4th Dec - Container

We've still got a pile of Essen games to get through so this week we decided to give Container a go. Richard and I had played once before but it was first time for Steve and Jo. We went through the rule booklet and we all agreed that it was poorly written for what is essentially a fairly basic game. I also have reservations about the quality of the artwork as well as it all looks a bit drab.

Ships? I see no ships!

Once we got going we ran into a few other problems as well. Early in the game Steve managed to land a large group of containers on his part of the island, subsequently the rest of us were reluctant to trade with him (this is pretty much how most people play I guess, you don't want to help the people in the lead), so Steve found himself a bit isolated with lots of cheap containers that no one would buy and nothing much that he could afford, so he couldn't do to much to get out of the situation he was in. I guess it would be quite possible to freeze someone out completely, not a nice thing to do, but possible.

Jo adds a 5th container - was this his undoing?

Jo also had a problem towards the end of the game, he made a miscalculation and couldn't recover, all he could do was pay his interest and sail around until the end. We were also playing the beginners variant were you can sell a container back to the supply for $2, this caused another problem where the end of the game just went on and on. In the end we had to scrap this rule just to bring the game to it's conclusion.

The island at the end of the game

I'm not to sure about this game, I'd like to think that it's the way we were playing and not the game that causes the problems. I think we need to get a few more plays under our belts before we make up our minds.

Garry 85, Richard 82, Steve 58, Jo 49