F@#$ Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

How the hell have I gone 6 months without reviewing Puerto Rico?



Plot:  colonize Puerto Rico building up your plantations.


Goal:  Its a game about victory points.  You get VP's by shipping goods and purchasing buildings.   Special end game buildings are expensive, but are worth lots of victory points.

Mechanics:  Lengthy rules here

Pick a role.  First person to pick, the 'governor' rotates from player to player, turn order is predictable but not always the same.  The person that picks a role gets a bonus, but everyone may get a chance to participate.  No one is guaranteed participation, but multiple people may go on the role selectors turn.

 
Quick roles here.

Settler - grab a plantation, the picker may get a quarry instead.
Mayor - get guys.  Picker gets an extra guy.
Builder - buy buildings if you can.  Picker spends one less.
Trader - sell goods to the auction house.  Picker gets +1 money
Captain - everyone ships goods for victory points.  Picker gets +1 VP for the first good he ships.
Craftsman - everyone gets goods.  Craftsman gets an extra one.
Prospector - there are two of these in 5 player.  Sole role that ONLY the picker participates in.  Get 1 money.

After all players have picked a role, the remainder are bribed +1 money as an incentive.  It is possible to get quite a bit of money from bribed roles.


The plantations.  There are 5 plantations worth 0-4 in trade value.  In ascending order, corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco and coffee.  Corn is special that it needs no production building.  Or you can possibly get a quarry.  A Quarry drops the price of buildings.



The buildings.  There are 2 types of buildings, production or violet.  Production buildings are paired up with plantations, both need to be manned when craftsmen hits to make goods.  Violet buildings provide some kind of rules exception, like more money with trades or more victory points when you ship.



Game Play:  Game play is slow.  There are quite a lot permutations and variables to figure.  It is a deep game though, there's a lot of guessing what your opponents would do and trying to thwart their moves.

Review:  Ten years ago I found this game revolutionary.  The whole role rotation thing, the bribing of unpopular roles, the player interactions was fantastic.  Unfortunately, this is another game with really good computer implementation.   I played it lots via computer, and it goes a whole lot faster.   We haven't played this face to face in years.

Tips:

* be careful when picking mayor and craftsman.  Those are the most advantageous for the players who did not pick that role and the extra guy or extra good are often not worth it.

* defensive captain.  Use captain to thwart trading especially if you don't have the high value goods.

* the winner is most often the player who gets the most and/or best synergy with the 5 end game buildings.  It's not a lock though, a shipping VP win is still very possible.  You can find the void.