Customer Reviews:
 Card based sibling of Puerto Rico September 22, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
San Juan is based on the very popular board game Puerto Rico and uses the same basic concepts of building construction, producing goods and selling them to acquire victory points.
In this game however the mechanism is entirely based on cards.
Each card represents a building or structure and has an inherent cost associated with building it. That cost is met by discarding cards from your hand.
However, as in Puerto Rico, the turn is broken up into actions based on a number of roles.
In each turn the players choose to activate a particular role;
Builder,
Prospector (Miner)
Producer
Councillor
Trader
Once activated the person who chose that role gets a bonus or advantage within that role and everyone else also gets to do the action.
For Example the person who chose to activate the Builder gets to pay 1 less card for a building, everyone else still gets to build but pays full price.
As you can see there are five roles and normally 3 or 4 players so not every action is available each round.
The person who chooses first rotates every turn too so everyone gets a chance to pick first.
The game ends when someone builds their 12th structure, at which point victory points are tallied.
The victory points are printed on the card and most buildings have a set value however certain buildings depend on other factors and contribute to different strategic options (for example the City Hall card is worth the 1 point for every pink building that the player has built).
Most cards alsohave some effect on the game. Many are production buildings (ie capable of producing goods such as sugar) which allow cards to be gained during the trading phase.
Other cards are pink and represent different buildings and again the characteristics of these buildings will help the player to shape their strategy. If for example they have the Prefecture card in play they gain extra cards in the Councillor phase etc etc.
Given the variety of options, the depth of play can be very rewarding and although luck plays a part (you have to get the right combination of cards sometimes) there are no dice, so that the game feels very fair and is generally won by the player who makes the best use of the cards they get.
The game is playable by 2 to 4 players, but I would recommend it primarily as a 3-player game. With 2 players the Governor (ie the person who chose their action first) gets to activate two roles (1st and 3rd) and this can unbalance the game. In the 4-player game the play is balanced but you have far less chance of picking your moment, are constantly on the back foot and frequently can't get the cards you want into play.
In the 3-player version there is much more scope to develop a strategy and use the full diversity of cards rather than simply rushing to get the first 12 cars built before someone else does.
'Hand management' is the key skill required to play well at San Juan. This means the ability to throw away a really good card because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the cards in your hand. In that way it is reminiscent of games like Mah Jongg, where knowing what combinations of cards work well together is more important than simply drawing that one 'killer' card.
I've played this game tens of times now and still haven't tired of it, which says a great deal for its replayability. It's also pretty well priced and doesn't take up much storage space so is an easy one to take on holiday. Overall it is a real winner and right up there with Carcassonne as one of the kings of the light-weight European (non-combat) strategy games.
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