This is a neat little game with good quality components and deceptively simple gameplay.
Players represent the head of a large trading house in Hambug's warehouse district, the Speicherstadt.
Cards are placed on the board for from left to right, one more than there are players, and these are what the players will bid on.
The various cards throughout the four seasons of the game represent container Ships with goods, contracts that need to be filled by certain goods, Traders who can sell your goods, Firemen and other special cards. Some of these cards count towards your VP score at the end of the game.
Starting with the first player, each player places one of their 3 workmen on the lowest unoccupied building space on the card of their choice, this goes round until all players have placed their 3 men. Then starting with the card on the left the player at the front gets to choice to Buy or pass, to buy you pay 1 coin for each worker in the queue. If they pass the next player in line gets the choice only now it costs one less as the first worker is now removed. This continues until the card is purchased or the last player passes and thus the card is discarded from the game.
At the end of the turn players receive 1 coin, if they did not purchase a card they get an extra coin. The players also have to be wary of fires, the first round does not have any in but subsequent rounds have fire cards the player(s) with the Highest Value Firemen receive the value of the fire card as a positive VP the player(s) with the least get is as a negative VP.
Play continues until the last fire card (Value 4) is drawn (always last card in deck) once this has been resolved players total their scores.
I really enjoyed this, the rules are simple and easy to follow but the hard bit is planning where to put your workers, as where your are on the turn order makes a huge difference on your ability to grab the card you want/need. There is also plenty of tactical play to bump the price of certain cards in order to improve your chances of getting a bargain.
This will get a lot of play, it's quick but devious on many levels and well worth adding to your collection.
