Barrage is an advanced economic board game for 1 to 4 players, in which each plays the role of the president of a state-owned company fighting for the primacy of the energy production market in the Alpine region. Players buy and use technology to build dams and hydroelectric power plants and connect them through canals. A complete water system allows the use of water stored at the dams for energy production and the implementation of contracts.
Barrage is a unique game - it has surprising, perfectly designed mechanics, extremely strong, but also not obvious interaction between players, in which our successes can harm as much as help opponents, and a beautiful graphic design, as well as a close connection between mechanics and the subject matter, in which the smallest detail was taken care of.
At the beginning of the game, each player chooses for himself the board of the company, his executive director and the initial contract - their goals and skills are asymmetrical. The game lasts five rounds and takes place on a board showing a map of a part of the Alps divided into 3 areas: mountains, hills and plains. In each area there are water reservoirs and fields on which players can build their structures: dams, canals and power plants.
Water is the most valuable resource in the game - undisturbed by the structures flows down the rivers connecting the reservoirs. Players do not own the water, but try to control it by building dams that accumulate it in tanks and redirecting it through channels to their power plants to generate energy and fulfill lucrative contracts. The volume of production is influenced by the amount of water retained by the dam (depending on the water supply and the height of the dam) and the capacity of the channel leading to the power plant.
In each of the five rounds, players successively send their engineers to the action fields on the main board or their boards.
- The construction action allows you to build a structure on the board - the player places a certain number of machines (concrete mixers and excavators) and the right technology tile on his construction wheel and rotates the wheel by 1 segment - these resources are blocked until the Wheel makes a full rotation, and then places the structure on the map.
- The action in the turbine station starts production - the player moves drops of water from the selected tank through a channel to his power plant, which generates energy. If the production volume meets the requirements of the contract, the player can additionally execute the contract.
- Water management action allows you to place new water droplets at the source on the map.
- In the bank, players obtain new loans to finance investments.
- The action in the workshop allows the construction wheel to rotate by additional segments, which accelerates access to locked machines and technologies in connection with previous investments.
- You can buy new machines from the machine supplier, and new high-tech tiles (for use on the construction wheel) at the patent office.
- In the sales department, players acquire new private contracts.
The choice of actions requires skillful planning - only the construction action is available on the individual board of the company, all other shares are on a common board and players compete with each other for the right to use them.
At the end of each round, there is a water runoff phase, during which the water collected at the source flows down the map in rivers. If it encounters an unfilled tank with a dam, it stops. In the next round, players will be able to use it to produce energy. The game ends after completing the 5th round. Victory Points come from many sources: energy production, goal completion, bonuses at the end of each round, completed Contracts and advanced technologies used.