We have been playing Puerto Rico for on a regular basis. It's an excellent game, and one of the few well balanced games in buildup genre as:
- There is almost no luck factor involved.
- All of the Information about game and players buildup is revealed entirely. It makes the game highly strategic.
- Not much of dirty tactics used by players. Say when player(s) tries to favor or screw certain other player, or delay other players winning.
We have been playing other resource management games like Le Havre, Agricola. Settlers of Catan has lots of player-to-player interaction, which makes the game more competitive. I was wondering if we could discuss and share some custom rules to modify the gameplay to have such player interactions; and would it be possible to introduce same new rules to create extra strategies.
Say by allowing other players to use production and service buildings for a fee. Player when in need of money or resources can mark only a building 'open for use' when selecting the role. Once open it can't be closed until her next turn. This fee could be really high 20%-30% of the service building cost, or one-third of production. Production building: Tobacco, Sugar, etc. Service: Harbor, Market, etc.
Many a times I find players getting blocked or waited to gather sufficient gold. Even when they have some of the good buildings. Please share your thoughts. Thanks.