San Juan - Tips & Strategies

Pay careful attention to what your opponents are doing and be prepared to deny them opportunities to get bonuses.

If your opponent has two Silver Refineries, consider selecting “Produce” before they do, *even if you do need it that much.* That way on your opponent’s turn he will be denied the opportunity to put down two silver goods. Watch closely; do the same thing with Trade, and so on.

By the same token, pay attention to when the turn will be over and whose turn will be *next*. Think beyond the current turn in role selection.

Also, I could not disagree more with another tipster who says this game does not play well with 2. It plays *great* with 2; anyone looking to play Puerto Rico should do that instead.

Make sure you do not try to hold on to a big building early in the game it will hurt you. Better to get building and take advantage of one that comes around later.

Library can be a very powerful card for 2 players. In fact, almost too powerful. Most of the time, the first person to get the Library wins the game. The best way to tone it down for a 2 player game is to either remove it from the game or only use it once during the Governor’s turn instead of each role the governor plays.

We like to speed up play by allowing all players to simultaneously to the job action for the jobs that would effect all players (like builder, trader, etc).

For example, during “Builder” phase, all players would build at the same time rather than taking turns doing it. Obviously, you wouldn’t do this for the “Prospector” phase because drawing a card only effects 1 player.