Playing Puerto Rico involves selecting roles each round to build your island with plantations and buildings, produce goods, ship them for victory points, and manage your colonists.
Ever wanted to experience the thrill of 18th-century Caribbean island development? Then get ready to delve into the captivating world of Puerto Rico! This strategic board game challenges you to become the most successful colonial governor. We’ll guide you on how to play Puerto Rico board game, making it easy to understand and enjoy.
The game revolves around choosing roles each turn, each providing different actions. You’ll be planting crops, constructing buildings, and shipping goods for victory points. Managing your colonists effectively and planning ahead is key for success.
How to Play Puerto Rico Board Game
So, you’re ready to dive into the world of Puerto Rico, huh? Awesome! This board game, designed by Andreas Seyfarth, is a real treat for strategy lovers. It’s not too complicated once you get the hang of it, but it has enough depth to keep you coming back for more. We’ll walk through each step, explaining all the important bits so you can start playing like a pro. Let’s jump in!
Setting Up the Game
Before we even think about planting coffee or building factories, we need to set up the game board. It might look like a lot at first, but we’ll break it down so it’s easy to understand.
The Game Board
The main board is where the action happens. It shows:
- The Island: This part has spaces for different buildings you’ll construct.
- The Supply of Goods: It holds the different resources like corn, indigo, sugar, tobacco, and coffee.
- The Ships: These are where you’ll place your goods to send them to Europe for victory points.
- The Victory Point Track: This shows how many points each player has earned.
Player Boards
Each player gets their own personal board. This board has:
- Spaces for your Plantations: This is where you grow your resources.
- Spaces for your Buildings: Here you place your purchased buildings.
- Your Stored Doubloons: The game’s currency, represented by little wooden discs.
The Resources and Goods
You’ll notice lots of little wooden pieces, like the orange corn, blue indigo, white sugar, brown tobacco, and dark brown coffee. These are your resources. You need them to sell and get victory points. They are stored on the game board and on your plantations.
The Role Cards
These cards are crucial! Each card represents a different job a player can do each round, and they all have different benefits. There are:
- Settler: Lets you take a plantation tile and place it on your board.
- Mayor: Lets you take workers (colonists) from the supply and place them on your plantations or buildings.
- Builder: Allows you to buy a building from the supply.
- Craftsman: Allows you to produce resources from your plantations.
- Trader: Allows you to sell goods on the trading house for doubloons.
- Captain: Allows you to ship goods for victory points.
- Prospector: Gives you one doubloon and nothing more (used as a bonus card).
The Colonists
These are the little white wooden figures that make your farms and factories work! You’ll get them from the central supply.
The Buildings
There are two types of buildings, purple (small) and blue (large). Each building has a specific purpose and gives you different benefits. Some help you produce resources more efficiently, while others provide you with victory points at the end of the game. There are a good variety of buildings, so knowing what to buy and when is part of a good strategy.
Starting Setup
Okay, here’s how you set up at the beginning:
- Place the game board in the center of the table.
- Put all the resources and goods on their designated spaces on the board.
- Shuffle the building tiles and place them face up on their assigned spots.
- Each player takes a player board and a number of doubloons depending on the player order (e.g., the starting player might have 2 doubloons, the next 3, etc.).
- Shuffle the role cards and place them face down on the board.
- Place the colonist figures near the board for all players to access.
Understanding the Game Play
Now that everything is set, we can talk about how to actually play the game. Puerto Rico is played in rounds. Each round consists of these main steps:
Role Selection
The game starts with the Governor (the starting player), who selects a role card. The Governor will not select the role in the last round. Each player, in clockwise order, will then select from the remaining roles, until only the Governor does not select. Once everyone has selected their role, each player will perform the action of that role.
Performing Role Actions
Each player will perform the action for the selected role. Starting with the Governor, each player will perform their selected role, one at a time in clockwise order. If a player has selected the same role as the Governor, they will perform that action after the Governor. The chosen role affects every player in some way, not just the one who chose it, but the chooser will also usually receive an additional benefit.
