And this is the #1 rated boardgame?

They are gone, forever.

Black Barney wrote:

I love this game. It's my favourite board game. I find it perfect for family gaming (very non-confrontational), and fun too.

I can completely understand why ATers might not like it. I feel lucky that I can enjoy this and also greatly enjoy Twilight Struggle and War of the Ring in a very different way.

But what makes it fun?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

I enjoy Settlers a lot, all of the trading, and figuring out what resources to go for and who's really in the lead, etc. I've enjoyed Power Grid, but like it less the more I play it. I really like Dungeon Lords. And I think that Dominion and Race for the Galaxy are excellent.

I'm not an AT-only type. I just don't find anything compelling about Puerto Rico at all since RftG exists and gives you more interesting choices, allows you to make them simultaneously, and has cool pictures of aliens. And I'd like it better even without the aliens.

I'm an AT-er not because theme is important to me, but largely because themed games tend to be asymmetric and give you a more interesting playground to ... play in. Puerto Rico is such a tightly controlled "everybody wins, some just more than others" type of game that I can't understand why it'd be anyone's number one game. There's no room for creativity or enjoyment. It's just, "turn crank, poop out victory."

Even the cycle of getting new buildings or plantations and then having to populate them strikes me as a clunky exercise. You spend all this time working up to a sweet building and then the game ends. It feels like it's too short, even though it's significantly longer than RftG.

Then again, I've only played it twice, and with a total of 3p each time. Is it more fun with 4 or 5? Will the third time be the charm?

3 player Puerto Rico is really dry cuz it's super competitive and you have full control over a ton of stuff so mistakes are massively costly. 5-player is very random so you might enjoy it way more.

You have to be able to see the end of the game coming at least 2 turns out otherwise it'll always hit you as a negative feeling.

I like Puerto Rico cuz it's a real exercise in tactical efficiency with a little sprinkle of strategy (like if you get 3-4 quarries, you had better NEVER pick craftsman or captain again, and need to almost take builder all the time).

I don't like Race as much cuz you can get really screwed in that game. And you have no interaction. Puerto Rico, if you fall behind, you can still really screw other players and even come back.

I mean it's not a game that fills you with adrenaline like Twilight Struggle and war of the Ring do, but it's a nice challenge and fun and relatively lite. I find it ideal for family.

I like PR for the reasons Barney stated, and it is definately better with more as you can screw over people more effectively as the resource pool (ships, trader) become far more limited, and thus, far more important.

I still like the game, but the lack of direct interaction really puts a damper on it, hence the reason I houseruled some direct interaction.

PR while not my favorite game, when it first came out I thought to myself at what kind of genius to make such a perfect game.

What makes it fun, I dunno, what make farting fun?

What makes it special? Perfection.

what makes farting fun?

Let me tell you an anecdote from 1 hour ago.

I'm riding the elevator back up to work with my lunchbuddy colleague, and right as we're nearly our floor, i let out a small fart. We both laugh and get out of the elevator as fast as possible. As we exit on our floor, this small awkward chinese guy we work with is jogging towards the elevator area so I lightning-quick do a 180 degree turn and jam my arm in the dutch oven elevator i just walked out of to make sure I caught it before it left for another floor. The chinese guy looks up at me (he's very short) with this huge smile cuz I went out of my way to catch the elevator for him. He says, "Thanks you!" and runs in. My lunchbuddy colleague at this point has collapsed to the ground laughing.

That's why farting fun

I would have put PR at about a 6/10 after 1 or 2 plays. Now it's my absolute favorite euro. I think it takes a little while to really start to love it.

I could see how the "optimal play" thing could turn some people off, but I've never reached that point with it. Although there is a lot of open information and very little randomness, it still manages to feel like the decisions are intuitive rather than calculable.

Plus getting a new purple building is really fun. It's daunting to see all the choices at first, but most games leave me with the memory of something really cool I did (whether it worked or not). Last game I diversified and took the factory so I was swimming in money. Got to buy tons of buildings. The game before, it was primarily tobacco and corn being produced and the trading house had stagnated, so my timely buy of an office propelled me to victory. One other game, my wharf and ridiculous amounts of corn production worked quite well. It has multiple paths to victory, but they really feel like different play styles, and I like that a lot.

It is very weak on theme and very bland to look at though.

jeb wrote:

I play this from time to time. It's a gaming buddy's all time faaaaaave. I broke out carthaginian's re-theme though:

More colorful and way more informative.

wow, last place I expected this to show up at. It's an older (wrong) design though as San juan has to be 4x3 horizontally. the actual one in the redesign looks like that :

I actually play with the latter one, carthaginian. I snagged that first image from your concept thread just to give folsk the flavor. It's really nice. I printed on some decent beige bond, sprayglued to cardstock and used nice cutters to make everything tidy. It looks great, and has gotten many compliments.

wow