San Juan
One of the biggest disappointments of Essen 2003 (the only one?) was that San Juan was not ready for release. It was top of my list of games to purchase on sight (without trying).
San Juan is the card game of the excellent Puerto Rico - arguably one of the best board games of all time (emphasis for webmaster's benefit!). It has recently been released at Nuremberg and was available in UK stores last month (early March '04). It has also now appeared on the online board games forum brettspielwelt (see www.brettspielwelt.de for the forum and www.brettspielwelt.com for English explanation).
The game is for 2-4 players. Each turn a player chooses a role. All players get to use the action that the role gives but the person who chooses it gets a bonus (this will be readily familiar to those who have played Puerto Rico). The object of the game is to score the most points (no, really?!). This is accomplished by constructing buildings, having large buildings which give bonus points and, if you have build a chapel, scoring the points you have allocated to it throughout the game. The game ends as soon as one person has built 12 buildings.
Your hand size varies throughout the course of a round. Buildings costs are paid for by the cards in your hand. For instance, if you have 5 cards and wish to build the Archive (cost 1) then you will have 3 cards left in your hand after building (the archive is placed in front of you and 1 other card is discarded to pay the building cost).
There are 3 types of building, namely production buildings, statues and violet buildings. Production buildings allow you to produce goods to sell at market. This allows you to acquire more cards. Statue cards give high points and make the Victory Arch more valuable but have no special effect. Violet buildings have a special power which becomes operational once these cards are built.
The meat of the game comes from controlling your available resources (hand size) and attempting to build buildings which combine their powers in a way which gives you an advantage over the other players. Those familiar with Puerto Rico will find that shipping and trading phases are a lot less nasty in San Juan than in its bigger brother (shipping does not exist and there are no restrictions on the type of good that can be sold during the trader phase). The main scope for hosing other players in San Juan comes from building when they are unable to or producing when they are all ready at full capacity.
The game is enjoyable. There are numerous routes to victory. Trying to manage your hand while attempting to construct favourable buildings is good fun. While the game is more luck orientated than Puerto Rico skilful players will win consistently. If you have never played Puerto Rico then you should buy this card game and then go and play Puerto Rico as well ! If you are familiar with Puerto Rico then you will enjoy San Juan. If you are an expert Puerto Rico player then buy San Juan, moan about it not being as good as Puerto Rico but use it as a way to introduce non-gamers to Puerto Rico. Recommended.
Gordon Lamont
5 April 2004