Puerto Rico does not have dice. So, you don't win or lose due to luck. You win because your strategies are good. Not only that, your strategies need to take the player dynamics into account. A very intelligent game.
How to play this game?
My first Puerto Rico was with Totof, Antoine, Alex and Cedric. They spent 10 min to instruct me of the game rules.
Each player will be assigned a game board. There are building and crop spaces on the board. At the beginning, all spaces are available. No dice involved. At each turn, all players need to take a role and action. Some roles and actions help players fill the spaces while others help players gain money. Don't think you just need to fill out all the spaces as quick as possible. You need to fulfill spaces strategically (not just fast). The goal of this game is to accumulate victory points as many as possible. Players gain victory points by actions.
Resources (crops):
There are five resources: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco. Players must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors
Roles:
Each turn, players can choose roles. No roles can be chosen twice. Some roles are played by all players while others are just played once.
1. Settler:
Each player can select a plantation and this new plantations will be revealed. The drawing of plantations is the only random element of the game. Remember, no dice involved.
2. Builder:
Players may buy one building with doubloons (money).
3. Mayor:
Players receive colonists to operate plantations, quarries, and buildings. The first person to play this role gains an extra colonist.
4. Craftsman:
Operated plantations and production buildings started producing goods.
5. Trader:
Players can sell goods to the trading house for doubloons.
6. Captain:
Players can load goods onto the ships for victory points. Loading continues in order until no one can make further shipments. The person who loads the most gains extra victory points.
7. Prospector:
No action. Just receives one free doubloon.
Game mechanism:
The game has three steps: choose a role; take the action appropriate to that role (the player who chooses the role first gets a small additional privilege); gain victory points. Players get victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for operating "large buildings".
The fun is that no one knows other players' shipping points. So you behave like a spy. You try to peek. To tell you the truth, I disliked this game the first time I played it. I was so doomed at that time since I was the only one who did not know how to play. I recall Totof was the main reason of this mess. He was sitting on my right so he always took the action before me. The game mechanism was subtle and you could not bluff or choose roles arbitrarily. You need to think before taking any action. I started knowing the beauty of this game when I tried it second time. It is a very intelligent game.
