Puerto Rico (board game)

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Puerto Rico

Initial setup for a four-player game of Puerto Rico
Designer Andreas Seyfarth
Publisher Alea
Rio Grande Games
Players 2 to 5
Age range 12 and up
Setup time 5–10 minutes
Playing time 60–120 minutes
Random chance Low
Skills required Economic management, Strategic thought

Puerto Rico is a German board game designed by Andreas Seyfarth, and published in 2002 by Alea in German and by Rio Grande Games in English. Players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy. The aim of the game is to amass victory points, mainly by shipping goods to the Old World or by constructing buildings.

Puerto Rico can be played by three to five players, although an official two player variant also exists. There is an official expansion which adds new buildings which can be swapped in for those in the original game. In February 2004, Andreas Seyfarth released a separate card-game called San Juan based on Puerto Rico and published by the same companies.

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

The game consists of several different mechanisms which fit together in a carefully designed manner.

Each player has a separate small board with spaces for city buildings, plantations, and resources, plus a role summary. There is also a central supply of various resources, as well as some shared ships, and a shared trading house.

The resource cycle of the game is that players grow crops which they exchange for points or money. The money can then be used to buy buildings, which allow players to produce more crops or give them other abilities. Buildings and plantations do not work unless they are manned by colonists.

Throughout the game, players take on different roles (Captain, Mayor, etc.). The game has a three-layered turn structure: during each round, every player chooses a different role, and whenever a role is chosen, every player can take the action appropriate to that role (though the player who chose it gets a small additional privilege). The right to start a round, to choose roles within a round, and to take the action for the chosen role, all pass to the left.

Players get victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for manned "large buildings." Each player's accumulated shipping points are kept hidden from the other players. As the game enters its later stages, players may only be able to guess at each other's scores.

The game has several different ending conditions which are calibrated so that no one strategy is dominant. The game ends on the round that any of the following conditions occur:

  1. There are not enough colonists remaining to replenish the colony ships.
  2. The supply of victory points is exhausted.
  3. Any one player builds in all twelve spots in his city.

In each case, players finish the current round before the game ends. The winner is the player with the most victory points: money and goods are only a tie-breaker.

[edit] Roles

Every round, each player must choose a role from among those not yet chosen. All players may then take the action associated with the role; the player who chose the role takes the action first, and also gets an additional small "privilege," e.g. a discount on construction costs when choosing to be a "Builder."

Role Effect Notes
Settler Each player selects a plantation and new plantations are revealed. The drawing of plantations is the only random element of the game other than seating arrangement and choice of first player.
Builder Each player may buy one building, paying with doubloons.
Mayor Players receive colonists to man plantations, quarries, and buildings; they may move colonists they already possess.
Craftsman Manned plantations and production buildings produce goods.
Trader With limitations, each player may sell one good to the trading house for doubloons.
Captain Players must load goods onto the ships for victory points. Loading continues in order until no one can make further shipments.
Prospector No action, one-doubloon privilege. Not used with three players.

Unused roles gain a doubloon bonus at the end of each turn, so the next player who chooses that role gets to keep any doubloon bonus associated with it. This makes it likely that all roles will eventually be chosen.

[edit] Strategy

There are two primary strategies used in Puerto Rico. Since winning the game involves having the most victory points, players can use two main ways to get these points. One route is to go with higher goods production, to send the goods back to the homeland for points. Corn is produced free and indigo has low investment cost. Therefore, these are commonly mass produced. However, money is harder to acquire. The other route is by producing smaller cash crops (tobacco and coffee) and buying more buildings. Expensive buildings can give a player 3-4 victory points; however, less goods are likely to get moved to the homeland. However in filling all the building spaces, a player can finish the game quickly and keep others from getting more shipment victory points.

This is viewed as one of the strong points of Puerto Rico, as it does not have any one right way to play the game.

[edit] Expansion

In January 2004, Alea released an expansion to Puerto Rico. The addition consists of 14 new buildings that may be used alongside or instead of the original 17.

A second expansion is under development, but the release date and title are uncertain, though Rio Grande Games, Puerto Rico's US publisher, says, "[Seyfarth] promises this by October, 2008" (April 25, 2006, Rio Grande Games).

[edit] Awards and rankings

[edit] External links