Puerto Ricos golden age returns. Through you! Players travel now to the capital city of this beautiful island. Who will build the most important buildings? Players build palaces, poor houses, silver smelters, gold mines, and many others - each with its own special features. The cleverest player will build well and win! As with the board game, players choose roles which can help all players, but the choosing player gets a special privilege with the role chosen. Players build buildings, produce and sell goods, and so on. The game is based on Puerto Rico, but different enough to give players new challenges and opportunities for fun and enjoyment.
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a new favorite game!Feb 06, 2010 This game was a lot of fun...if you like strategy games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. Definitely a worthwhile purchase!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Mavi not includedJan 14, 2010 I wanted to wait until the honeymoon (with the game) was over before finally reviewing it. I got it for Christmas and my wife and I were instantly hooked. Recently we were able to play it with 2 other people, and they picked it up very quickly. It does not take very long to play.
It is an amazingly simple, strategic, and fun card game. For those who might not have known, it is a stand alone card game, it is not an expansion, and you don't need Puerto Rico (the game it is based on) to play or understand San Juan. I have had an easy time teaching this game to other people and they were really surprised by it. It is a casual "hey lets play a game real quick" or "beer and pretzel" game that everyone seems to enjoy. San Juan is a great first step into the non-hasbro board games, and it comes in a nice small box with quality cards. I plan on throwing this in my luggage when visiting in-laws.
I can easily say that San Juan is a must own, whether you frequently play board/card games or not, and I can easily recommend this for families who like to play games, with or without mixed ages.
If it were lost, stolen, or ruined I would definitely buy another.
Side Note:
We bought Puerto Rico after owning this which is also a great game but is definitely a different animal. We also own Race for the Galaxy which I enjoy more, but only because of the sci-fi nerd in me. RFTG is just a hair different and possibly deeper, but San Juan is way more user friendly, a lot easier to teach others to play, and people are generally more accepting of its non-nerdy visual appeal. Truth is I am happy playing either one.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Quick version of Puerto RicoJan 07, 2010 For those that played Puerto Rico, this will be an easy transition. The game runs pretty quick once you know what you're doing. The rules allow of a 2 player game that works well. The entire game is played with cards, they are buildings resources and money. There is also the roles "cards", trading rates boards and a score pad. The game is simple enough that it should be easy for everyone to pick it up within a game or two.
Gameplay:
The point of the game is to have the most points at the end of the game. Unlike Puerto Rico, the only way to score is to put up buildings, though the church allows you to place cards under it for points. When someone reaches 12 buildings the game ends. Each role lets you preform an action with the person pulling the role getting a bonus. Buildings are split into two groups: violet and production. Violet buildings give you some bonus, while the production buildings produce resources on the Produce Phase. The resources can be traded in for more cards. When building something, you pick a card from your hand and then use the rest of the cards to pay for it.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Great game for newer fans of Rio GrandeAug 28, 2009 Let me start off by saying that I believe, in general, if it says Rio Grande or Mayfair on the box it is worth considering. Anyway, I picked this game up on a whim at GenCon2009. I didn't have time to demo it but was in the hunt for a couple of other games and the seller I was buying from was running a buy 4 get 1 free special. I could not be happier that I picked this as my 5th game.
If you have played Race for the Galaxy it plays very much like Race. If not it may take a game or two to really learn what is going on.
This is a card game version of Puerto Rico. The object of the game is to finish with as many victory points as possible. You get these points by manufacturing buildings. There are 2 types of buildings, producers and violet. Producers are used to produce goods that can be sold for more cards. Violet buildings give you certain bonuses such as letting you draw cards if certain conditions are met, reducing the cost to build certain types of buildings, allowing you to produce or sell more goods, etc. There are special violet buildings that cost 6 cards to place. Depending on what you built and which 6 cost card it was, these cards can be worth 4-8 victory points though they can get even bigger. Most other cards are worth 1 to 3 points each and can cost anywhere from 1 to 5 cards to build.
To build these buildings you must pay for them. Each player starts with 5 cards. To pay for these buildings they must discard cards equal to the cost. So say you want to build a Carpenter (costs 3). You must discard 3 cards to play it. This is an interesting dynamic I had not seen in other games before San Juan or Race for the Galaxy. Sometimes to build a building you really want, you must discard another you wanted. It adds an interesting dynamic when you have to wonder if it is worth building now or waiting a turn to build and keep a certain card you want.
Every turn is broken into 6 phases. Builder, producer, trader, councillor, prospector, and governor. The governor is passed around (he has no real benefit other than to show whose turn it is and keep the game going) and everyone takes turns picking a phase. In the 2 player game, the governor picks 2 phases. That means every turn 3 or 4 phases of the other 5 will be picked meaning there is always 1 or 2 that are skipped that turn. You are allowed to build buildings during the builder phase, produce a resource on a producer card during the production phase, trade a good for cards from a producer during the trader phase, draw 2 cards and keep 1 card during the councillor phase, and the prospector (and only the prospector) can draw a card during the the prospect phase. Other than prospect phase, everyone gets to participate in every phase.
The person that picks the phase gets a special privilege for that one. The person who picked builder can build for -1 cost, the person who picked producer can produce goods on an additional producer, and so on. So not only are you trying to make sure that the phases you want are being played but you are also keeping an eye on which one is best for you to grab due to the privilege.
When you sell a good you draw a random trade tile that has the values of the different goods that turn. Sometimes a good will sell for 1 card one turn but 2 cards the next turn. You signify producing a good by placing a card face down underneath the producer. Each producer may only have 1 good on it at a time. You signify selling that good by taking a card off of a producer and putting it (still face down... the discard pile is always face down) in the discard pile and drawing the corresponding number of cards. Normally you can only produce or sell one good if the phase is picked. There are privileges or other cards that change this.
After everything else is done the governor checks everyone's hands to make sure they have no more than 7 cards (12 if they have a tower) and ask if they want to use the Chapel if they have one in play (a specific violet card that has a special ability at the end of every turn) and then passing the governor card to the next person.
The game ends at the end of the phase when someone plays their 12th card. At that point, you count up all victory points from the cards you played (the ones in your hand at the end of the game do not help you) and the highest total wins. The game comes with a scoring pad and pencil that makes scoring easier to understand while you are learning the game.
The first time you play the game (assuming you've never played anything similar to it), you will have little to no clue what just happened. The second time you should understand the rules but may still struggle with the strategies involved. By your third or forth game you should hopefully have a decent chance even against someone that has played quite a bit. It is fairly simple to learn once you learn how the turns work and get used to paying for things by discarding. And after you have mastered this game, Race for the Galaxy (a sci fi version of San Juan) should be far easier to learn. Race is a bit more involved so this is a great starter game to play before learning that one. And even though San Juan is easier to learn it still has little nuances that makes it a great game to play even if you have both San Juan and Race for the Galaxy.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Family FunFeb 08, 2009 This game is kind of like a civilization builder. You start out with agriculture and build on that. My husband and I had played this came a couple times with some friends of ours. I bought it for our family for Christmas this last year. The kids are 13 and 18 and picked up on it right away even though it play is somewhat challenging. We had a really good time as a family that night. A couple nights later my daughter invited friends over to play it. They had a great time.
based on 14 reviews
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