Players: 2-5 Time: 60 minutes Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
The Components
Clippers comes with:
- 1 board
- 14 clipper ships
- 142 trade route segments
- 6 option cards
- 5 departure cards
- 1 grappling hook card
- 60 port markers
- 65 currency chips
- 1 rulebook
- 1 player aid sheet
Board: A four-panel board, depicting the islands of the South Pacific connected by various trade routes, some of them bidirectional, some unidirectional. It's quite blue, but also generally attractive.
The overall design of the board is relatively good, but there are some niggling design issues, the biggest of which is that it can be hard to see a double route (which has space for two parallel routes), when one of the routes is already down. I've seen one player suggest turning the segments sideways until both routes are in place, which is inelegant but works. Overall, an annoyance.
Wood Bits: Fourteen wooden "clipper ships" (which are just wooden rectangles with one side cut to a point) and 142 rectangular trade route segments. These are in five colors, blue, red, green, black, and white, with each color having specific numbers of ships and routes. There are also some purple routes, but no ships. The total count of segments for each color is helpfully labeled on the board, so that you can keep track of the maximum length of each color.
Cards: These are actually small cardboard bits, not traditional cards. Each type displays different information. The option cards list different roles you can take (with decent info on what they do), the departure cards lists where you place 7 port markers at the start of the game (though the lack of any identification of where those places actually are leaves people fumbling for the locations for a long time at setup); and the grappling hook marks first player.
These are all plain, but elegant, and printed on linen-textured cardboard.
Port Markers: These are teeny circular markers which are used to mark which islands you've built ports on. Pretty much no one likes the fact that they're really, really small (and sure to get lost some time soon), but more annoying is the fact that they mark the players with iconic versions of several nations' flags, which is not nearly as intuitive to pick out on a board as a color would be.
These are the only actually disappointing component in the box.
Currency Chips: Plastic chips in large and small sizes to mark two different denominations.
Rules: An 8-page full color rulebook, with a nice rules summary at the end, plus a second rules summary in the form on a one-page cardstock sheet. The various summaries are a bit overkill, but still very nice, and great to refresh yourself on the rules.
Overall, Clippers has good quality pieces with good beauty and fair utility. The problems I've mentioned with the ports and the double trade-routes aren't huge, but they're noticable in a game. I've thus limitd the game to a high "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of Clippers is to pick the best ports and make them even more valuable by guiding the ship lines to them.
Setup: Each player selects a departure card which reveals his nationality and where he places his first 7 ports. He then takes the 12 ports in that nationality, and places seven on the board. Five go on their own islands, and the last two go on a sixth island.
The blue, red, green, black, and white clipper ships are placed on the board at their designated starting positions.
A random start player is selected and the game begins.
The Islands. The board is a big network which connects together islands with various routes, of length 1 to 3. Each island has two characteristics: a scoring value from 3 to 8; and space for 2 to 4 ports to be placed. In general the less value islands, with less spaces for ports, are to the east, which is where all the trade lines start. The more valuable islands, with more spaces for ports, are to the west; because they're so far from the trade routes, they're much more speculative.
Order of Play: During each round of play the players together participate in the following phases, each in player order:
- Option Selection
- Trade Route Placement
- Trade Route Placement
- Cleanup
Option Selection: During this phase players will (usually) select an option card. There are six total, and each affects the mechanics of the upcoming trade route placement phases. Each option also has a cost, which the player must pay to take the option:
- Three 2x cards, which each double trade route placement and bonuses ($2).
- One 3x card, which triples trade route placement but nulls bonuses ($0).
- One 5x card, which quintuples trade route placement, but only in one phase, and doesn't affect bonuses ($1).
- One port card, which allows moving a port instead of placing trade routes ($4).
Instead of taking an option, a player may place a port on the board. At the start of the game he'll have five left, and there will be many islands that he can place ports on.
Or, if he doesn't take an option and doesn't place a port, he can pass.
New Clipper Ship Purchase. No matter what else he does in this phase a player may also buy a clipper ship related to one of the lines. There are variable numbers of ships for each line: 1 extra for black and green; 2 extra for white and blue; and 3 extra for red. A new clipper ship allows the splitting of a line during the trade route placement phases.
