Puerto Rico With a Few Switched Buildings

Rachel, Nadine, and I played a game of Puerto Rico with a few of my lesser played buildings in place:

- Aqueduct: I find this building problematic. It is too powerful, dominating the the shipping game early on. And it also makes the game less interesting, providing only one real avenue for winning success for the player. Which bugs me.

As a result, I changed it to allow either extra indigo or sugar production but not both. But I couldn't convince either Rachel or Nadine to use this change. They said, "what harm could it be to play it as it's written?" I agreed to let them try it for one more game.

Guess what? Rachel played it, and, despite playing against a tobacco monopoly, a coffee monopoly, and both of us having Factory and Wharf, she dominated the game, winning 67 points to 53 and 50 points. I rest my case.

- Bazaar 2/1: Return a VP or barrel to gain an extra colonists (Mayor) / Return a colonist or VP to gain an extra barrel (Craftsman) / Return a colonist or barrel to gain an extra VP (Captain).

This is a difficult building to use well, but I used it pretty well (I lost the game anyway, so maybe not well enough). I took Mayor a number of extra times in the early game, and then traded them for extra barrels and VPs in the later game.

- Salvage Yard 3/1: +1 doubloon / barrel tossed out (except corn). Rachel used this to good effect once, earning 5 gold (with that Aqueduct). Once was enough. It's a nice building if the other buildings aren't unbalanced.


I also played the game Griddly Games: Baseball, sent to me by the publisher to review. That's an upcoming post.

Yehuda