15th Jan - Puerto Rico

With the new gamers (Julian & Ester) in mind, I arranged a game of Puerto Rico with them, Michel & Nick. Me & Nick have played Puerto Rico a fair number of times & we seem to favour a strategy of going for the Hospice (+1 colonist for settling) as our first building. I wanted to do something different as it can be a tedious to stick with the same strategy every single time for me.

I was the lucky player to choose the first role & chose Builder, taking a Large Indigo Plant. Unsurprisingly, Nick went for the Hospice. I only remember Ester going for the Small Market (+1 doubloon when selling).

I hadn't played for a few months & as the game progressed, I was beginning to feel I was lagging behind most of the others once we all began to produce a variety of resources to ship for VPs; due to only producing 1 Indigo & 1 Sugar in the early game, I wasn't gettin many VPs while Michel & Nick seemed to shipping more than the rest of us. I decided to try & get the Wharf (+1 VP per shipment) followed by one of the large 4VPs buildings, so this strategy began with an early purchase of the Construction Hut (may take a Quarry instead of a plantation in the Settler phase) & this reaped rewards as I has 3 manned Quarries & used it in conjunction with the Large Market (+2 doubloons when selling) as well as taking the Prospector role if there were extra coins on it, to sell Tobacco for a large sum. This enabled me to have the money to buy the Wharf, which I didn't use as much as I wanted seeing as the ships got very full up and/or were stocking up with resources I didn't produce (coffee & corn). I quickly got up to 10 coins again & agonised over whether to go for a Harbour (your own ship) which would have been excellent seeing as I had the Wharf, but I noticed Nick was amassing lots of colonists & would probably look to buy the Residence (4VPs, +1 VP per 3 colonists) in the game as it would give him a siginificant number of bonus VPs. I decided to stir things up a bit by buying the Residence to Nick's dismay, but in part, I took this for myself because I was estimating this would also happen to be the 4VP building that would given me the most bonus points by the end of the game.

Ester was also rolling in the money with selling coffee & using her Small Market, which she used to buy the Guild Hall(?) (bonus points for production buildings). Michel was struggling for cash, although he seemed to be producing & shipping a lot. Julian was also producing a fair amount & had the Factory to gain extra doubloons with production. I think Nick ended up going for the 4VP building that gives bonus points for violet buildings, he wasn't exactly rolling in the money but he had two manned Quarries which helped him out enough. Both Michel & Julian had the Hacienda which also you to draw a bonus plantation in the Settler phase & it didn't seem like their draws were doing them any favours; I am personally not a fan of the Hacienda myself.

The game ended as a result of running out of colonists. Results:-

1st - Matt, 33pts & 7 doubloons.
2nd - Nick, 33pts & 6 doubloons! (3 doubloons, 3 corn)
3rd - Ester, 31pts.
4th & 5th - Michel & Julian (can't remember who won the tie-break).

Very close game, though unusually low-scoring as me, Nick & David pointed out.

I also had the pleasure of sitting next to Huggy, who was playing A Game Of Thrones. I took great delight in scattering his carefully arranged wooden pieces at his side twice & making sure he was not cheating!