Indonesia (game)

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Indonesia
Game data
author Jeroen Doumen, Joris Wiersinga
graphic Jeroen Kesselaar, Ynze Moedt
publishing company Splotter Spellen
Publishing year 2005
Art Economic simulation
Teammates 2 to 5
Duration 180 to 240 minutes
Age 14 years and older

Awards

Indonesia is a board game by the Dutch game authors Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga, which was published in 2005 by Splotter Spellen . Each player takes on the role of an entrepreneur who founds early industrial companies in Indonesia and tries to make the most money by selling his products in cities and by merging with other players' companies. The game can be played by two to five players; a minimum of three players is recommended. The playing time is about three to four hours. Indonesia was nominated for the 2006 International Gamers Award .

Theme and equipment

Indonesia is a board game in which you set up manufacturing companies such as rice, spice, fast food, rubber and oil companies and sell the goods they produce in the cities in order to make money. For this you need transport companies that can also be founded by the players and earn money by transporting the goods. The main feature of the interaction between the players is the possibility of merging their companies with those of their fellow players in order to acquire more profitable companies. The game is divided into three epochs, with new cities appearing and new companies being founded in each epoch. It ends when all the necessary companies have been founded in the last epoch; The winner of the game is whoever has earned the most money.

The game material is largely language-neutral, the rules of the game are in German and English. The game also consists of:

  • 1 game board
  • 5 game aids
  • 30 wooden markers, six in each of the five player colors
  • 6 sets of ship tokens, five in player colors and one neutral
  • 23 city markers, in three different colors
  • 24 deeds of ownership for companies
  • 15 city building cards
  • numerous commodity markers made of wood and cardboard
  • Play money

Style of play

Game setup

The board shows Indonesia, which is divided into several provinces, which in turn are divided into several regions. On the edge of the field is a development table with five points. The game is divided into three epochs, in each epoch new cities are placed in the regions and new companies are available. Each epoch is also divided into years, with each year corresponding to one game round. In each game round, the players in turn play seven phases.

At the beginning, the title deeds for companies of the first epoch are displayed next to the respective region in which the company can be opened. After each player has received a game aid, 100 rupees and three city building cards, one for each of the three epochs, the game begins by drawing lots for the starting order and then each player in one of the three possible provinces on his city building card for a city of the first level founds.

Game action

The gameplay of each era (epoch) is divided into several years, which in turn are divided into seven phases. The seven phases are as follows:

1. New era

At the beginning of each game round it is checked whether a new era has started. If in this phase either all ownership cards of the companies on the board are gone because they were founded by the players, or only ownership cards of one type of company, i.e. only rice companies, are left on the board, the remaining ones are removed from the game and the Next Era Property Cards laid out on the board according to the rules. In addition, each player then founds a new city with the help of his city building card for the new era. If there are still possession cards from at least two different types of company on the board, nothing happens in this round.

2. Bid for order of play

The players bid in the order of the last game round to determine the next game order. No player is allowed to subsequently increase a bid that has already been made, so that the last player in the last round always knows what amount he would have to bid to be first in the next round. Anyone who developed the "Turn Order Bid" field in the fifth phase must multiply their bid by the factor. It is also important that the money offered is paid, but is only taken from the player's liquidity, he no longer has access to it for the rest of the game, and the money is still added to the final account.

3. Mergers

In the third phase, each of the players has the opportunity to initiate mergers between two companies, provided that they have also developed the corresponding field in the fifth phase. It is not necessary to own one of the two companies, each player can take part in the auction as long as he still has space (slots) for another company. As a result of a merger, a company is created whose ownership cards are placed on top of one another and henceforth counts as one company. It is important, however, that the resulting company corresponds at most to the "Mergers" value that can be seen on the research table on the board.

As a result of the merger of rice and spice companies possible from era two onwards, Siap-Faji companies (fast food companies) can also arise whose profits are higher. This is the only way companies can merge two different types, otherwise only two of the same company can ever merge.

4. New acquisitions

In this phase the players can choose one of the companies on the board. The only condition is that they still have space for it. The space for companies is determined by the "Slots" field, which can also be developed in phase five and can be read in the development table. Players can take turns starting companies as long as these slots have free or all have passed. In the case of a new acquisition, the company's property card is placed in front of a player and a cardboard marker of the company's type is placed in a free space in the associated region.

5. Research and Development

In the fifth phase each player may increase one point on his development table. You can choose from:

  • Slots: The number of companies that can be run by one player at the same time.
  • Mergers: The number of ownership cards a company can have after the player initiates a merger.
  • Hull Player: The number of goods that each ship in a transport company is allowed to carry for each manufacturing company until its capacity is exhausted.
  • Expansion: The maximum growth a company can have in the operational phase
  • Turn Order Bid: The multiplier of the bid for the order of play.
6. Business operations

In this phase, shipping companies can only grow up to the maximum size indicated on the property card by placing a ship on each sea space to show the company's possible route.

Production companies produce a commodity of the respective variety for each field on which the plantation extends. The owner of the business must, if he can, sell all of his goods. For this he needs a shipping company that can reach a field on his plantation and connect a field with a city. The owner of the production company receives the amount of money for his goods from the bank and has to pay the owner of the shipping company to use his transport routes. Since every city only buys a limited amount of goods, the transport routes can be quite long, which is why it is also possible to lose money. Every company that was able to sell all of its goods at the end of this phase then grows by the "Expansion" value of the owning player, which means that he places a corresponding number of cardboard markers on adjacent spaces.

7. City growth

At the beginning each city consists of a yellow glass block and can only accept one product of each currently available type. If the city was able to get all the goods it needs in the previous phase, it grows to the next largest city in this phase. A yellow city grows into a green one and needs two goods in the next round, the green one in turn grows into a red one and then needs three goods of each type. There are no bigger cities.

Playing

If in the third era either all available companies are founded and their property cards are removed from the board or only property cards of one type remain, the game ends immediately. The player with the most total cash wins the game, counting the money that was set aside when bidding for turn order. The earnings of the last round are doubled, but the values ​​of the companies have no influence. The winner is whoever could earn the most money.

Game development and review

The game Indonesia was developed by the Dutch game designer duo Jeroen Doumen and Joris Wiersinga and published in 2005 by their own publishing house Splotter Spellen . After the first edition was sold, the game was reissued in 2006 in a slightly revised edition. The third reprint of the game followed in 2016.

In the first edition there were only cardboard markers, which both represented the size of the company on the game board and were printed differently on the back, thus representing the goods being transported. In the second edition, wooden markers were added to the game, but they caused confusion. These were originally intended to show the size of the companies in the fields on the game board, but are far too large for this purpose. Only when you swap these with the cardboard markers that are also included with the second edition does the game make sense to play again. The game received consistently good reviews, the strategic depth of the game and the possibilities for interaction were often positively highlighted, as was the design of the game board.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ muwins.ch: Indonesia: A ship will come (Review)
  2. ↑ Holgs Spieleteufel: Indonesia
  3. ↑ H @ all9000 Review / Critique: Indonesia

Web links