 A single player's plantation tokens. |
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| Designer | Andreas Seyfarth |
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| Publisher | Alea Rio Grande Games |
| Players | 3 to 5 |
| Age range | 12 and up |
| Setup time | 5–10 minutes |
| Playing time | 90–150 minutes |
| Random chance | Very 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.[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, mainly 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.
Contents |
Gameplay
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 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.
The game has a three-layered turn structure: during each round, every player chooses a role (Captain, Mayor, etc.), 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 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]
- Mayor is selected and there are not enough colonists to refill the colonist ship
- Captain is selected and the last VP chip is given to a player. (Additional chips are to be used once the supply is exhausted)
- Builder is selected and at least one player has built their 12th city space.
In each case, players finish the current round before the game ends. The winner is the player with the most victory points. In the event of a tie, the player with the most goods plus money is given the tie-breaker. If a tie still exists between players, those players tie.
Roles
Starting with the player who has the governor tile, each player must choose a role from among those not yet chosen. All actions happen first with the chooser, and then proceed clockwise until the action phase concludes. Actions that are mandatory are phrased with "must" while optional actions or privileges use "may" in their descriptions.[1] The player who chooses a role is awarded an optional privilege if elected and available.
| Role | Action | Privilege | Conclusion | Relevant Buildings | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Settler | Starting with the chooser, each player may select a plantation if they have plantation space available. | The chooser may opt to select a quarry instead of a plantation, as long as quarries remain in the supply. | All plantations except quarries not selected are discarded. From the supply, plantations equal to one plus the number of players are revealed. If the supply is exhausted, all discarded plantations are reshuffled into the supply. |
A manned "Hacienda" allows a player to optionally select an additional unrevealed plantation from the supply.
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The revealing of plantations is the only random element of the game other than seating arrangement.
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| Builder | Starting with the chooser, each player may buy one building paying with doubloons and/or manned quarries by proxy. | The chooser pays one doubloon less. | Game Terminating Condition: If a 12th city space becomes occupied, the game will end once all players have selected roles. | A manned "University" allows a player to optionally man a building that they purchase using a single colonist from the supply if not exhausted. | Players can not purchase a duplicate building of the type they already own. If the cost of a building to a player becomes less than zero doubloons, the cost of a building shall be treated as zero doubloons. Players may not build beyond their 12th city space. |
| Mayor | Starting with the chooser, players receive a colonist from the colonist ship in clockwise order until the ship is empty. After which every colonist controlled by the player can be rearranged to and from plantations, quarries, and buildings. | The chooser receives an extra colonist from the supply if the supply is not depleted. | After all colonists have been rearranged, the colonist ship is refilled. The number of colonists refilled from the supply is equal to the number of players or the number of unoccupied colonist locations on buildings, whichever is greater. Game Terminating Condition: If the supply cannot refill the colonist ship or is depleted of colonists, the game will end once all players have selected roles. |
A large building ( building that occupies two city spaces ), if manned at the conclusion of points generates victory points ( not chips ) for the player.
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If players have more colonists than places to play them, they must house their additional colonists in San Juan until they can be moved. |
| Craftsman | Starting with the chooser, plantations and production buildings may produce goods. | If supplies remain after all players have produced goods, the chooser may produce one extra good. The extra good produced by the chooser must be of a type that they produced during the Craftsman Role. |
Goods produced are placed on the compass portion of each player's board. | A manned "Factory" has a player receive doubloons based on the number of unique good types produced by themself.
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With the exception of corn, all manned plantations require an accompanied manned production building to produce a good.
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| Trader | Starting with the chooser, players may sell one good for doubloons not already present at the trading house for doubloons if space permits. | The chooser gains one extra doubloon if they make a trade. | If full, the trader house empties, returning its contents to the supply. | A manned "Office" allows a player to trade a good already present at the trading house.
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The trading role ends once all players have traded, passed, or if no empty spaces remain on the trading house. The trading house can accept a non-unique good from players with a manned office if space permits. Players are permitted to sell a good to the trading house that does not result in any doubloons awarded, which is possible with the corn good. |
| Captain | Starting with the chooser, players must load goods onto the ships for victory points. Loading continues in clockwise order indefinitely until no player can make further shipments. A ship can only accept loading if:
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The chooser earns an extra victory point if they make a shipment. | Game Terminating Condition: If the victory chip supply is exhausted, the game will end once all players have selected roles.
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A manned "Harbor" earns an extra victory point on every individual shipment.
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After electing which good they wish to ship, a player must ship as many goods of that type as possible. They cannot ship an individual good on a ship where more than one space exists, as well as choose a smaller empty ship when a larger empty ship would facilitate a larger shipment.
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| Prospector | No action. | The chooser takes one doubloon. | None. | None. | Not used with three players. One prospector role used with four players. Two prospector roles used with five 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.[1] Puerto Rico uses a variable phase order mechanic, such that the governor token is passed clockwise to the next player at the conclusion of a turn. This results in a drastic change of the previous turn's role choosing 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.
Strategy
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, money is 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; however, 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 does not have any one right way to play the game.[1]
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 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 release is expected but has not been formally announced yet.
Awards and rankings
- Deutscher Spiele Preis, Winner. 2002
- Essen Feather, Winner. 2002
- Spiel des Jahres, Nominee. 2002
- International Gamers Award (General strategy, Multiplayer Category), Winner. 2003
- BoardGameGeek, Number #1 Rated Game. 2003 - August 17, 2008
- BoardGameGeek, Number #2 Rated Game. August 18, 2008 - present
References
- ^ a b c d e Appelcline, Shannon (2003-11-19). "Review of Puerto Rico". RPGnet. http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9866.phtml. Retrieved 2008-08-01.
- ^ a b Wham, Tom (2007), "Puerto Rico", in Lowder, James, Hobby Games: The 100 Best, Green Ronin Publishing, pp. 251–253, ISBN 978-1-932442-96-0
External links
- Alea's home page for the game (German)
- An unofficial online multiplayer version of Puerto Rico
- Puerto Rico at Rio Grand Games, American Publisher, with PDF download of English language rules
- Puerto Rico and an introduction to playing Puerto Rico at BoardGameGeek
- Video review and rules explanation by Board Games with Scott
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