Container: 10th Anniversary Jumbo Edition!

EvEvanstar4,6

Container is a very raw economics game with very few rails. Players start with a warehouse, a factory and a single token in the color of that factory. On your turn, you can build new factories, new warehouses, produce tokens or move your boat, or buy things from other players. Produced tokens will match the color of the factory that produced them, and they go in a special area where they can be purchased by other players for the price you set. Bought tokens from other players go into your warehouse spaces, where again you get to set the price. Ideally to more than you paid for them. Tokens sitting in your warehouse can be bought by other player's ships. When a ship has tokens on it, and arrives at the central island, the player who owns the boat holds an auction for all the goods on that boat. Each color of token is worth different amounts of money to each player as determined by a random card that's given out during starting setup. Additionally, players will discard all tokens of a color they personally have the most of on their island space, so you want a lot of your most valuable and your least valuable tokens. One color is always going to be worth the highest vp threshold, but a second color will also match it if you manage to get a full set of the different colors. When a boat is auctioned, the holder of the auction can choose to ignore the high bid and pay it themselves to the bank to claim those tokens. This is usually a bad idea since if you accept another player's payment, you get an equal payout from the bank for the full value. This means that so long as the bid is worth even a dollar more than half of what it's worth to you minus the cost you paid to get the tokens on your boat, then the payout will probably be better so long as it isn't absolutely necessary for your color spread. Because players can set prices at whatever they want, and you have this live market situation where multiple players will produce the same things as they build new factories, you can end up with some negative play experiences. Price too high too soon, and players will avoid you and you'll have little or nothing to do on your turn. Price too low, and other players will take advantage of you and then you won't have money enough to win the auctions that will benefit you. You can additionally have two players collude to win each other's auctions at highly inflated prices for the purpose of getting larger payouts from the bank which can be a little tough to deal with. Everything is muddy not having a clear sense of who values what and when, or who is flush with money. It's honestly a fascinating experience, although the uneven nature of the game experience does bother me at times, This new edition has much nicer components than the original, and I like what the mini expansion adds to the game. Basically, it brings in a special board where players can indirectly buy and sell from each other with the board as an intermediary. I guess this is a game I respect more than enjoy, but I do get in the mood to give it a try every now and then, and it's absolutely a game I compare other things to regularly. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★☆☆☆☆ Raw enjoyment

KuKushstar5,5

A unique economic game no doubt. The amateur art/ graphic design from the 90s makes it a dull experience for me and would benefit from a facelift and move up significantly in my rating.