Puerto Rico repricing scheme
From Summa Bergania
Puerto Rico's a great game, can we all agree on that? Great.
Puerto Rico has some lousy buildings though... so here's what we should do: reprice the building costs.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the concepts of the University, the Large Warehouse, or the Office... they are just too dang expensive for what they do. When you start out, all the buildings look great, but you eventually find out the combinations that work... and find out that some buildings, well, don't get used as much as their price tag suggests. One of the things I don't think that the designers figured was that actually taking a building is a cost in itself. You only get so many builder phases, and if you're going to waste an early one on a Hospice, it at least should be cheap! With that concept in mind, here's my suggestion for repricing. (Comparison to the original costs.)
Bergan's Puerto Rico Repricing Scheme
Small market: 1 (=)
-A solid purchase, no need to change.
Construction Hut: 1 (-1)
-This is for sure no better than a small market.
Hacienda: 2 (=)
-Quality purchase where it's at.
Small Warehouse: 2 (-1)
-Here's a building where just using up the builder phase and citizen is quite substantial. Dropping the price would make it fairly competitive.
Hospice: 2 (-2)
-Cheap hospices are interesting... Even at 2, I'm not that enticed because it just means a bunch of bums in San Juan. You can get it for free with 2 quarries, but who has a builder phase that they can waste on this?
Office: 2 (-3)
-Mr. Seyfarth was way off on this one. The office sucks. You'll get to use it like once in the game (if you're lucky). Again drop it down to 2 and some poor chap can pick it up for free with 2 quarries... and it still won't change anyone's strategies.
Large Market: 4 (-1)
-When you think about 5 doubloons, you usually are thinking about tobacco, coffee, or the fact that you're only 2 short of a factory. Drop the large market to 4, and it becomes a more in-between building. I would even drop it to 3, but that gets a little too cheap if someone can pick up both the small and large markets with a quarry and 2 doubloons.
Large Warehouse: 3 (-3)
-With the small warehouse at 2, the question is whether or not you want to spend an extra 1 to get the large warehouse. In my opinion, the answer is usually no. How often do you need to protect 2 goods? Let the suckers fritter away an extra doubloon on this waste of space.
Factory: 7 (=)
-Perfect priced.
University: 4 (-4)
-Even at 4 I don't feel like this is a wonderful deal. Maybe it could even go down to 3...
Harbor: 8 (=)
-Perfectly priced.
Wharf: 9 (=)
-Perfectly priced.
Guild Hall: 12 (+2)
-The most powerful big building. Way too easy to rack up the points by buying empty production buildings at the end. This needs to be distanced enough that going for it usually means that the player won't get another big building. Maybe even bump it up to 13.
Customs House: 11 (+1)
-2nd most powerful... the one for the shipper. Definitely shouldn't be classified with the fortress, city hall, or residence.
Fortress: 10 (=)
City Hall: 10 (=)
-The Fortress and City Hall are what I consider "average" big buildings. No one goes for them, but if someone else takes one of the top two, this can keep you in the game.
Residence: 8 (-2)
-Sucks as far as big buildings go. Hard to max out, you have to dedicate your strategy and decisions to fill them all... and only get about half as much for your toil as the Guild Hall guy (who maxed his out effortlessly). Here's the deal with the residence... to get it to work you need plantations and colonists, neither of which provide victory points on their own. Meanwhile the builder guy with a Guild Hall buys a large (empty) sugar mill to get both points from the mill and then bonus points from the Guild Hall. The shipper guy with the Customs House is making victory points, which have value on their own and then get a bonus. And both of them almost guarantee more bonus points than the Residence.
So there's my suggestion. Try it out. Have a blast. Share your thoughts.
