Le Havre

About this board game

Le Havre is an economic board game for 1–5 players, with a play time of approximately 150 minutes. Players gather goods, use buildings, construct ships, and seek to finish with the largest fortune.

Each turn follows two steps. First, newly supplied goods are distributed onto the offer spaces. Then the active player chooses an action: take all the goods of one type from an offer space, or use one of the available buildings.

• Gather goods from the offer spaces.
• Use buildings to upgrade or sell goods, or to build personal buildings and ships.
• Pay entry fees when using buildings owned by another player.
• Use ships primarily to provide the food needed to feed workers.

Buildings serve both as investments and as sources of revenue. Using buildings can help players upgrade goods, sell them, or turn their resources into new buildings and ships, while ownership can create opportunities to collect entry fees from other players.

After every seven turns, the round ends. Players may see their cattle and grain multiply during a Harvest, and they must then feed their workers. These recurring requirements make the timing of actions and the management of goods central to each game of Le Havre.

After a fixed number of rounds, each player receives one final action before the game ends. Players then add the value of their buildings and ships to their cash reserves. The winner is the player who has amassed the largest fortune.