Puerto Rico (board game)

German Games Award 2002: 1st place Game of the Year 2002: Games Hit ( Games for experts) Essen spring 2002 Game of the Year 2002: Nominations List Gamers Choice Awards 2003: Multiplayer winner Dutch Games Award 2003: Winners International Gamers Award 2003: Winners Japan Boardgame Prize 2003: Best Advanced Game As d' Or - Jeu de l' Année 2006: nominated

Puerto Rico is a strategy board game for 3-5 players from the game designer Andreas Seyfarth, which was released by Ravensburger Label alea 2002. 2014, the game with a new design and two expansion modules from Ravensburger has been reissued. The game theme is the economic development of a Caribbean island. The players put up plantations, build buildings, produce goods, sell and ship them.

In addition to the acquired German game prize as well as many other awards, the game is partially performed in major player polls for the best gambling on slot 1 or since 2008 at No. 2 behind Agricola.

After publishing data to 2011 more than 250,000 games were sold worldwide.

Game material

Puerto Rico is equipped with numerous accessories, including in particular wood game pieces and Pappkärtchen.

Back story

The game puts players in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, the easternmost island of the Greater Antilles. After Christopher Columbus discovered the island in 1493, the island experienced half a century of its first economic boom. Each player assumes various roles, he builds his town of San Juan from, brings settlers on the island, creates plantations for the production of corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco and coffee, sold and eventually shipped the goods produced in the old world.

Game play

Each player has its own game plan on which you can build plantations and buildings. Plantations producing raw materials together with production buildings. Other buildings can bring several advantages to the player. The game material used varies with the number of players.

The game is played in several rounds. In each round, the starting player moves, this gets to choose the first one of the following actions, then all players consecutively run (except for the gold prospectors ). In this case, the active player always has an advantage ( for example, he gets more money when selling ).

• The builder makes it possible to construct a building for Gelddublonen.
• With the settlers one must assume a new plantation from the display of randomly uncovered plantations.
• The Mayor brings new colonists into play. Only occupied plantations produce, and only when a building is occupied, you can use its advantage.
• By the overseer the goods come into play. Each plantation with associated production facility produces a product if both the plantation and the production building is occupied by a colonist.
• By the merchant can sell goods for money. It accepts up to four products, but no two same goods.
• The captain will force all players to load the ships. This one sort of goods must always be fully loaded, any ship can only absorb a sort of goods and has a limited capacity. For each product, you get a victory point, not goods loaded goods may be lost.
• The prospector brings only the active player a Gelddublone.

From be read one of the actions, since there is always more than other players, not chosen few. This comes at the end of the round depending on a Gelddublone, so they are more attractive in the following rounds. The game ends when enough colonists can no longer be placed on the ship, all victory points were distributed or a player has his own city fully assembled with twelve buildings. The winner is the player with the most victory points at the end of the game.

The buildings allow players Advantages of actions, as, for example, with a shipyard own ship in the Captain Action can be used. Since (almost) all types of buildings are only a limited number, they influence the strategy significantly.

Puerto Rico is a tactical trading and building game in which it is no random component to the available range of plantations. In each round, you have the problem that you would like to choose more of the actions to further advance its plantations. It requires advance planning in order to properly build his plantation and his goods for sale properly. But despite all the planning, it comes through the action choice of the players repeatedly surprises, what compels one to rethink its strategy.

Extensions and variants

Variant for two players

Even if the game is playable only from three players according to the manual, there is an official game guide the publishing house, which makes the game playable for two players. In drawing up the rules emphasis was placed on ensuring that for the two-player variant a new game material is necessary, the original rules are largely retained and the conversion not too serious fails. The changes consist mainly of a game adaptation of the material used, as many game pieces and cards are set aside just before the game.

New buildings

The Ravensburger offers on the alea website for the game on a three-page instructions and illustrations of new buildings. The fourteen new buildings give players even more strategic options. The new buildings were temporarily settled in the print edition of spielbox as a side dish. In 2002 alea raffled in a contest among all senders of building proposals five autographed by the author games. Furthermore, it is possible to create using Building generator of alea, own violet building. After you have entered the desired name, costs, victory points and description, this created in PDF format a printable graphic of the building.

Alea treasure chest

The Ravensburger published in 2009 under the alea treasure chest a major expansion for Puerto Rico. As an extension I: The new buildings are published in the journal spielbox building tiles, now included in printed form, as well as eight completely new types of buildings. The nobles more types of people into play: In addition, under the title II expansion came.

Anniversary Edition

At the Essen Game Fair International Game Day 2011 is a limited edition on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the board game published. Next revised, higher quality material This game contains ( metal coins, more colonists and goods cubes, stronger cardboard) and the two extensions, the new building and the nobles and the rules for variant for 2 players.

San Juan

A thematically similar and ajar in individual mechanisms to Puerto Rico game, the card game San Juan appeared in 2004. It is also by Andreas Seyfarth and is less complex than Puerto Rico.

Development

Puerto Rico became public for the first time in 2001 presented at the International match days as a prototype before it came on the market a year later. The game development lasted compared to other board games, due to the high complexity of the game a long time and " only the tests of Puerto Rico have probably swallowed more time than the entire development of Royal Turf with all the trimmings. " The graphics are by Franz Vohwinkel which has been illustrated more than 200 different board and card games. He created the graphics for the card game offshoot San Juan.

Criticism

In addition to the numerous awards and always good finishes at major player polls Puerto Rico also cut into many independent online games reviews very well.

Criticism is at times the "lack of player interaction ." So it was often hard to get hold a leading player in victory.

The author himself sees Puerto Rico in terms of the design as his best game, but playing technique he prefers the shorter lasting card game San Juan.

Computer game

In 2006 published bhv software a Windows PC version, which was developed by Dartmoor Softworks. This 1:1 conversion of the game offers the player a choice of classic board view or 3D mode. In addition, the game includes 24 new buildings and is playable both against computer opponents, as well as in multiplayer mode against other people. Alea, Ravensburger and author Andreas Seyfarth and Stefan Brück were actively involved in the PC implementation.

Once on the board game world it was long possible to play the game online against other players, this offer was discontinued in 2007, after Ravensburger has transferred the rights to the electronic conversion to Microsoft. To date, it is still unclear whether Microsoft is developing a video game adaptation. Since 31 January 2010, the game is playable again in the board game world.

Since 2011 Ravensburger sells developed by Codito Development realization of the game for the Apple iPad.