Le Havre

Components

Setup (full version)

1. 1Lay out the 3-part game board in the middle of the table.
2. 2Each player takes 1 person disc, 1 ship marker, and 1 game turn overview card in their color.
3. 3Shuffle the 7 Supply tiles and place them face down on the round spaces; set the ship markers beside the first tile.
4. 4For the full version, place 2 Francs, 2 fish, 2 wood, and 1 clay on the starting offer spaces.
5. 5Each player takes 5 starting Francs and 1 coal.
6. 6Shuffle the Special Building cards and place only 6 face down on the 'Special Buildings' space; return the rest to the box.
7. 7Set aside the green Construction Firm and the 2 Building Firms as the town's starting buildings.
8. 8Remove any Standard Building cards not marked for this player count, then shuffle the rest into 3 equal piles and fan each out by ascending sort order number onto the Building Proposals spaces.
9. 9Choose Round cards for this player count, show the harvest/no-harvest side, and stack them with round 1 on top.
10. 10Whoever lives closest to the sea becomes the starting player; play proceeds clockwise.

A turn — Supply action, then a main action

1. 1Supply action (mandatory): Move your ship marker to the next Supply tile in the direction of the arrow (flip it face up if this is the first time it is occupied). Place 1 token of each of its 2 kinds of goods/Francs, standard side up, on the offer spaces.
2. 2If the tile reads 'Interest', every player holding at least 1 loan must immediately pay exactly 1 Franc in interest, regardless of how many loans they hold.
3. 3Main action (mandatory, choose one): (A) take everything from one offer space, or (B) move your person disc into an empty building and carry out that building's action.
4. 4Additional actions (optional, any time on your own turn, repeatable): buy a building or ship with money, or sell one of your own buildings or ships to the town for half its value.
5. 5The turn in which your ship marker lands on the 7th Supply tile is the last turn of that round. After finishing that turn's main action, resolve the Round card.

Processing resources — from raw materials to goods

Everything arriving via the offer spaces is a raw material (standard side). Entering the right building and flipping the tokens turns them into more valuable processed goods (upgraded side), sometimes at an energy cost, sometimes earning a Franc subsidy.

Buildings — construction, buying, and entry fees

• Construction (main action B): Enter the Construction Firm, a Building Firm (buildings only), or a Wharf (ships only), pay the listed materials, and build the top card of a Building Proposals pile. The Construction Firm may build up to 2 buildings per visit.
• Buying (additional action, any time): Buy any town-owned building, or the top card of any of the 3 Building Proposal piles, with money. Ships may be bought the same way, but a ship's purchase price is always higher than its printed value.
• Entry fee: Entering another player's building (or a town-owned one) costs food or Francs, as listed. If the cost is split by a '/', only one of the two is required. Food can always be paid with Francs instead, but Francs can never be paid with food.
• Selling: Your own buildings and ships can be sold to the town at any time for half their value. A building sold this turn cannot be bought back the same turn. Selling or buying a building sends any person disc on it back to its owner.

End of a round — harvest, feeding, construction, new ship

1. 1Once the main action of the turn that revealed the 7th Supply tile is finished, resolve that round's card for the row matching the player count.
2. 2① Harvest: anyone with at least 1 grain gets 1 more grain, and anyone with at least 2 cattle gets 1 more cattle (at most +1 each per harvest). 'No harvest' rounds skip this entirely.
3. 3② Feeding: each player pays the amount of food shown on the card. Each ship owned reduces that amount by a fixed value. A player short on food must sell buildings or take a Loan card.
4. 4③ Town construction: if indicated, add 1 Standard (lowest sort order from the Proposals) or Special (top of the face-down pile) building to the town's holdings.
5. 5④ New ship revealed: flip the Round card over; its reverse becomes a new Ship card added to the matching pile (Wooden, Iron, Steel, or Luxury Liner).
6. 6The next round begins with the player whose number is printed on the card.

Calculating final wealth

1. 1Add the printed value of every building and ship you own (they score even if empty or never visited).
2. 2Buildings with a '+' symbol (Bank, Town Hall, Guildhouse, etc.) add bonus value based on the other buildings you own at game end.
3. 3Add the cash (Francs) in hand.
4. 4Subtract 7 Francs for every unpaid loan.
5. 5Goods remaining in your personal supply (wood, iron, etc.) are worth nothing (exception: the Storehouse's own value rises with the number of goods tokens its owner holds).
6. 6The player with the greatest fortune wins. Ties share the victory.

The final stage and game end

Once the last Round card has been resolved, the 'final stage' begins. Starting with the starting player and going clockwise, each player takes exactly one more main action. No Supply or Buying actions are taken in this stage, and interest is no longer paid.

Once every player has taken their final action, the game ends immediately and wealth is calculated. Unless the rare situation arises where the order actually matters (paying an entry fee, buying a Luxury Liner), the order of final actions generally does not matter.

Strategy that follows directly from the rules

• The earlier you secure ships, the less food pressure you face each round. The official rulebook itself states the game is 'essentially impossible to win without ships.'
• Owning a Hammer-icon building (like the Construction Firm or a Building Firm) early makes it easier to gather extra coal at the Colliery and similar buildings, easing your energy supply.
• Loans are a legitimate strategy — a player holding the Local Court special building can win even while carrying several loans.
• Late in the game, players often use the Bridge over the Seine to cash in leftover goods, or the Steelworks to produce steel for expensive steel-requiring goals like the Bank or a Steel Ship.

Editions and expansions

Frequently confused rules

History and reception

Uwe Rosenberg edited the game together with Hanno Girke, and it was published in 2008 by Germany's Lookout Games; the English edition was distributed under license by Mayfair Games. Graphics and illustrations are by Klemens Franz. The rulebook itself credits William Attia's Caylus and Rosenberg's own Agricola as influences.

The game won the 2009 International Gamers Award for multiplayer strategy games (per Namuwiki). English Wikipedia describes it as the second entry in Rosenberg's 'Harvest' series, moving the setting from the farmland of Agricola to a port city.

The expansion Le Havre: Le Grand Hameau (co-designed with Grzegorz Kobiela) added more Special Building cards and has been bundled into the base game since the 2016 printing. The standalone two-player spin-off Le Havre: The Inland Port (2012) uses an action-point system and won the 2013 International Gamers Award for 2-player strategy games (per Namuwiki). Codito Development released an iOS app in 2012.