containers, or barrels. The top price card is than shifted to the bottom of the draw pile altering the product prices. The player who chose the highest costing good becomes the Captain, the player with the second highest good the First Mate, the third the Mate, and the final player the Ship’s Cook. Players will place their colored token on the matching spot then return their selected good to the supply. The players are then given a starting bank of 4 money to the captain, 6 to the First Mate, 8 to the Mate, and 12 to the Cook.

The game plays in multiple rounds composed of 4 phases. The round count will vary upon the number of players. The phases are; bidding, general actions, individual action, clean-up. Once the ship marker on the Town Board reaches the last space on the track the game ends and player do an end game resolution and scoring phase. In the bidding phase players will go in turn order placing one of their influence cards face down on the parts of the sea, land and town boards claiming an interest in the contract, ship of ability that location provides; for the sake of time I will not go into detail on every available action as the rule book does a fantastic job at covering those itself. Players can add cards to locations other player have bid on in the hope that they will have a higher total influence as well as add more cards to the places they have already played on so as to hopefully outbid someone who played on their cards. Once all players have placed all five of their influence cards all cards are flipped face up and influence is tallied. The player with the highest influence on each location claims the benefit of that location; ties are broken according to the turn hierarchy. There are a couple spaces in which multiple players can take the benefit; the lower bidder’s, however, must pay to use the space while the highest bidder gets the bonus for free.

During the general action phase players will resolve the locations they have bid on in the order of the town board, the sea board, and then the land board. During this phase players can get new ships and contracts, alter their influence in which they had the lowest valued card from their reserve deck and discard the lowest valued card from their hand, change the prices of goods, or even rearrange the career ladder to alter future play orders. When taking a ship from the sea board the player must have an empty dock with bollards on both sides, starting off player only have 1 available dock. The ship cars will show a lay time in the upper left; detailing how long it will stay in your harbor, a prestige value in the upper right; when the ship is in your harbor your prestige is raised by that value during your individual action phase, the ships cargo; this shows how many goods of a given type the ship carries, and finally a required berth size; to dock your dock must have the number of Bollards shown, 1 to 3, available on both sides of the dock. Contract cards taken from the Land Board will have delivery time; which acts similarly to the lay time on a ship, required goods; which which shows what and how many goods are needed, and finally a contract penalty and reward; based upon a player’s failure or success to deliver the contract the player will be rewarded or charged money and/or prestige.

On a player’s individual action phase players will follow the order track shown on the base of their harbor mat; players will have the options to produce, convert and move goods presuming they have the necessary buildings or abilities, as well as update their prestige and time markers as well as resolve any ships or contracts whose time expires.

The clean up phase resolves the newspaper rack and resets the game boards. If there is a newspaper card on the left side of the rack carry out the event text if there is any. The card on the right side of the rack shows how many spaces the ship marker must progress on the top of the town board. The card is than flipped over and placed on the left side of the rack to act as an event card on the next turn. The ship and contract cards are than refilled; if a card is remaining from the previous round on the rightmost space it is discarded, any other cards shifting to the right before new cards are drawn to fill any empty spaces. Players are then given their influence cards back and the next round begins.

Bremerhaven is quite a rule heavy game with all the special locations and movement of cargo from ship, to shore, to truck; once in play, however, the game flows quite smoothly. There are plenty of rules I glanced over such as the specific town locations, product movement once ashore, and buildings on the harbor; all of which are well detailed, however, in the rulebook as well as aided with icons on the cards and boards.

The game’s art is fun and well done as there is little ambiguity left for interpretation. The pacing is equally fantastic though there is some room for analysis paralysis during the bidding phase if competitive players attempt to recall each other’s influence card values and analyse likely wanted spaces in hopes of cutting each other off. The issue of the day, however, is the game’s mechanics. Does this game use worker placement? When I first played Bremerhaven I likely would have said no it does not. Once another reviewer brought it to my attention, however, I realized that it sort of does in partnership with the blind bidding mechanic and I would now feel confident not only calling Bremerhaven a worker placement game, but I think what it does with the mechanic is borderline genius. If you are willing to consider the bidding mechanic a partnered worker placement/bidding you are effectively sacrificing workers (influence cards) to increase the chance of getting something you need as opposed of getting something free that is of lesser worth.

This interesting merger of mechanics partnered with the fun art and fast pace of the game make it one I would love to get into play more often. It thus scores a 7.5 out of 10.
Visuals – 1.75 // 2
Skill/Luck – .5 // 1
Pacing – 1.5 // 2
Theme/Immersion – 1.5 // 2
Mechanics – .75 // 1
Fun Factor 1.5 // 2

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