Le Havre - Tips & Strategies

When playing Le Havre on iOS, there is an option to have the game give you a hint of what you should do. If you’re using the iOS game to learn Le Havre, or you’re brushing up after a long layoff, the hints can be quite helpful in learning/remembering what buildings exist. It can be difficult to track where all of the buildings go, and for a game or two, checking the hints can be a learning tool.

As quickly as possible though, you should strive to avoid the hints. While good for beginners, the hints themselves are not very good when it comes to putting together an overall strategy. They have a tendency to avoid loans at all costs (even when recommending taking a small fish offer over substantial quantities of wood/iron that could go towards later building a ship to deal with long-term food shortages).

To test the hints, I’ve tried playing full games following exactly what they suggest (even on turns where I would never normally consider what the tip says to do). This leaves me in last place, even against the low level AIs.

The hints aren’t bad for starters learning the buildings, but by the time you’ve gotten through a game or two, limit your usage of them as much as possible (I’d recommend pretending they’re not there). If you do use them, it should be to see what the hint says, and consider that a baseline to compare against when choosing a superior option.

The hints can help you learn what buildings do, NOT overall game strategy.

Although this game is fun, the iPod Touch version is probably the least optimal way to play it.

I don’t have an iPad, and I have only played a demo of the game before, and both of those made this game a challenge on an iPod Touch.

The tutorial is good, but the icons on the small screen are difficult to see, and it’s not always obvious whether you are clicking on Fish or Cattle.

In addition, the tutorial gives you very few options about what to do, so you can’t accidently sell the wrong resource. Once you start playing real games, however, that is very easy to do.

I’m sure my difficulty is compounded by not owning the game, and not having more than a half hour demo experience with it. But even still, I have enjoyed myself, and this electronic version has put the boxed game on my Wish List.