Trading and Building in San Juan.

Exactly how much Indigo do we need?

San Juan is a card game based on Puerto Rico. Produce indigo, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and silver while some buildings that grant special powers or extra victory points. Cards can be either built or used as money to build something else. Cards from the deck are used to represent goods produced by the production buildings, in which case they are left face-down.

San Juan Game Play

So this is an action selection game. Starting with the start player and going clockwise, the active player will choose a role then everyone will take the action of that role.

But the player that chose the role in the first place will get a nice little bonus for doing so.

Once everyone has selected a role, they are returned to the centre of the table, the start player goes clockwise and this is repeated. The game will end when a player builds their 12th building.

So what are the roles and their bonuses?

Roles

Builder – Each player may build one building by discarding cards from their hand cards equal to the cost of the building. So if the building costs 3, you discard 3 other cards.

The active player will pay one fewer card to build

Councillor – Each player draws two cards from the deck, keeps one and discards the other.

The active player draws five cards and keeps one.

Producer – Each player puts a card from the top of the deck face down onto one empty production building. This card is now a Good of the type that the building produces.

The active player can do this for two buildings.

Prospector – Only the active player will get something for this role, they draw a card from the deck.

Trader – Each player may Trade (Sell) one Good. The top tile of the Market deck is flipped over and shows the value of each good of the 5 types using their associated colour. (The same colour as the building card) Discard the good from your building and draw cards equal to its value from the deck.

The active player can sell two Goods.

When a player has built their 12th building the game will end as mentioned earlier. Players score for the value of the buildings in their tableau and points from any Buildings with end-game scoring.

The player with the most points is the winner.

Theme

I mean yes, OK, it’s there.

Your buildings produce stuff and can be sold at a value that changes with the market. That money is then used to build more buildings etc

It makes sense.

Setup

Cards are shuffled, Indigo building to everyone and done.

Components & Artwork

Just cards and a couple of market tokens.

The card quality seems really good as they were in good condition and I know this is a well-played copy that I played with.

The art is decent and fits the theme. Personally, I would like to see something less ‘real’ and more cartoony, but that’s just me.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

It’s fairly easy to teach. The roles make sense and are very easy to understand.

Games where cards are Buildings and also Money can cause issues for new players. The buildings themselves are MOSTLY easy to understand but the rulebook did need to come out for clarification and timing on a few cards.

It is quite accessible. Cards are hidden so new players will need to be given general ‘cover all’ advice if they’re stuck. It’s no biggie if a player has to reveal a bit of information about their hand if they need help.

The roles are open information so helping people with that is easy.

San Juan Summary

This is a ‘first impression’ of a game I’ve played quite a bit on iOS. I haven’t played it for a while so I didn’t remember strategy or anything but I remembered the rules, mostly.

The game is good fun and I do like these games where cards in hand are also currency to spend on the other cards in hand. You can buy that expensive building but only if you discard 2-3 cards you also want to build.

You also need to balance those with decent abilities and those that will produce to get more cards. There is so much to consider with each card you play.

Then there are those that give you end-game scoring which can be big point gainers.

I haven’t even mentioned the role selection yet which is really important.

But, as nice and portable and quick and easy as the game is, I would still rather play Roll for the Galaxy. It’s not the same obviously but it’s an action selection, tableau builder so I’m counting it 🙂

Not to say this game is bad, it’s not, I really like it.

Jesta ThaRogue