Trade Route Placement: Now there are two phases of trade route placement which each are conducted in player order. Without an option a player places one trade route segment in each phase. With a 2x or a 3x option he can place 1-2 or 1-3 segements each phase. With the 5x option he can place 1-5 segments in either of the phases, but not both.
Route placement is simple. A clipper ship always marks the current end of a line. The player places his segments along the trade route the ship is currently traversing, and then when he gets to an island he can choose which of the directions to head off in. Some trade routes are unidirectional, but most aren't. Some pairs of islands islands have space for two trade routes between them, but some only one.
Any player can place any of the colored trade routes and in fact can split up his placement between a couple of different colors.
As we'll see these routes are placed in order to get the most differently colored trade routes to each of your ports, as that's what scores you points.
It's also notable that the supply of trade route segments for each color is limited, from 18 for black to 32 for red. Trade routes can (and will) end due to lack of additional segments.
American Somoa. There's a special rule for American Somoa, an island near the center of the board. When two differently colored lines reach it, then the purple line can be played out of American Somoa, creating a sixth trading line. There are just 13 purple route segments.
Branching Lines. If a player took a clipper ship he must use it to branch its line. He places the ship at any island the route has already reached (or the starting point) of the line, then branches it off in a new direction by placing one or more trade route segments. In the future players can play to either branch, each of which is now marked by a clipper ship.
Earning Bonuses. Every time a player connects a line to an island for the first time, he receives a bonus: $2 if this was the first route there, $1 if a different line was already there. This may be multiplied by 2x (for the 2x option) or not earned at all (for the 3x option).
Cleanup: The option cards are handed back in and the first-player marker goes clockwise.
Winning the Game: The game ends when all the route segments are used up, or all the routes are dead-ended (whether additional clipper ships could have been purchased to branch the line or not).
The ports generate most of the victory points. For each island a player earns: the value of the island x the number of differently colored routes reaching it x the number of ports he has there.
Each $1 is also worth one point.
The player with the most points wins.
Relationships to Other Games
Clippers is a connection game that's somewhat uniquely about steering shared lines to preferred destinations. Most connections don't have joint control of the routes, though Metro is an example of a fairly different sort of game where you can at least affect the twists and turns of someone else's routes.
Alan Moon likes to make railroad games, and that's exxactly what this really is. In fact it was released in slightly different forms as Santa Fe and Santa Fe Rails. Other railroad games that Alan Moon has designed include Ticket to Ride and Union Pacific.
The Gameplay
Clippers is a pretty analytical, abstract game. There's a lot of thoughtfulness in the game, and some logistical comparison of costs and returns.
The decision of whether to take an option or place a port is a really difficult one (and difficult decisions are usually a plus for games). On the one hand you might be able to bring good value to your current ports with clever plays of trade routes, but on the other hand you can get new ports out, possibly ones that are already scoring points.
Finally, the strategy and tactics are both good in the game. Strategically you can try and gradually steers lines in the direction of the ports, while tactically you can often make sudden moves using the higher valued options that push lines straight home before anyone can stop you.
I already mentioned that the shared control of the lines was fairly unique. It's also pretty neat in play.
On the downside, Clippers has a lot of rough edges, and almost feels like an indie game despite its release from Euro Games (and to be fair it was released in an indie form previously, but then many of Moon's early games were). But in any case there's lots of special cases (like the purple ship line, the somewhat arkward rules for branching lines, and the special port option which is unlike anything else). In addition the breakdown of rounds into phases is awkward both in description and in play, and the scoring mechanism of the end, where you have to add together up to 12 multiplications (for each player), is tiresome.
On the whole Clippers is a good game despite those rough edges, and I've thus given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Alan Moon's Clippers is a combination of logistics and connectivity, with the quirk of a very unique "shared rail" system where multiple players all control where six shared routes are going. There are some rough edges that will turn off casual players, but for more serious players, Clippers is delightfully intelligent.
