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Batavia
Authors: Dan Glimne & Gregorz Rejchtman
Publisher: Queen Games
Year: 2008


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Batavia is the name by which Jakarta was known in the good old days when the Dutch ruled there and their East India Company made a fortune by trading the locally grown coffee, tea and spices. In this game the players try to achieve majorities in trading goods by gaining influence in several trading companies. These majorities result in the familiar victory points, in this case in the guise of gold pieces.

On the top part of the beautiful board we can see the main trade offices for the seven exotic goods on offer: tea, cotton, porcelain, silk, ginger, nutmeg and pepper. In every office five trading companies are represented: obviously the Dutch, but also the British, French, Swedish and Danish companies.
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Instead of the latter two one would sooner have expected a Spanish and a Portuguese company, but this is probably due to the Scandinavian origin of the authors. And since Sweden and Denmark also used to have an East India Trading Company the historical accuracy is not compromised , so we can proceed with relief! There is also a track on the board, starting at Madagascar, going through India and ending at Batavia. We cover this track with trading post tiles, and put the end tile in Batavia. The players put their trader figure at the start of the track.
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x x x x On every trading post tile there is a unique combination of a trading good and the flag of one of the five nations. The first ten tiles are already visible at the start, the rest will remain face-down until the players come closer.
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All the players start with some cards depicting ships of a certain nationality and some money, in the shape of promissory notes. At the start of every round the roll of a die determines the number of ship cards to be taken from the stock and auctioned among the players. The highest bidder takes all those cards, becomes the new starting player and pays out his bid in notes to the other players, as equally divided as possible. This means there is no additional money going into or out of the game, it is just redistributed among the players.
Then, from the starting player onwards, all the players can do their action for this turn: play one or several cards from their hand and move their trader forward or, if they are unable or unwilling to do this, take two cards from the stock.
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If at any time a player has more cards on the table for a certain nation than any other player, with a minimum of two cards, he may take the applicable company seal from the supply, or from the player that is holding it. The restriction with playing cards is that a player is only allowed to do this if afterwards he has at least one company seal. This can be a previously held or a newly acquired seal.
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After playing his cards the player moves his trader forward on the track onto the next trading post corresponding with a seal in his possession. So a player owning the French and the Swedish seals may choose to move to either the next French or the next Swedish trading post. This choice needs to be well considered, because there is no going backwards on the track!












Then the player takes the trading post tile he has just landed on and puts a goods crate of his colour on the matching place in the office: so after taking a Swedish nutmeg tile, a crate is placed on the Swedish representation in the nutmeg office.
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In addition, the player may hand in the tile he just obtained, together with tiles previously collected, for victory points. The number of points depends on the number of different country tiles turned in, with proceeds rising exponentially. But there is another restriction: this is only allowed if the player didn’t already possess a tile of the nation he just obtained!
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As we all know, also in that time period sailing around with precious cargo had its dangers, savvy? Pirates are lurking! With small flags the number of cards on the table for each nation is separately tracked, and a cannon tracks the total number of cards. When during a player’s turn the cannon reaches or surpasses 25 - in the case of three players 21 - the pirates attack directly after this player has finished his turn! The pirates will attack the ships belonging to the nation(s) with the highest number of cards on the table. It doesn’t always pay to show off, apparently!
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x x x This means all these cards are discarded and the company seal returns to the supply. The tracking flag goes back to zero, and the cannon is moved back to the new total, which could still be close to 25! And it has become considerably easier for the next player to get the company seal of the nation that was just attacked!
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After every player has had a turn, a new round will begin with rolling the die and auctioning the cards. When a player needs to move his trader and there are no suitable trading posts ahead of him, he moves the trader to the end tile and takes it. The rest of the round is played and then the game ends. Now the final points are calculated and added to any points the players may already have collected from turning in tiles. Final points are given for having majorities in the trading offices - varying from 10 points for tea to 16 points for pepper, with a reduced score in the case of a shared majority -, having the most money, and possession of the end tile and company seals. And then the winner is known!
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Let’s face it: 'Batavia' is not a top-class, innovative game that will totally set the gaming world alight. Playing cards, achieving majorities, we have all done this once or several times before. But not every new game needs to be the next 'Caylus' or 'Agricola': 'Batavia' is fun to play, looks beautiful and is done within an hour.

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Even for an experienced player there are still plenty of tactical considerations. By timing the playing of your cards correctly you can use the pirates to take away a seal from on opponent. Or by playing a card of another nation you can save your seal from a pirate attack for the time being. The majorities are also not straightforward: with five slots per office you would need three crates to guarantee a lone majority. But this can be unnecessary, because trading posts that are passed by all the players will remain on the board and their crate slot will remain empty. This means that sometimes two, or even one crate will suffice for a majority! If one recognizes this in time, then the attention can be spent elsewhere.
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The only point of criticism is that luck plays slightly too big a part in the outcome, and this can be somewhat frustrating when it’s not on your side. In order to get majorities in the offices and a good points return from handing in tiles, a player will need to have owned the seal of several countries - probably 4 out of 5 - at some point during the game. But it may very well be that he never gets the cards needed for this: if they don’t turn up in the auction sufficiently - for example due to low die rolls - a player can be unable to play cards and thus forced to take two cards from the stock. But even then there is no guarantee that the drawn cards will be of any use, raising the prospect of another round without progress. In a game that is usually finished within ten rounds, that can have dire consequences for the end result. A simple way to fix this may be to keep five cards from the stock face-up at all times, and letting the players choose between these and a face-down card; this will give the players a bit more influence over their destiny.

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However, despite this small flaw, 'Batavia' is still one of the highlights of the spring collection: among the avalanche of games published recently, 'Batavia' is a game that practically everyone liked and that will regularly return to the table even after the novelty has worn off. And, judging by the rapidly growing games collections we all have, that is no small achievement!
© 2008 Ugur Donmez

Batavia, Dan Glimne & Gregorz Rejchtman, Queen Games, 2008 - 3 to 5 players, 10 years and up, 45-60 minutes


Apparently tactical game gets torpedoed by card luck, but despite this has a nice atmosphere
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