Industrious

Several years ago, on a trip to Germany attending the Essen Game Fair, I picked up a number of board games. Not only are they less expensive there (where the good ones are made), but you can get a few that never get translated into English and brought over to the States. So I stuffed my suitcase full of games on the return trip.

...More games than I'd actually get around to playing at the time, in fact. One, called Industria, has been sitting unplayed in my game closet this whole time. In three or four game closets, actually, in all the various places I've lived since that trip. But my quest to play all the board games in my collection this year finally brought it out. And after a couple of plays, it seems a fairly interesting, though rather difficult game.

Oh, it's not difficult from a rules standpoint. The game is pretty simple. You pass through several ages, gathering resources to discover new technology and build factories. These can all score you points during the game. In addition, at game's end, technologies and factories you've gathered during the game can net you additional points if they're closely related to each other. (That is, if they're adjacent in a sort of simplified Sid Meier's Civilization-ish tech tree.)

Where it gets difficult is that resources are very tight. And I know that's often the case in German board games, so let me really say what I mean here: they are really tight. I'm hard pressed to think of another German board game where I've felt so limited in available money and resources to spend on furthering my own agenda. The first time I played it, it seemed as though all the players were flat broke the entire time.

Things got more interesting with the second play, as we began to make more use of an auction mechanic I haven't yet mentioned. Every round, the techologies and factories you might be eligible to build are actually auctioned off by the players. (That's right, you have to bid money just for the chance to spend more money to build things. That's how tight money gets!) And if you're very savvy about it, this is the way you earn money in the game.

When you nominate a tile to be auctioned, the other players participate in a once-around bidding. You then have the auction to ignore the high bid, take the tile for free yourself, and pass the choice of nominating the next tile to another player... or you can accept that bid, taking the money from the high bidder, and then nominate another tile to auction next.

Just one time through the game taught us a lot about the game for our second play. There's considerable brinksmanship in trying to auction things you think will bring you money, while sometimes preserving the option to take something you really want for free. Money went quite a bit farther the second time around, with the winning score of game two being 50% higher than that of game one. Still, you've really got to think about what you want, how badly you want it, how to manipulate your fellow players, and when to let something go.

All told, I found it to be a pretty interesting little game. I'm curious to see if it holds up to more repeated plays, but it does seem like those I've played it with so far have liked it. So I do think Industria will indeed see those repeated plays.