Game 83: Puerto Rico

 So  .  .  .  we've had Puerto Rico pretty much since it first came out in 2002.  We used to play it a lot.  I've always really liked it and had been wanting to play it again for years (literally years).  For some reason this one has fallen out of favor with my boys.  I think the comment I've heard from them is that the play is too predictable and that once you choose a strategy you're stuck with it so you can't really change things up mid-game.  I typically join in with whatever others are playing rather than being the one to choose the game, but I recently insisted on having my way (so bossy!).  I've been wanting to play this, AND we're supposed to be playing through ALL the games on our shelves - which is the point of this blog - a project at which we are not making very speedy progress.  It's hard to make progress when we keep going back to playing our current favorites over and over.  So here we are up to game 83 (finally!).

(At this rate I think *I* might be 83 before the gaming goal is accomplished!!)

 It had been so long since we had played it that I had to scrape "dead" rubber bands off the cards (above), and we had to spend more time than usual digging into the rule book (below) for a game we already "know" how to play.

 Here is the set up.  Resources are in the middle, and each player has their own board.

I certainly find enough variety in this game.  In each round a different player goes first and thus gets first choice of role to play for that round (Captain, Trader, Builder, etc.).  Each role can benefit all players, but the person choosing any given role for that round gets an extra benefit specific to that role.  I sense a reasonable amount of strategy in the choice of role and in the timing of the choice, which can work both defensively and offensively.

 Below is my board early in the game as I am developing and populating my plantations as well as building up and populating the town (putting colonists to work in factories and such in order to refine and process crops for shipping).

 I had fun.  I sense that Caleb's still not a fan, but he was a good sport - as was David.  I only recently(what?!) learned that David is a much bigger fan of card games than of board games, so there's that.  We've been married 32 years as of this week and have been gaming that whole time; I guess there's always something new to learn about each other - but, given how much gaming we do how could I not have known that?!  Anyway, back to Puerto Rico, I think we were doing something wrong, despite the deeper re-reading of the rules than we normally do when re-playing a game.  It seemed something wasn't quite right with the "ships" or "captaining" that happened, but it may just be that there were only 3 of us playing and that Caleb and I purchased all the large buildings early on, thus bringing the game to an end more quickly than otherwise would have happened.  I'd like to re-read the rules more carefully and see if I can twist their arms to play with me again before more years pass!  But if not, there are certainly plenty of other games to enjoy :-)

Speaking of other games, and since my posts remain so few and far between despite it being summertime, I am posting pictures of others we've been up to (but which don't "count" since I've already posted about them).  On the dinning room table (so-called) we've got Pandemic Legacy Season 2, which the four of us played last night.  Also, at the far end of the table, we have Magic the Gathering with the Planechase set-up, which Jacob, Caleb and I played one game of earlier in the day yesterday.

 And here is one of our downstairs counter tops filled with the games we've been playing recently.  I try to keep all the games upstairs on the shelves, but I can't seem to keep ahead of the accumulation!