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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Publisher<\/b>: Alea\/Ravensburger<\/p>\n
Author<\/b>: Andreas Seyfarth<\/p>\n
Tester<\/b>: Aaron Haag, Hans R. Frey<\/p>\n
Game Tested<\/b>: German release, 2002<\/p>\n
Scenario<\/b>: Puerto Rico – the small island of the West Indies is the setting for
\nthis fight for wealth and honor of 3 to 5 players. By building plantations and production
\nplants as well as important support facilities, and by exporting goods, players try to
\naccumulate victory points. Players start with just one little corn field and no
\nbuildings, and face the task of setting up a prosperous production chain of goods ready
\nfor export or local sale in order to generate the money necessary for further
\nexpansion.<\/p>\n
The Game<\/b>: Each player is given his own placemat depicting the town of San Juan
\nwith 12 available spaces for buildings and a settlement area with room for up to 12
\nplantations. A separate board represents the “Bank” for doubloons, the currency
\nof the game, and holds the available buildings. Buildings come in two flavors: there are
\nplants to produce goods from crop (like e.g. the sugar mill) and there are buildings that
\nprovide the player with special abilities (like e.g. a market place which allows the
\nplayer to sell goods already present in the trading house).<\/p>\n
The motor of the game are the “character cards” or “roles” which
\nprovide the players with a means to control the sequence of phases in which the game is
\nplayed. Beginning with the start player (represented by “Governor” card) each
\nplayer selects a character. Different to other games with a number of roles all<\/b>
\nplayers perform the action associated with the selected character. The benefit for the
\nselecting player (besides first choice when performing the action) is the right to make
\nuse of a special “privilege” each character provides. Basically, this mechanism
\nmakes the players determine the sequence of actions performed in a round and is of great
\ntactical importance. Also, there are 3 more character cards in play than there are
\nplayers, making it possible to avoid certain actions in a particular round at all. Once
\nall players have selected their character and hence all have played the actions of all
\ncharacters selected the round ends and the Govenor is handed to the next player not
\nbefore a doubloon each is placed on the 3 character cards that have not been selected in
\nthis round (making them more attractive in the next round).<\/p>\n
The actions and privileges of the character cards are:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At the start of the game the settler and the builder are the most useful characters
\nbecause they are required to build plantations and buildings – both being vital for
\nsuccessful production chains. Plantations come in 5 different types: indigo, sugar, corn,
\ntobacco and coffee, in order of abundance. ![\"Puerto](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen\/puerto.jpg\")
With the exception of corn
\nall other crops require a processing plant in order to generates goods for sale or
\nshipment. Some plants come in two different sizes with the smaller size being available
\nat a lower price. A production chain requires that each plantation used for production as
\nwell as the production plant itself is occupied by colonists.<\/p>\n
While plantations come for free in the Settler phase building need to be paid for and
\nmoney (doubloons) is very scarce in this game. Players start the game with between 2 to 4
\ndoubloons depending on the number of players and buildings cost between 1 and 10
\ndoubloons to construct. One way out of this shortage of money is to place quarries
\ninstead of plantations, as each quarry occupied by a colonist lowers the building price
\nby one doubloon in the Builder phase.<\/p>\n
There are, of course, ways to generate money. The first way is to sell goods to the
\ntrading house. Each commodity may only be present once in the house and the storage
\ncapacity is small as well (4 tokens). If a good can be sold in the Trader phase the money
\na player receives depends on the commodity sold, ranging from zero(!) doubloons for corn
\nto four doubloons for coffee. The second way to receive money is by selecting character
\ncards with doubloons on them. Often at the beginning of a round some cards have two
\ndoubloons on them making them rather attractive to take. Sometimes even a prospector has
\nthis two doubloons bonus because that role has not been chosen since two rounds making it
\nan attractive 3 doubloons deal this round. Anyway, generating money is certainly not an
\neasy task.<\/p>\n
Another very scarce resource of the game are the colonists. No plantation, quarry or
\nbuilding operates or provides special benefits if not occupied by one or more colonists.
\nAs explained before, this is most important in producrion chains. Colonists arrive on the
\ncolonist ship in a varying number depending on the number of players and the number of
\nopen positions in buildings. In the Mayor’s phase all colonists are distributed
\namongst the players in sequence and the players may place these colonists on any position
\nthey have vacant at the time (plus they may redistribute all colonists on their island).
\nMost of the time a player will receive only 1 colonist per round so getting one’s
\nplantations and buildings fully operational takes time.<\/p>\n
The decisive element, however, are victory points. On the one hand they are generated
\nin the captain’s phase by placing goods on available ships. As there are only three
\nships available, each ship has a limited capacity, and each ship may only carry one
\ncommodity at a time, often some goods cannot be placed at all. This can pose a serious
\nproblem as goods must be placed on a ship if possible but goods not placed due to the
\nunavailability of a ship must either be placed in an operational storage building or are
\nlost – a situation to avoid at all cost.<\/p>\n
At the end of the game victory points are also credited for each building a player
\nhas, irrespective of whether it is occupied by a colonist or not. The four
\n“large” buildings (if occupied !) generate extra victory points (the fortress
\nfor example provides 1 extra victory point for every 3 colonists on the players
\nboard).The game end is variable: it occurs at the end of the round where either an
\ninsufficient amount of colonists is available to fully stock the colonist ship or at
\nleast one player has buildings on each of his 12 town fields or when all victory point
\nchips have been distributed.<\/p>\n
Playing Time<\/b>: The game can be explained in 15 minutes and played in about 2
\nhours.<\/p>\n
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