The box cover of Puerto Rico |
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Designer(s) | Andreas Seyfarth |
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Publisher(s) | Alea Rio Grande Games Κάισσα Devir |
Players | 3 to 5 |
Age range | 12 and up |
Setup time | 5–10 minutes |
Playing time | 90–150 minutes |
Random chance | Very Low |
Skill(s) required | Economic management, Strategic thought |
Puerto Rico is a German board game designed by Andreas Seyfarth, and published in 2002 by Alea in German, by Rio Grande Games in English and by Κάισσα in Greek.[1] Players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy.[2] The aim of the game is to amass victory points by shipping goods to the Old World or by constructing buildings.[2]
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 that can be swapped in for or used along with 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. Puerto Rico is one of the highest rated games on BoardGameGeek.
Contents |
Each player uses a separate small board with spaces for city buildings, plantations, and resources. Three ships, a trading house, and a supply of resources and doubloons are shared between the players.
The resource cycle of the game is that players grow crops which they exchange for points or doubloons. Doubloons 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.
During each round, players take turns selecting a role card from those on the table (such as "Trader" or "Builder"). When a role is chosen, every player gets to take the action appropriate to that role. The player that selected the role also receives a small privilege for doing so - for example, choosing the "Builder" role allows all players to construct a building, but the player who chose the role may do so at a discount on that turn. 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 encourages players to make use of all the roles throughout a typical course of a game.
The right to start a round, to choose roles within a round, and to take the first action for the chosen role all pass to the left. Puerto Rico uses a variable phase order mechanic, where a "governor" token is passed clockwise to the next player at the conclusion of a turn. This results in a change of the previous turn's role selection order, so that the player who was governor and had first role choice will have last role choice in the upcoming turn. All other players advance their role choice by one position earlier.
Players earn victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for manned "large buildings." Each player's accumulated shipping chips are kept face down and come in denominations of one or five. This prevents other players from being able to determine the exact score of another player. Goods and doubloons are placed in clear view of other players and the totals of each can always be requested by a player. As the game enters its later stages, the unknown quantity of shipping tokens and its denominations require players to consider their options before choosing a role that can end the game.
The game ends if:[1]
In each case, players finish the current round before the game ends.
A player's total score is calculated by adding the number on each of their victory chips, plus the building value of all of their buildings. Manned large buildings award bonus points based on various game conditions (such as the Fortress, which gives one victory point for every three colonists on the player board, or the City Hall, which awards a point for for every small or large violet building owned by the player).
The winner is the player with the most victory points. In the event of a tie, the player with the most total goods plus doubloons is given the tie-breaker. If a tie still exists between players, those players tie.
There are two primary strategies used in Puerto Rico, corresponding to the two means of earning victory 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, doubloons are harder to acquire. The other route is producing smaller cash crops (tobacco and coffee) and buying more buildings. Expensive buildings can give a player 3-4 victory points, but fewer 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.
A strong point of Puerto Rico's game design is that it has multiple possible winning strategies.[1]
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 was under development, but it was later announced that it was canceled. Instead, an expansion is included in the Alea 10th anniversary 'treasure chest' released in 2009, which contains expansions for a number of different Alea games. The Puerto Rico expansions included consist of the original expansion as well as a small expansion of several new buildings and red 'nobleman' colonists, which interact with the new buildings. An English language translation was released at the end of 2009 by Rio Grande Games.
An iPad version was launched in August, 2011.[3]
The following changes may be made to the official rules in order to create a more balanced game and one which gives each player an equal chance of winning:
Preceded by Carcassonne |
Deutscher Spiele Preis 2002 |
Succeeded by Amun-Re |