Description
In Puerto Rico, players assume the roles of colonial governors on the island of Puerto Rico.
The aim of the game is to amass victory points by shipping goods to Europe or by constructing buildings.
Each player uses a separate small board with spaces for city buildings, plantations, and resources. Shared between the players are three ships, a trading house, and a supply of resources and doubloons.
The resource cycle of the game is that players grow crops which they exchange for points or doubloons.
Doubloons can then be used to buy buildings, which allow players to produce more crops or give them other abilities.
Buildings and plantations do not work unless they are manned by colonists.
During each round, players take turns selecting a role card from those on the table (such as "Trader" or "Builder").
When a role is chosen, every player gets to take the action appropriate to that role.
The player that selected the role also receives a small privilege for doing so – for example, choosing the "Builder" role allows all players to construct a building, but the player who chose the role may do so at a discount on that turn. Unused roles gain a doubloon bonus at the end of each turn, so the next player who chooses that role gets to keep any doubloon bonus associated with it.
This encourages players to make use of all the roles throughout a typical course of a game.
Puerto Rico uses a variable phase order mechanism in which a "governor" token is passed clockwise to the next player at the conclusion of a turn.
The player with the token begins the round by choosing a role and taking the first action.
Players earn victory points for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for manned "large buildings."
Each player’s accumulated shipping chips are kept face down and come in denominations of one or five.
This prevents other players from being able to determine the exact score of another player. Goods and doubloons are placed in clear view of other players and the totals of each can always be requested by a player.
As the game enters its later stages, the unknown quantity of shipping tokens and its denominations require players to consider their options before choosing a role that can end the game.
Solo Variant Rules
Solo rules are available in the first file listed below.
The rules have been designed to give the single player the opportunity to play a game with a similar level of challenge without significantly changing the multi-player rules.
It is assumed the player has a good knowledge of the original rules to be able to play the variant.
The rules include an expansion board. The board includes notes about the extra rules.
Puerto Rico Video Review
How to Play Puerto Rico Video
Files
A selection of files from BoardGameGeek. Links will open in a new window or tab.
SoloPlay Puerto Rico V1
Contains rules to be able to play Puerto Rico solo plus a different way to play a more interactive 2-player game.
Also included is an expansion board to aid in managing the play elements for this variant.
The game play was designed to challenge an experienced Puerto Rico player.
>> Click to download PDF <<
All Building Rules
Summary of all buildings from the base game, official expansions, and Tibs’s buildings.
Some building names have been changed for clarity (e.g. Large Indigo Plant, Tobacco Barn, Commercial Office).
>> Click to download PDF <<
Puerto Rico Single Sheet Color-Coded Quick Guide (v1.1)
Updated version of a single sheet color-coded quick guide for Puerto Rico. Great for reference or using it to help teach new players how to play.
>> Click to download PDF <<
Teaching Guide for Puerto Rico
An easy to understand guide to teach yourself or others how to play Puerto Rico. Includes a Building and Starting Layout Guide.
>> Click to download DOC <<