INDUSTRIA (Queen Games/Uberplay, 3-4 players, ages 10 and up, about 1 hour; about $30)
Michael Schacht, best known for Web of Power (Summer 2000 GA REPORT) where he delved into political growth and expansion, turns to exploring industrial growth and expansion in his new offering: Industria.
Industria
comes with a mounted gameboard, 60 industry tiles, 4 sets of color coded markers, wooden
disks that serve as coins for
the game and 2 larger wooden markers. The rules in the Queen edition are in German (although English
rules are available at boardgamegeek.com) but an English language edition of the
game will shortly be released by Uberplay.
Each player begins with 4 dollars and his own set of color-coded markers. The industry tiles are separated into epochs (marked by Roman numerals on the back), shuffled and placed next to the board.
Turns consist of five phases: collecting income, displaying new epoch tiles, auctions, construction and the changing of the start player.
At the beginning of each round of play, all players receive ONE dollar. (After epoch II, all players receive an additional dollar when entering epochs III, IV and V.)
Each epoch has 12 tiles. Those twelve tiles are shuffled, placed face down, and then four of them are drawn. This triggers the most unusual aspect of Industria: the auction.
The starting player begins the auction by choosing one of the face up tiles. The first bid comes from the player to his left. Each successive bid must be higher (or simply a "pass"). When all other players have bid once, the starting player, acting as auctioneer, has an interesting choice. He may accept the high bid, take the money offered, give the tile to the high bidder and continue to be the auctioneer OR the auctioneer may take the tile being auctioned for FREE! In that case, his time as auctioneer is over and that role is taken by the player on his left.
Choosing the "right tile" to auction is one of the tantalizing decisions of the game. With money exceptionally tight, the auction is the best way to generate income for future use. Ideally, you have to divine which tiles are valuable to the other players (and expendable to you). In this way, you encourage substantial bids you can accept to get that ready cash. If the auctioneer chooses unwisely, with the unfortunate result that no bids are offered, he MUST take that tile and relinquish his auctioneer role to the next player. (However, even when losing control of the auction, that player REMAINS the start player for the round.) Once all four tiles are auctioned and claimed, the construction phase of the game begins.
To understand construction, you have to understand the layout of the board. The board depicts a countryside setting with five rows of factories (one row per epoch). Towards the right of this display, there is a "path" traveling downward used to mark the epoch, bonus tiles, and resources, if any, available for purchase. Finally, on the far right, there is a double row of technologies. The start player begins building tiles won at auction. Three types of tiles may be built: factory tiles, technology tiles and bonus tiles. A player may build a maximum of ONE of each of these types per turn. The fourth type, a resource tile, may be used in place of buying a resource.
Building requires spending resources (such as brick, glass, iron, cement etc.), money or both. Resources are acquired in four ways:
1. Players can win at auction a resource tile that provides a specific resource.
2. You might have a built factory that produces a specific resource.
3. Another player has a factory producing the resource you need. (This player receives 1 dollar for the resource.)
4. You can buy an available resource from the bank for 1 dollar (provided no player is producing the resource).
Factory tiles contain a host of information that has a bearing on what you build and why or when you build it. Building factories costs money. Some factories also require certain resources in order to be built. In turn, some factories, once built, will produce resources needed to build other factories in later epochs. Factories may also carry a Victory Point value. Once a player builds it, that player scores those Victory Points. (A caveat: Victory Points are only scored if the factory is built during that particular epoch. If built later, a player can benefit from the resources that factory may generate but will NOT receive any VPs for the build. ) Technology building is similar with certain specific resources required for the technology to be built. Once built, a technology's VPs are immediately scored. Timing is everything here too. If you fail to build your technology tile during its epoch, that tile may NOT be built later and is discarded! With all construction done, a new round begins with the next four tiles of the epoch auctioned. Once all 12 tiles have been auctioned and any resulting construction done, the next player becomes the start player and a new epoch begins.
The game continues until all actions for epoch V has been completed. Now Victory Points are totaled.
As mentioned, each constructed factory and technology is worth a certain number of Victory Points. At game's end, additional VPs are scored for various accomplishments.
Some factories and technologies are "linked" on the board. If the same player controls the links, he receives 3 VPs per link. Bonus tiles with symbols (such as an anchor, ladder, oil barrel etc.) match up with factories displaying the same symbols and 2 VPs are received for each factory you control that matches. Finally, money converts to Victory Points at the rate of 3 dollars = 1 VP. The player with the most Victory Points wins!
Industria offers an interesting balancing act on several levels. You need to construct factories to produce resources to construct factories. This interconnection is key so handling your money (and resources) wisely is imperative. The unique auction aspect forces you to gauge accurately the relative merit of tiles thereby creating another dimension to play. There is also a significant "screw you" factor: if you play it right, every player may NOT be the auctioneer in a round. This can be devastating to the player who finds himself without the means to generate the necessary extra cash. Plus, should a factory crucial to later building due to its resource production fail to be built, the best laid plans of you or your opponent can be crippled!
Linking factory to factory and technology to technology is an essential element to big scores. For that reason, the artwork has to be criticized as it is extremely busy and gets in the way of easily seeing what is linked to what. This is also true for resources. The resources needed for production and the resources produced are written in smaller print than good judgment would demand. This information should be recognizable at a glance and, unfortunately, it is not. Because of these cosmetic flaws, be prepared to fumble through the first half of your first playing until you begin to appreciate the relationships between factories and resource production.
Industria takes the familiar idea of auctions and gives it a sharp twist. This, coupled with the interconnection of factory building and resource production, is the challenge of the game. While not quite up to the level of Schacht's Web of Power (see our Flashback in this issue), tough decisions are here at every turn along with a variety of viable strategies to make Industria a level above the average with solid replay value. - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Herb Levy
