Port Royal
Still at the epic long gaming session back in May, another of the games I got to play was this nice and fairly straight forward push your luck game.
A selection of the different type of cards that come up in the game
On your turn you turn over cards from the top of the deck until you're happy with the options that are available. If a duplicate ship (same colour/name) is revealed, the turn is over and all the cards are discarded. If not, each player in turn order has the opportunity to buy from the selection until they can't afford anymore. If someone else buys in this way, they also give the person who revealed the cards 1 coin.
To reduce the card tracking abilities, money is represented by cards as well, with the backs all showing a single coin. Each time you select to take a ship, you draw the money it shows and discard the ship. If you wish to obtain the services of a merchant, you have to pay the cost shown lower centre of the card. They then provide you with an ongoing benefit for the rest of the game, which could be increased income if you turn over enough cards, if there isn't a card for you to select, or just some icons which are used for completing expeditions, or defeating ships that you don't wish to remain in the harbour (cards you turn over from the deck).
Each merchant is worth a amount of points from 1 to 3 and it's the first player to reach 12 points is the winner. Expeditions are also worth some points, that is more than the value of the cards used to complete them (which have to be traded in to claim the expedition card).
Overall this was a nice fun filler game, taking up around half an hour, but could go a bit longer. Would enjoy playing it again, and the them is fairly decent for age of sail exploration and trading era.
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