Panamax Review

A man. A plan. A game about shipping through a canal. Back in 2012, Gil d’Orey designed a light, family game with a historical theme. Thinking the game needed more meat, d’Orey invited Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade to help him develop the game- a decision the gaming world should be thank for because Panamax takes the otherwise overdone and often mundane shipping theme and turns it into something extraordinary.

On the surface, Panamax looks simple enough. It plays over three rounds. Each player takes on the role of a manager of a shipping company. They manage contracts. They load and move cargo. They dabble in the stock market. Players must do this in a way that maximizes the efficiency of their company while paying out the most profits to their personal accounts.

As the manager of a shipping company, each player is responsible for two accounts: the company’s and their own. The company does things like purchase new ships, pay for unshipped cargo and pay out dividends. Personal accounts are used to buy shares in companies and cover any cargo fees that the company can’t. There are also bailout tokens when fees can’t be covered from both accounts; the personal account repays the debt with interest of course. Balancing when to exhaust company funds and when to move them is extremely important. At the end of the game, the only money that matters is the money in your personal account. That’s it.

This isn’t to say the company is completely useless. Each player has a company clipboard where they will place chits from completed contracts and exiting ships. These chits earn players special bonus actions such as performing extra movements, loading more cargo or investing in a company. There are other benefits as well, i.e., moving dice on the action table or manipulating dice on the rail table. Additionally, chits from completed contracts have the potential to earn more personal money when moving military ships. The company may not help you in the end game, but it does help you arrive at a better game end. Probably.

While there are a lot of dice in this game, they are all used very deliberately. White dice are rolled at the beginning of each round and determine the available actions for that round. There are colored dice that represent the cargo each player will be shipping. These dice aren’t rolled and are simply turned to the side of the die that matches the cargo on a chosen contract. If you are looking for chaotic dice action, you won’t find it here.

There are two general actions you can take: you can move cargo, or you can manage cargo. To take an action, you remove a dice from the board. Its location will allow various amounts of movement or cargo actions. The movement side of the board is compulsory; you must use all of the movement. The management side of the board is optional. You can take a contract and unload cargo, you can just take a contract, you can just unload cargo, or you can throw caution to the wind and not do anything.

There are several types of ships, each with their own benefits. Each player has four ships in their fleet. When their ships exit the canal, they are able to either pick a bonus card or receive money to their personal account based on the size of their ship. There are cruise ships that award cruise chit tokens. Military ships don’t accept cargo but earn players personal funds. The San Juan Prospector doubles the value of one dice when it exits the canal and can be applied to all the players on the ship when it does.

Contracts contain 1-3 pieces of cargo that need to be loaded into a given loading zone. Assuming there are ships in the corresponding loading zone, you can place one piece of cargo per ship until you’ve spent your allotted loading actions. Here’s the thing about loading: you can load your cargo onto any available ship. Why would you do this? Because dice that exit the canal earn your company money. Having your dice on someone else’s ship increases the likelihood that more of your cargo will make it through the canal. What’s the other player’s incentive for doing this? The bonus cards and personal money mentioned earlier. But! Loading isn’t as easy as placing cargo on ships because ships will only sail if the total value of the cargo falls within a certain range, so pay attention.

Still don’t think other players will want to move your cargo? Odds are they will have to move it since the water movement is compulsory. That’s not to say they won’t be able to maximize their own movement and leave you behind. Ships can be grouped and/or pushed, which significantly streamlines the movement process. Instead of moving two, two-slot ships twice, they can be grouped and moved as “one” four-slot ship until they hit open water again. If a lock is full or wouldn’t be able to accept an incoming ship, the entering ship would push the existing ships out. Not feeling great about having to move other people’s ships? Don’t worry. You can push them into more expensive areas of the board and leave them there to cry come time to pay cargo fees.

The cooperative-competitiveness is a mechanical thing of beauty. Panamax isn’t without its faults of course. The rules are a bit of a bear, the first round probably takes as long as the last two combined, and the dice can fall off the ships if you’re not careful. I’ll never understand the use of the Martin Wallace money or the inclusion of the financial advisor cards. However, much like the ships the game is named after the exterior may be a bit clunky but the game offers an experience like no other. As far as I’m concerned, Panamax was the most innovative game of 2014.