Harbor vs. Union Hall

[Carpathiana]

Could somebody please clarify how the Harbor and the Union Hall work and how are they different? Thank you!

[nmego]

The Harbor

Each time you load a good (or more of the same type) on a ship (or a wharf), you get 1 more VP.
Which means it is a pretty good building if you have lots of different goods. Even better than the Wharf sometimes.

For example, if you have 3 Indigo, 2 Tobacco and 1 Sugar and managed to load all of them.

You get 3 (+1 for Harbor bonus) + 2 (+1 for Harbor bonus) + 1 (+1 for Harbor bonus) which is a total of 9 VP (Contrary to the 6 you'd get if you didn't have a Harbor)

Although, if you find it hard to load your goads on at least two different ships, then you'd better get a Wharf instead.

Union Hall

I'm not that familiar with the expansion, but based on what I read about it on BGG:

Once the shipping phase gets chosen, you automatically get 1 VP for each pair of same goods you have.
For example, if you have 4 Indigo, 6 Tobacco and 8 Coffee, you get 2 + 3 + 4 = 9 VP (Even if you don't ship anything!)

That makes it REALLY powerful with a warehouse, some people even complain of it being overpowered.

Here's another example, that illustrates the Union Hall, quoted from BGG:

So I won the game last night by a long shot - I combined the large warehouse with the union hall, and since the fools allowed me to claim 4 indigo and 6 corn (!), even though they kept screwing me in the shipping phase, I had accumulated 10 indigo and 8 corn - so I was still getting 9 VPs even without shipping. I argued that since the Union Hall says absolutely nothing about being used once (i.e. goods could be stored and then earn VPs again in the next shipping phase), or about shipping as a must, my friends had to lay off.