Puerto Rico - my first win!

I just got back from a weekend at Burra when I had the lovely surprise of my teenage daughter offering to play any game I chose with her and her friend. This was after I said I wasn't upto playing Monopoly, which would have been her first choice (she went out and got a copy of the Austalian version of Monopoly a couple days ago and has already played three games of it - I find it not the most exciting of games but will occasionally play a game of it to be polite. Not today though).

So we played a three player game of Puerto Rico, myself and two teenagers. It was their first try of the game, but we didn't need to play any 'test turns' 'cause they were comfortable with the system very quickly. It was a close game, with Jarrod leading in the middle game, myself swinging into production/export mode and stacking on victory points in the later game, and Jess blindsiding us by getting enough doubloons to purchase city hall and colonise it in the last turn of the game. The game ended when we ran out of colonists.

I held them off, and won with 44 points. Jess came narrow second on 43, and Jarrod a respectful third with 34 points. Whole game was over within two hours.

They enjoyed the game, and were picking up on how the mechanics interact quite comfortably by the end of it. So we now have eight people who can play the game, should make it relatively easy to organise a session which includes it in future (perhaps as a prelude to Diplomacy, which seems to be a perrenial favorite).