Friday, March 10, 2006

I be sick, but not of Puerto Rico

There's a cold going around, and I've caught it. Yesterday I practically couldn't speak. Today I'm still coughing.

Last night neither Rachel nor I could sleep at about 3:00 am, so we played a 2-player game of PR. We haven't played in a long time, owing to Rachel having a new job and still wanting to finish her PhD.

We played with my usual mix of buildings and my usual 2-player variation. The mix is now just about perfect, only I really need a better 5 cost building to replace Office. Church doesn't do it for us.

1/1 Assembly Line: All production buildings can hold an additional colonist.

2/1 Hacienda: Actually not my favorite, as I don't like the random nature of the building.

2/1 Small Fashion District: Sell indigo at +2

3/1 Small Warehouse

4/2 Hospice: You can move one of your colonists onto Hospice immediately. Still not enough, but I can't think of any other way to make this stronger without making it too strong.

5/2 Office

5/2 Large Market

6/2 Discretionary Hold: You may place one additional barrel of any type onto each full ship for 1 VP each. Each ship can only hold 1 barrel, so if two players have a DH, start with the Captain and alternate. In addition to the above, you may store up to three additional barrels. It reads a little long but it's a nice building.

7/3 Factory

8/3 Large General Workhouse (2 circles): produces any type of goods along with matching occupied plantations. Some people on BGG thought this was too powerful when combined with Factory. I had both and I lost anyway, so there.

8/3 Large Business: -1 building cost and +1 VP if you ship at least one barrel (i.e. Builder's and Captain's privileges). Since we play with 3 boats in 2-player, this is a better building than Harbor for this slot.

9/3 Wharf: Not as much of a problem when there are three ships.

10/4 Cathedral: +1 VP/3 VP in red building points. Much better than Guild Hall.

10/4 Fairgrounds: +1/2/3/5/7 VP for 2/3/4/5/6 types of plantations. Much better than Residence.

10/4 Fortress

10/4 Custom's House

10/4 City Hall

As I said, I had Factory, LGW, and even three big buildings, but I couldn't compete with Rachel's Small Warehouse, Large Business, and Custom's House. She took an early Hacienda which didn't help her, but she did have a lot of production going, anyway. Frankly, I still don't know how she managed it.

We left the game out and this afternoon we played again; Rachel always like to play at least twice before putting the game away since it takes so much time to set up. She beat me again, this time with Large Business, Discretionary Hold, and two large buildings to my coffee and indigo monopolies, Factory, Small Warehouse, and one large building. Once again, I don't know exactly where I went wrong.

None of this information is useful to any of you, I know. In fact, if you're still reading this and you're one of the lucky first ten readers to respond, I'll send you a geekgold.

We have guests for shabbat. I hope they don't mind my cold. Sniff.

Yehuda

3 comments:

Jason said...

I was still reading. Actually you've got me interested in trying out some of your buildings. But then, I don't get to play PR enough to even use my expansion yet. Argh. Hope your cold gets better. It's been going around here in Michigan too, I just got over mine.

Yehuda Berlinger said...

I'll need to know your BGG handle to give you your geekgold.

I doubt that I'm suffering from the same sickness going around in Michigan since I live in Israel. The sickness would have to have been carried here by bird or something. What kind of sickness gets carried by birds? :-)

Yehuda

Jason said...

Well if those swallows can carry coconuts, maybe they can carry sickness too?