Alea Treasures #3: Puerto Rico

Puerto RicoTo date, I’ve written about the Treasure Chest expansions for three of the Alea games: Louis XIV and San Juan (way back in 2010, when the Chest was a bit fresher) and Witch’s Brew (back in June).

I’ve since managed to get Puerto Rico back to the table, and with it the nobles expansion contained in the Treasure Chest. As such, I’m now ready to talk about what I think Treasure Chest adds to the game that was the one-time reigning Euro Champ.

The New Buildings. The Treasure Chest actually contains two expansions for Puerto Rico. The first of them, the “New Buildings” has been around for years. I think I bought mine direct from Rio Grande some years ago when it was less available. It’s good to see them now available in a more accessible set.

The new buildings expansion introduces 12 new small buildings and 2 new large buildings. The game itself now starts with a draft, as different players decide which of these buildings they’d like to play with — somewhat limited by the fact that you can only have so many buildings of each cost.

Much as with the new San Juan buildings, these ones do a pretty big variety of stuff. The Captain Phase gets the most attention with 4 small buildings (a storehouse for unmatched goods, a smaller and less efficient ship, money for shipping, and VPs for having matched goods).

Effect. Major. Depending on what buildings you choose to go in, you can totally change the dynamics of the game.

Game Design. First up, I’ll say this is the way to design an expansion. Though it adds a little bit of time to the startup, from there it shouldn’t add any complexity or downtime to the game. You play with the exact same number of buildings as usual. Getting those buildings into the game via a draft is, IMO, very clever.

I also like the way that you can try to empower a preferred strategy via the building drafting. You could omit buildings for a phase that you’re not planning to use or try to push on buildings that support your strategies. I’d think this was even cooler if Puerto Rico had some sort of randomized startup that you could then try to seek advantages for. As is, I suspect individual players will go for the same buildings much of the time.

I’d guess that the first intention of this expansion was to help Puerto Rico players to get out of the rut where everyone swore they knew what the best move was at any time — which has negatively impacted some games of Puerto Rico that I’ve played. Now, with a slightly different set of buildings in every game, you can’t always depend on the same starting moves.

Perhaps it was also meant to improve the Captain Phase a bit, as there are several options to make Captaining better. Generally, I think it was intended to give lots more options, and it succeeds very well there.

I wouldn’t suggest this expansion for mixed games of beginning and experienced players, as I think the draft would let experienced players walk away with the game (by cleverly putting out certain combos, then taking advantage of them). However for experienced players, I’d generally suggest its use.

The NoblesA new sort of resource, “the noble” appears in Puerto Rico’s other expnasion. They’re worth victory points, but can otherwise be used in place of colonists. In addition, 7 new small buildings and 1 new large building that support them are always available. Some of these have different effects when staffed with nobles while others give you benefits for nobles (like money or VPs).

Effect. Medium. The nobles can make a pretty big difference in the game. You can’t ignore them entirely, else one or two players might take sufficient advantage of them to win the game. However, you don’t need to focus on them if you don’t want to.

Game Design. The general consensus seems to be that this expansion wasn’t playtested that well, and I’d have to agree. There’s a totally deadly combination of three buildings, one of which makes it easier to get nobles, one of which gives you money for nobles, and one of which gives you victory points for nobles. If you get all three, I’m pretty sure you win, period. Some folks have suggested that you introduce a house rule that no player can buy the two small buildings in question (villa, jeweler) or else that you not have them in the same game at all. I’d concur, though even with that rule I’m not convinced that the nobles are balanced that well.

Beyond that, I think this expansion sadly shows how not to supplement a game. Dropping down a totally orthogonal set of 8 buildings makes the game that much more complex and gives you that much more to read and think about every turn.

As for the intent of this expansion: as I said, I think the nobles are a resource and thus the intent was to add a new resource to Puerto Rico. That’s a pretty cool idea, but also a pretty tough one, as the existing set of resources are pretty integral to how the game works. You could do great things with that sort of expansion … or not.

This expansion may also have been intended to improve the mayor role, which sometimes does get neglected, particularly late in the game. Now, the person who takes mayor will typically take a noble worth a Veep. If that was an intent, it certainly came off well here.

But overall, the balance problems with the expansion made it a bit of a loser in my eyes. I’ll be reluctant to play with it again.

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