I had the pleasure to play four games of San Juan with the expansions from the Alea Treasure Chest.
The expansion are a set of new buildings (who would have thought of that!
) and a set of semi-random events.
Let's see which new buildings I can recall... All English names are just my guestimations.
Park (building cost: 3 / VP: 2): No function in game, but gives you up to 6 points building bonus when replaced using the crane.
Amtsstube/Offices (1/1): At the beginning of the round, owner may replace up to two hand cards with freshly drawn ones.
Zollhaus/Toll House (3/2): In the Mayor phase, a single card is placed face-down on the Toll House, if there is none. In the Merchant phase, you may sell this card for 2. Doesn't grant you the right to make an extra sale, though.
Harbor (4/2): If you sell something in the Merchant phase, on of the goods cards is placed under the harbor, counting 1 VP in the end.
Watch House (1/1): At the beginning of the round (after Chapel has taken effect) all players without a Watch House have to reduce their hands to 6 cards. The Tower protects you from this effect.
Goldsmithy (5/2): In the Gold Miner phase, turn up one card from the deck. If this building hasn't been built by anone yet, you may take it on your hand.
Bank (4/2): Owner may place an arbitrary number of cards from his hand under the Bank, though only once in the game. Each card thus deposited counts as 1 VP.
Residence (6/?): VPs for sets of three different buildings of the same value. First set counts 4, second 3, third 2, and fourth 1.
Cathedral (7/?): VP for buildings of price 6 owned by the other players. First one counts 4, second one 3, you guess the rest. The cathedral exists only once, lying face up on the table. Anyone may build it from there.
The event cards are shuffled with the rest of the cards. Whenever an event card is turned up or drawn, it will be put face-up on the table. The "missed" card is instantly replaced. Instead of selecting a role on your turn, you may activate one of the open event cards. Most of the cards just modify the players' hands (draw three, drop one, ...) but three are remarkable:
One card lets you select a role which already has been used in the current round.
One card lets everyone build a building worth up to 4 for free.
One card (Earthquake) forces each player to destroy one of his buildings. Finally one can get rid of these pesky cheap cards!
Our first game was a bit longer than usual because we had to read through the cards' texts and reference the rules (not all card texts are really sufficient now!) more often than usual. We used a head-first approach and set up the game before each one examined the new cards.
In the next three games we were able to test several strategies. Some observations:
Toll House is a cool way to play free-rider on the other players' actions. Great addition for pure purple play.
Harbor is a gold mine for the production strategy. Peter garnered 12 VP with the harbor in one game. Even in games without lots of production, 3-4 extra VPs are easily possible.
Offices are a nice starter building. Take care to use the Earthquake later on.
Crane-Park-Bank is cool! Everything prepared for your "6" but no such card at hand? Just deposit your hand cards in the Bank, you won't need them to pay for the "6". And as the Park is destroyed when building the "6", one can repeat this, without the Bank part.
San Juan is a game we love and our love will be no way diminished by this expansion!
Linear Mode
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