I have been playing a bit of back to back Shem Philips Viking games recently and it has been fun to compare and contrast each game.
Shipwrights of the North Sea (with the Townsfolk expansion)
At its core Shipwrights feels like an engine building game with the focus on strategic drafting and resource management. The Townsfolk expansion adds a little bit of worker placement and generally streamlines the whole game. Previously turns could be wasted due to bad luck, lack of resources or locking the wrong ships/workmen into your tableau.
It also allows you to mitigate some of the "take that" features of the game.
The Townsfolk expansion allows you to mitigate these issues which effectively speeds up the game. I would always recommend playing with it, its free to print and play.
On the downside, Shipwrights does have a lot of maintenance to keep the turns flowing, each turn is a draft and there are tracks and workers to adjust at the end of every turn. I wouldn't go as far as saying it is fiddly but the turns don't flow as easily as Raiders.
Raiders of the North Sea
The word elegant is what comes to mind when I play Raiders. Raiders focuses on strategic worker placement with a twist. Turns flow quickly but apart from your choice of crew all players are doing essentially the same thing.
At the end of the day I think Raiders is the better designed game but Shipwrights has more charm.
I look forward to seeing what the expansion of the Raiders has in store for us.
