PUERTO RICO (Alea/Rio Grande Games; $34.95)

   The line of Alea games from Germany has been exceptional, both in game components and game quality.  Past Alea releases include Ra (Summer 1999 GA REPORT), Taj Mahal (Spring 2000 GA REPORT) and The Princes of Florence (Fall 2001 GA REPORT). Puerto Rico, the seventh release under the Alea imprint (and now available in the United States in an English language edition from Rio Grande Games) continues the high standard.

   Puerto Rico is the creation of Andreas Seyfarth, probably best known as the designer of Manhattan (Winter 1997 GA REPORT), a game which won the coveted German Game of the Year (Spiel des Jahres) award. The game comes bookshelf boxed with the typically high quality components that is the norm for Alea and Rio Grande Games. There are five player boards and one game board, 8 role cards, an assortment of wooden markers (representing barrels of produced goods as well as settlers to the island), thick cardboard cutouts representing buildings, doubloons and various plantations (producing indigo, corn, sugar, tobacco and coffee) and quarries as well as Victory Points and a short, well written set of rules. The game is for 3 to 5 players, is of low to medium complexity and has a playing time of about two hours.

   To begin, each player is given a board representing the island of Puerto Rico with 12 spaces to be used for constructing buildings and another 12 spaces to be used for the development of plantations. Players also receive a starting bankroll of 2 to 4 doubloons (depending on how many people are in the game). Players' boards are seeded with one plantation (limited to indigo or corn) with the rest of the game components placed on or around the larger, central game board which serves as a "holding area" for the game pieces.

   At the core of the game is the challenge of trying to manipulate the economics of the island by developing plantations and constructing buildings thereby producing, selling and shipping goods. Once goods are produced, they may be sold to earn doubloons which may be used to purchase buildings (essential to production). Goods may also be loaded onto ships with each loaded barrel generating a Victory Point. These (and other) actions are triggered by players choosing "roles", a key decision as the game hinges on the roles players choose to adopt and WHEN they choose to adopt them!

   Eight potential roles are available each round, represented by the role cards. On his turn, a player chooses ONE of them. 

    The Settler allows players to choose a plantation to place onto one of his board's plantation spaces. The Mayor allows colonists (represented by small brown circular markers) to disembark from the colonial ship and occupy buildings and plantations. The Builder, as might be suspected, can construct a building. The Craftsman produces goods (from the plantations). The Trader allows goods to be sold. The Captain allows goods to be shipped. Finally, while the Prospector does NOT initiate any action, he does award the player who chooses him one doubloon from the bank. The basic play sounds simple but this is not as "cut and dry" as it may seem.

   First of all, the player who chooses a role gets "something extra" called a "privilege". Privileges can be extremely important. For example, the Settler can choose a quarry over a plantation. (Quarries reduce the cost of constructing buildings, an important consideration since money is a commodity of which you never seem to have enough!) The Mayor gets at least one EXTRA colonist. The Builder pays one less doubloon in construction. (You get the idea.) But equally as important (maybe even more important) is this unique twist: by choosing a role, that player decides what EVERY player can do in that turn! So, if you choose the Builder, let's say, EVERY player is allowed to construct a building (albeit you'll be able to do it a little cheaper with your privilege). The interaction triggered by this mechanism is at times subtle and sometimes brutal! Not only do you have to be concerned with what is good for you, you need to be alert as to how your action will impact on the opposition!

   Part of the pleasure of this game is how the different threads are interwoven. Plantations produce raw material. But these materials are not saleable until they are "produced". With the exception of corn (which does not need production), players need to match up plantations with production BUILDINGS to actually produce product to sell and ship. (Corn is the easiest to produce as no buildings are required but corn generates NO cash when sold!) And buildings and plantations are not "activated" unless settlers occupy the area! No settlers, no product! The buildings themselves (worth VPs at the end of the game) offer modifiers that can be critical. Aside from the production buildings that convert the raw material of the plantations into goods you can sell and ship, buildings allow players to add a quarry to their island (even if NOT the privileged player), automatically add settlers to a plantation or building, store excess goods (instead of losing the excess) etc. The five large buildings, if activated, even earn additional Victory Points at game's end.

   When there are no settlers left to colonize the island, no Victory Point chips left in the game's pool OR the 12th building on someone's board has been built, the game ends. At that point, the last round is completed and VPs are totaled. VPs (for goods shipped) are added to the VP value of all constructed buildings on a player's island including any extra VPs awarded by constructing the "big" buildings. The player with the highest total wins!

   This game gives you tons of decisions to make. You can sell your barrels of product - but only one barrel at a time. Worse yet, in the "trading house", only goods of a different type can be sold! If you're stuck with sugar (for example) and a sugar barrel occupies a slot in the trading house, you cannot sell your sugar supplies! (At least not until the trading house empties and that only happens when all slots in the house are filled!) When ships are loaded, a ship can only carry ONE type of product! If you can't load what you have available, you LOSE (except for one) ALL of your barrels! (That is, unless you have managed to construct a warehouse to hold the excess.) And, of course, picking and choosing the "right" role is critical. Making the decision even more difficult is the fact that roles that are not chosen get a doubloon added to them after each round that they remain unused. Any player picking such a role gets to enact the role AND gets those doubloons. In a game where money can be so important, this serves as a very attractive enhancement while simultaneously serving to balance the powers of the roles nicely. And, despite repeated plays, there has yet to be discovered a "perfect" approach to victory, another hallmark of quality design.

   In Puerto Rico, elements of other games can be seen. The individual playing boards (Princes of Florence), the use of roles (Citadels [Summer 2000 GA REPORT]), role modifications (similar to alien powers in Cosmic Encounter [Winter 2001 GA REPORT])) and the seeding of unused roles (similar to passed over civilizations in Vinci [Winter 2000 GA REPORT]). But this is not a "cobbled together" rehash. Rather, this is a brilliant integration of many concepts, a true example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

   Andreas Seyfarth, like a master craftsman, has interwoven these different threads with a few original touches of his own to create his own stylish tapestry. Puerto Rico is a game that works on many levels and is a prime candidate to make the list for Game of the Year. Highly recommended. - -  - - - - -  Herb Levy