Puerto Rico (board game)

Infobox_Game
subject_name=Puerto Rico
image_link=
image_caption= Initial setup for a four-player game of "Puerto Rico"
designer=Andreas Seyfarth
publisher=Alea
Rio Grande Games
players=2 to 5
ages= 12 and up
setup_time= 5–10 minutes
playing_time= 60–120 minutes
complexity=Medium
strategy=High
random_chance=Low
skills=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.cite web
url=http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9866.phtml
title= Review of Puerto Rico
last=Appelcline
first=Shannon
date=2003-11-19
publisher=RPGnet
accessdate=2008-08-01] Players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico during the age of Caribbean ascendancy.citation
contribution=Puerto Rico
last=Wham
first=Tom
author-link=Tom Wham
title=Hobby Games: The 100 Best
editor-first=James
editor-last=Lowder
editor-link=James Lowder
publisher=Green Ronin Publishing
year=2007
isbn=978-1-932442-96-0
pages=251-253] 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 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.

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:
# There are not enough colonists remaining to replenish the colony ships.
# The supply of victory points is exhausted.
# 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.

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."

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.

trategy

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.

One of the strong point of Puerto Rico's game design is that it does not have any one right way to play the game.

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).

Awards and rankings

* Deutscher Spiele Preis, 2002
* Essen Feather, 2002
* International Gamers Award (General strategy, Multiplayer Category), 2003
* Nominee for the Spiel des Jahres, 2002
* As of January 2007, ranked number 1 in Internet Top 100 Games List
* As of August 2008, ranked number 1 at BoardGameGeek
* On 08/18/2008 became the number 2 ranked game after 5+ years in the number 1 position of the rankings on BoardGameGeek.

References

External links

* [http://www.aleaspiele.de/Pages/A7/ Alea] 's home page for the game de icon
*
* [http://www.boardgameswithscott.com/?p=80 Video review and rules explanation] by Board Games with Scott