Barrage game (Polish edition)

Barrage is an advanced economic board game for 1 to 4 players, where each plays the role of a state company president competing for dominance in the energy production market in the Alpine region. Players buy and use technology to build dams and hydroelectric plants and connect them with canals. The complete water system allows using water stored behind dams to generate energy and fulfill contracts.

Barrage is a unique game – it features a surprising, perfectly designed mechanic, very strong but subtle player interaction where our successes can harm or help opponents equally, beautiful graphic design, and a close thematic integration with attention to every detail.

At the start, each player chooses a company board, their executive director, and an initial contract – their goals and skills are asymmetric. The game lasts five rounds on a board depicting part of the Alps divided into three areas: mountains, hills, and plains. Each area has reservoirs and fields where players can build dams, canals, and power plants.

Water is the most valuable resource – it flows down rivers connecting reservoirs unless blocked by constructions. Players do not own the water but try to control it by building dams that store water and redirecting it via canals to their power plants to generate energy and fulfill lucrative contracts. Production depends on the amount of water held by the dam (based on water supply and dam height) and the canal capacity leading to the power plant.

In each round, players send engineers to action spaces on the main board or their boards:
Build action allows constructing on the board – placing a specified number of machines (concrete mixers and excavators) and the appropriate technology tile on their build wheel and rotating the wheel by one segment – these resources are locked until the wheel completes a full rotation, then the construction is placed on the map.
Turbine station action starts production – moving water droplets from a reservoir through a canal to their power plant, generating energy. If production meets contract requirements, the player can fulfill the contract.
Water management action places new water droplets at sources on the map.
Bank action obtains new credits to finance investments.
Workshop action rotates the build wheel additional segments, speeding access to locked machines and technologies from previous investments.
Machine supplier allows buying new machines, and the patent office sells advanced technology tiles (for use on the build wheel).
Trade department obtains new private contracts.
Choosing actions requires skillful planning – only the build action is available on the individual company board; all other actions are on the shared board where players compete for access.

At the end of each round, a water flow phase occurs where water at sources flows down rivers. If it encounters an unfilled reservoir with a dam, it stops. In the next round, players can use it for energy production. The game ends after the fifth round. Victory points come from energy production, goal fulfillment, end-of-round bonuses, completed contracts, and used advanced technologies.