Gameplay Overview
East India Companies is a mid-weight worker placement and economic game, set during a time that is extremely controversial. I’m not going to dwell on the theme or setting. My goal is to give you an idea of how the game plays whether or not this is something that and/or your group will enjoy.
Over the course of five rounds, you’re going to be placing workers to do a variety of actions, including sending ships off to various lands, purchasing new ships, building new ports to house new ships, as well as spots that will help you earn additional money when selling the various goods that you’re importing from the various regions.
As I mentioned, the game last 5 rounds and each round consists of five phases.
The Phases
The first phase is the agent phase, during which you will take turns placing one of your three meeples onto worker placement/action selection spots. I’ll come back to this phase once I’ve explained all the phases and go over each spot in a little more detail.
The second phase or phase B is the stock market phase during which you will have an opportunity to purchase a stock whether it’s yours or another player, in initiative order. The price of the stock is tracked at the top of the board, starting at $4 a share & increasing as stocks are purchased, decreasing as they are sold back. You continue until all players have passed consecutively. Speaking of stocks, these can be sold back to the bank anytime during any of the phases except during this market phase and after the first phase of the final round.
The third phase, phase C is exploration. Each player collects all of their ships from their ports & again, in initiative order, places one of them facedown at one of the 3 locations. Depending on the distance, there may be a fee to pay. Once everyone has placed all of their ships (or as many as they’d like), they are revealed & placed so that the faster ships or the ones placed earlier, get a chance to purchase goods first. Depending on which location you visit, you’ll be able to buy silk, coffee or spice (tea can be bought at any of the locations).
This leads us to phase D, the loading phase. Starting in China, you’ll decide which ships went there sooner and/or have faster ships & they will get to purchase as many goods as can fit on their ship (most ships can only hold one cube/good while some of the later ships you’ll be able to get, can hold up to 3 goods. As goods are loaded, the ships move back to your ports to await phase E, selling.
A quick note on the purchase & selling boards, at the beginning of each round, dice representing each of the goods are rolled, showing 0-5 goods of a particular type. These dice, along with market cards that are flipped prior to the Loading & Selling phase, will determine how many goods are added to the market board (Loading) or removed from the board (Selling). The more goods on the loading board mean the cost of goods is cheaper because they are plentiful. On the other hand, on the selling board, as goods become more scarce, the income you’ll earn from selling each good increases. But as goods are bought/sold, the price will increase/decrease which is why buying & selling early is so important.
In phase E, you will sell your goods, starting with the faster ships (they arrived back at port sooner) and in ties, going in initiative order. All of the money earned from selling goods is kept to the right of your player board as opposed to the left side, where you typically store your money. This will make a difference in the cleanup stage.
Finally, once all the goods are sold (or stored, if you have a port with storage), you do a final cleanup. Whoever sold the most goods, will increase their stock value 2 spots, 2nd place will increase by 1 & 3rd won’t move. In a 4-player game, the last player’s stock will actually decrease one spot. Then you determine the new initiative order, where the player who earned the lease amount will go first & the one that earned the most will go last. After that, depending on the amount you actually made, your stock value could increase or decrease again.
A Closer Look at Phase A (Agents)
There are 5 characters on the board, each one housing 2 or 3 worker placement spots. You can never go to a space that you already have a meeple at & if you go to a spot with someone else’s meeple, you’ll pay each player already there, $1. Some of the spots have multiple locations and some have letters next to them. If there is a letter, it refers to the phase in which they will activate. If there is no letter, you do it immediately.
- Buy a New Ship. The cost of the ship will depend on the ship purchased, and more ships will become available as the game progresses. You’ll place this new ship in an empty port or replace an older ship. These new ships may be faster, hold more cargo or both. There are 2 of these spots under 2 different characters.
- Determine the market card for Selling or Buying (2 different spaces). Here, you’ll get to choose which card is revealed during those phases which, along with the dice, determine the market.
- The Trader character has 3 spots, one for silk, one for coffee & one for spice. If you have a meeple here during the selling phase, you will earn an extra $1 for each good sold.
- Under the captain, is a space to move your initiative marker to the top spot (if you’re the 2nd one there, you’d become 2nd & so on). The cost of this action depends on the round. In the 1st round, it’s $1. In round 4, it’s $4. This will take effect at the beginning of Phase B before stocks are purchased.
- The other spot under the captain, lets you travel for free this entire round. Where normally you’d pay up to $2/ship you send out, you have no travel costs.
- Get a New Port. There is no cost to this & each port allows you to have another ship (up to 2 new ports for a total of 4 ships). The first port you get will also allow you to store up to 2 goods (in case they don’t get sold before the market gets flooded). The last port you get has 1 spot.
- Place a Trading House. You have 2 trading houses that can be placed (for $3/ea) at one of the 3 locations. This spot allows you to place one of them. These trading houses give you a discount on each good you buy from that region by $1.
After 5 rounds, the game ends & you sell your shares at the current price. The company will the most money wins.
Final Thoughts
I really like this one. The rules are simple to pick up. The game flows very well & has one of my favourite features, you can’t really tell who’s winning until the very end. I love that. The components are fine (cubes are cubes & the thickness of the player boards/ships is good although I’m not a fan of the chipboard money). The time of play is about 2-2.5 hours which I thought was fine. I haven’t tried it at 2 players (there’s a dummy player added to the game) but 3 & 4 players was good (I prefer 4 players, just because it makes for a tighter game). In a 3-player game, you block a couple of the trading house spots & the buying/selling boards are flipped over, giving you fewer goods spots.
If you’re a fan of economic games, I would definitely take a look at East India Companies.
9/10
You can find Hutch! online at hutter-trade.com/en or on Facebook at facebook.com/HUCHSpiele. R&R Games can be found at rnrgames.com or facebook.com/RnRGames.
