Neue Heimat is a nasty little auction game by a small mini-publisher named Chili Games. In it, players are real estate developers attempting to take advantage of a newly opened housing development to maximize their own, personal, standing. The theme is a bit thin, in that you are rarely if ever thinking about real estate development as you play, but the rules and restrictions that in place do not depart majorly from the theme. In that, the game’s theme is fairly tight. There is one things that does not make sense thematically, namely why the players are auctioning items off to each other, but that could be due to my lack of understanding of some historical subtlety regarding the game rather than any sort of real thematic disconnect.
The game’s components are good, but not particularly exceptional. The game board is of regular cardboard stock, with an attractive illustration that successfully evokes the game’s theme without getting in the way of game play.
Paper money is supplied and it is clear that some thought went into its design, even if it is printed with German text. The money is the only component in the game that is not language neutral. I will mostly use poker chips when playing, so this aspect is not particularly relevant for me.
The wooden components are solid, if basic. The majority of these components are large, wooden cubes that represent building floors, but there are also half-spheres that represent building roofs, small wooden cubes that are used to identify who owns a particular color, four naked wooden cubes that represent building permits and the cancel cube, and a small wooden pawn that represents the mayor.
The game itself comes in a small box that reminded me nothing else if not a shoebox.
So the components are nothing particularly special but not particularly bad either, they are pretty appropriate for the price. Also, while the individual components are minimalistic, when they are used in play, they become a bit more pleasing, as they create an overall visual experience that evokes a collection of clumped buildings, and thus the theme, quite well.
Mechanically the game is rather simple, yet designed in such a way that it allows all sorts of vicious moves and countermoves as you try to both build your own position and destroy others. It is gloriously nasty, and probably should not be played with people who will take it personally if you perform an action that will destroy their score.
The game’s economy is closed, in that the money everyone starts with is the only money in the game. Using this money, players will take sequential turns putting up one of the game elements (floors, roofs, cancel cube, building permits, the mayor) up for auction. The auction is once around; after each person bids the auctioneer can either choose to take the highest bid or choose to pay an equal amount of money to the highest bidder. This creates a special level of tension in the bidding, you want to bid high enough that the person starting the auction will want to take your bid, rather than just buying the item itself, but you also don’t want to bid so high that it gives the player a special advantage. It also encourages individuals to place items up for auction that they actually want, as it is the only way to guarantee that you will get a specific item.
In addition to auctioning off an item, a player also has the ability to embezzle $1 on their turn in order to get a point when the game ends. This is the only way to suck money out of the game and has the combined effect of making the overall money situation tighter, and weakening the player’s relative position compared to what it was before. Despite the overall positional weakening, it can be very tempting to this, especially as you watch the other players stuffing away some of their own money to get points. I am not deep enough into the game to determine how smart of an idea this generally is, but it is a nice little twist that will add to the consideration that goes into each game round.
The game ends when either two rows are complete, with each building spot in the row filled, and each collection of floors in that row capped by a roof, or all 12 possible roofs are placed. At this point each completed row scores positively and each incomplete row scores negatively. Each stack of floors on it will score the sum of the values of each floor and the roof. The person who controls the color on the top floor will get points for the entire stack. The stack scores positively if the row is completed at the end of the game, and negatively if it is not.
The items you can auction off are floors, roofs, the mayor, permit cubes, and the cancel cube.
The colored floor cubes are the meat and potatoes of the game and are the main way you can manipulate relative scoring. There are 36 potential values (1 through 6 across 6 colors), but only 24 are used in each game, resulting in a different set of color/number combinations each time the game is played. To add further variance, the order in which the cubes are placed matters: only the six cubes on either end of the rows are available for auction at any given time. The winner of the floor auction is allowed to place a cube on the board spot of their choice, with a few restrictions on floor placement: floors may only be placed on top of previously placed floors if their value is higher than that of the existing floor, floors may be placed only adjacent to the street or adjacent to a parallel cube, cubes place on a fenced space may not have another cube placed on top of them. If you are the first person to place a cube of a particular color, you take that color’s owner cube; this determines who will score for that color.
The roof half-spheres are the other major item that gets bid on. At the beginning of the game, each of the half-spheres is flipped over such that they are laying face down. When you put one up for auction you flip it over, and auction off the one you flipped over. Most of these half-spheres have numbers on them, the ones without the numbers have a special impact on the game depending on whether you play with the regular rules, or a publisher approved variant. In the base rules, if you flip over a blank sphere, your turn ends and you toss the half-sphere roof out. This is widely considered to be a detriment to the game as it turns a tight, low-luck game into a tight high-luck game. The publisher approved variant is to simply have it so that blank roofs are worth zero points rather than causing the player to effectively lose a turn. After a player wins an auction for a roof they place it on a stack of floors. This increases the point value of the building, and is one of the conditions for successfully finishing a row.
Building Permits have a big impact on how many buildings will score and how the game ends. Each one allows you to either extend a row by a number of spots (one, two, or three) or reduce it by a similar size, with the only limit being that you cannot change the size of a row such that a building is no longer “legal.” Decreased row sizes increased the odds that a game will end based on finished rows. Increased row sizes increase the odds that the game will end based on placed roofs. If all of the rows are increased in size, it is possible that two or even all of the rows will be incomplete at game end and that a negative score will win.
The Cancel Cube will remove a building permit. The player winning the auction for the Cancel Cube also has the ability to toss out the Cancel Cube without using its ability, if they would rather keep the current configuration of building permits.
The Mayor has a very simple function. You place him next to one of the three building rows, and he doubles the value of every building in the row. This is a very powerful effect and frequently serves as a defining element of the game, as it sharpens individual player’s incentives. If it is early in the game and there are still buildings left to claim, then auctions that can ensure those claims will become even fiercer. If it is later in the game, then players will either fight desperately for the remaining spots or, if they are not invested in that row, try to make sure that row will be one to score negative rather than positive.
I am fairly impressed with Neue Heimat at this point in time. It is relatively simple in rules and structure, but the simplicity conceals a good, or dare I say very good, little auction game that can be played in an easy 45 minutes, making it an excellent filler between longer economic games. The game takes good advantage of temporary alliances, as player incentives regarding completing or not completing particular rows will shift as the game progresses, and relative player position also changes. Thanks to the positive/negative scoring system most auctions end up being competitive, as individuals will frequently want to place their opponent’s pieces in rows that are likely to score negative, while that opponent will want to make sure that the cube scores positively. Determining the right amount to bid can be particularly challenging, as it is frequently not about how much absolute money that you are bidding but the relative position that a particular bid will establish between you and other players and the power that it grants. At one point in the game a bid of $1 could be appropriate for a particular floor or roof. At another point in the game a bid of $11 could be appropriate.
So, I highly recommend Neue Heimat to those people who light vicious little auction games. I particularly think that fans of Chicago Express and Container will find something to like in this game. I currently rate it an 8, but could easily see it going up with time. I may eventually find it too sensitive to relative player skill, but considering the stability of my core play group at this point, I doubt it will end up being too much of an issue. We will just have to all play it a lot!
Review taken from
BGG. Written by:
Jesse Dean
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