Obscure (?) Puerto Rico question

[Mike Hutton]

Well, I finally won my first game of PR yesterday. But we ended up
with a query which took a bit of rules-lawyering to sort out.

The game ended with the mayor running out of colonists to fill up the
colony ship. There was only one available, and we had three players.
Now, player A had an active university (the one giving an extra
colonist for each building). If Builder was selected as one of the
remaining player turns, and player A opted to build a level 4 building
(Guildhall in this case), would he be able to use the last colonist to
populate the building and thereby gain its bonus?

The question seems to boil down to whether the mayor actually places
the remaining colonists on the colony ship or not, since this is
nominally where the university will take them from. We played it that
this is indeed what happened (not that it actually affected the
result).

This seems to also apply to players who have an active hospice as well
(although this is less likely to affect things in the end game).

Has anyone else come across this situation, and if so, did you
interpret the rules as we did?

Thanks for any help on this,

Mike.

[Scott Slomiany]

"Mike Hutton" <huttm_s...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:702501e5.03050...@posting.google.com...

> The game ended with the mayor running out of colonists to fill up the
> colony ship. There was only one available, and we had three players.
> Now, player A had an active university (the one giving an extra
> colonist for each building). If Builder was selected as one of the
> remaining player turns, and player A opted to build a level 4 building
> (Guildhall in this case), would he be able to use the last colonist to
> populate the building and thereby gain its bonus?

Yes. Based on this: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/viewfile.php3?fileid=1567
The Hospice and University should take their bonus colonist from the common
stock (if available). If there are none in the common stock, then the bonus
can be 'paid' from the colonist ship.

[David desJardins]

Mike Hutton writes:
> The question seems to boil down to whether the mayor actually places
> the remaining colonists on the colony ship or not, since this is
> nominally where the university will take them from.

If there aren't enough colonists to fill up the ship, then the mayor
does put all available colonists on the ship.

But your second statement is backwards. The university and hospice
normally take colonists from the stock. However, if there are none in
the stock, then they can take colonists from the ship. If there are
none on the ship either (which can only happen if the ship has already
been depleted by other players removing colonists from the ship with
university or hospice) then they are out of luck.

David desJardins

[David Goldfarb]

In article <vohvfwo...@blue3.math.berkeley.edu>,

David desJardins <de...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>The university and hospice
>normally take colonists from the stock. However, if there are none in
>the stock, then they can take colonists from the ship. If there are
>none on the ship either (which can only happen if the ship has already
>been depleted by other players removing colonists from the ship with
>university or hospice) then they are out of luck.

Your parenthetical is not necessarily true: it may be that in the
penultimate Mayor phase, there were exactly as many colonists in
the stock as were needed to fill the ship, and then in the next
round someone called Mayor again, emptying the ship.

--
David Goldfarb <*>|"For some reason, most of my clearest memories
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |from my youth are of various traumas."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- James Nicoll

[David Goldfarb]

In article <b9a7n9$tp2$1...@agate.berkeley.edu>,

David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <vohvfwo...@blue3.math.berkeley.edu>,
>David desJardins <de...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>>The university and hospice
>>normally take colonists from the stock. However, if there are none in
>>the stock, then they can take colonists from the ship. If there are
>>none on the ship either (which can only happen if the ship has already
>>been depleted by other players removing colonists from the ship with
>>university or hospice) then they are out of luck.
>
>Your parenthetical is not necessarily true: it may be that in the
>penultimate Mayor phase, there were exactly as many colonists in
>the stock as were needed to fill the ship, and then in the next
>round someone called Mayor again, emptying the ship.

I might note that although this is rare, I have seen it happen.

--
David Goldfarb <*>|"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature.
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | It wastes your time and annoys the pedant."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |
| -- Lois McMaster Bujold