Settler Action
When a player chooses the Settler role, they can take a plantation tile from the supply and place it on their board. This plantation can then be used to produce goods later in the game. The player who chose the Settler gets to choose their plantation from the supply first before any other players get to select. Then, they each proceed in player order, going clockwise. The additional benefit to the person who chose the role is that they can take a Quarry plantation for free instead of a standard plantation, allowing them to immediately begin construction. It is important to remember that players cannot have two plantations of the same type.
Mayor Action
When a player selects the Mayor role, they take colonists from the supply and place them on their plantations and buildings. This is how you get your resources and factories running! The player who chose the Mayor also gets one additional colonist before the other players take their colonists in clockwise order.
Builder Action
Choosing the Builder role means you get to purchase a building from the supply and place it on your player board. These buildings can help you produce more resources, make better trades, or even earn victory points at the end of the game. The player who chose the Builder gets a discount to pay one less doubloon for their first building. Each player will proceed in clockwise order, and must pay full price for each building.
Craftsman Action
The Craftsman action allows you to produce goods from your plantations that have colonists on them. You take the resource type for each occupied plantation and place it on its matching space. The player who chose the Craftsman also gets to receive an extra resource for each of his plantations from the supply. Then, all other players receive a resource for each occupied plantation type.
Trader Action
If a player selects the Trader role, they can sell one of their resource goods to the trading house for doubloons. Each good has a set price that increases as each player sells a good of the same type. If you are the first player to sell a type of good, you will receive one doubloon for it. As each other player sells the same type of good after you, the cost increases by one doubloon up to a maximum price of 4 doubloons. The player who selected the Trader also receives one doubloon before all other players sell their resources in clockwise order.
Captain Action
The Captain role allows you to ship goods to Europe on the ships for victory points. Each ship has a specific good it can hold and a capacity, as well as specific victory points associated with that ship. The player who chose the Captain role ships their resources to the ships first before anyone else. They also receive one extra victory point at the end of their shipping phase. Other players ship after in player order. It is important to remember that once a ship is full, you cannot add any additional resources to that ship. Once a good has been shipped, it is removed from the player’s supply.
Prospector Action
This one’s simple. When a player selects the Prospector role, they receive one doubloon. This can be helpful if you need a little extra money, or if you’re trying to make sure that you will be the first player to select a more favorable role card. There is no additional bonus for the player selecting this card.
End of Round
At the end of each round, the Governor token is passed to the next player, and all role cards are collected and shuffled again. A new round starts.
Winning the Game
The game ends when one of these conditions is met:
- All colonists are taken from the supply.
- All building spaces on one player’s board are filled.
- There are no resources remaining on the supply board.
After the end condition is met, the players add up their total victory points, including those gained during the game from shipping, and from buildings with end game victory points. The player with the most victory points wins the game!
Strategy Tips
Now that you know how to play, here are some things to think about:
- Think ahead. Plan your moves and think about what role you might want to select next round. What role do you think your opponents are going to select, and what resources will they be trying to obtain?
- Balance your economy. Don’t just focus on one type of resource. You need a good mix to be successful.
- Pay attention to what your opponents are doing and try to anticipate their actions.
- Sometimes it pays to ship fewer goods to take a better strategic position in the next round.
- Know when to focus on building and when to focus on resources.
There you have it – a comprehensive guide to playing Puerto Rico! It may seem overwhelming at first, but with a few practice rounds, you’ll be building empires and shipping goods like a pro. Good luck, and happy gaming!
How to play Puerto Rico
Final Thoughts
To recap, players choose roles to drive their island’s development, using doubloons and resources. They build plantations, process goods, and ship them to earn victory points. Understanding each role’s benefit is must for effective game play.
How to play puerto rico board game involves strategic planning, choosing the right roles and building efficiently. The player with the most victory points at game’s end wins.
