I’m a big fan of board games and I recently picked up Puerto Rico based on several excellent reviews I’ve heard. I haven’t been able to get a group together to play it yet, but it definitely is a winner.
The basic idea is that 3-5 players are each trying to develop a Caribbean colony. The goal of the game is to score the most victory points, which is accomplished mainly by shipping goods off the colony and putting up buildings. Each round consists of each player having an opportunity to pick one role for his turn such as building, bringing in colonists, creating plantations, growing crops, selling goods, shipping, or collecting money. But an interesting aspect of the game is that when one player chooses a role for his turn, all the other players also have an opportunity to do whatever he chose to do. So a player has to make sure whatever action he takes isn’t more favorable to another player. Another facet of the game is that everything in the game exists in only a limited amount, including the victory points. When commodities like land, buildings, colonists, shipping space, etc run out the players have to do without (or in some cases end the game and add up the scores). So players have to establish priorities and decide what they need the most.
Anyway, an interesting game and I’d like to hear what opinions and tips other players might have.
I’ll agree that Puerto Rico is a good game; our weekly game group currently plays it on a more-or-less regular basis. I can’t give you an play tips since I can’t seem to do that well in it myself but there are lots of opinions, suggestions, variants and the like over at Boardgame Geek.
If you like Puerto Rico you might want to look at Princes of Florence. The mechanics are similar and the two have a similar “feel” to each other.
I win quite often in PR, but can’t really offer a lot of tips, since the nature of the game is often a “Seat of your pants” thing. Which is weird, because so is Settlers of Catan, and I don’t do too well at it.
My one bit of advice is the midgame. You should usually have the go for one medium-size building pretty soon, rather than diversify with lots of small ones. Some people prefer the Office/Market combo, and that can be powerful if you get it quickly enough. If you do so, go for big buildings as soon as you have the cash flow.
I, however, prefer to go for a tobacco or coffee building. Especially if no one else is able to pick one up right away. The tobacco or coffee you then sell will make up for the cost itself!
The reason I mention one medium-sized building, is that by the time you get enough cash to buy another one, you may very well be getting to the point where others are starting to look at the big buildings! In the 3/4-through phase (where some are looking at big blgs, others are still struggling), IMO the only medium sized buildings that are worth it are the Wharf and Harbor. Not even the Factory will be of much good at this point. Of course one might always opt for a big bldg instead.
Then again, there are always situations where you just throw out the rules and go with something that will work this once. Especially if you can “get one up” on everyone else, for instance if you can produce coffee or tobacco and no one else can, or you can ship and no one else can, etc.
I really like this game, and I really stink at it. I don’t think I’ve ever come close to winning (we usually play 4-5 players). I haven’t figured out a good strategy (read: any strategy).
If all else fails, Skammer, go with the “corn strategy”. It’s real simple; grab all the corn plantations you can, grow as much corn as possible, and ship out as much as you can. The upside is corn is the easiest crop to grow and you’ll be relatively immune to the threat of a forced shipping. The downside is that if you grow nothing but corn, you’ll always be cash poor.