Quick Start Guide

Tropic Euro is a turn-based game for 2 to 5 players. Each game takes around 15 turns.
The core mechanic of the game involves selecting plantations, building appropriate production buildings and shipping goods back to Europe.
On each turn, each player chooses one of the available roles (e.g. "Builder"). The other players can also apply the role straight after the chooser, but the player that chose the role gets an additional privilege (e.g. a discount when building).
For buildings and plantations to become active, they must be equipped with tools during the "Equipper" role.
Goods are produced during the "Producer" role if the plantation and its corresponding production building are both equipped.
Each container of goods that is shipped back to Europe during the "Shipper" role earns the player 1 Victory Point (VP).
There is only a limited number of Victory Points available at the start of the game - the game ends when this supply runs out, or when there are no more tools left for the "Equipper" role.
The winner is the person with the most Victory Points. Buildings also provide extra VP at the end of the game.

Note: for learning purposes, a 3 player game is recommended.

Tropic Euro requires Java 6 or newer for Windows / Mac OS X / Linux.

Gameplay

Each player owns a separate island with spaces for city buildings, plantations, and resources. Three ships, a trading house, and a supply of resources and cash are shared between the players.

The resource cycle of the game is that players grow crops which they exchange for points or cash. The money can then be used to buy buildings, which allow players to produce more crops or give them other abilities. Buildings and plantations do not work unless they are equipped with tools.

The game has a three-layered turn structure: during each round, every player chooses a role (Builder, Equipper, etc), and whenever a role is chosen, every player can take the action appropriate to that role (though the player who chose it gets a small additional privilege). The right to start a round, to choose roles within a round, and to take the action for the chosen role, all rotate clockwise. Unused roles gain a $100 bonus at the end of each round, so the next player who chooses that role gets to keep any cash bonus associated with it.

Players get Victory Points (VP) for owning buildings, for shipping goods, and for equipped "large buildings".

The game ends when:

"Shipper" role is selected and the last VP is given to a player. (Additional VP are to be used once the supply is exhausted)
"Equipper" role is selected and there are not enough tools left from Europe to fill the tools ship.
"Builder" role is selected and at least one player has built their 12th city space.

In each case, players finish the current round before the game ends. The winner is the player with the most Victory Points. In the event of a tie, the player with the most cash is given the tie-breaker (and then total quantity of goods if still tied).

Roles

Starting with the player who is the "governor" (the first person to choose a role in this round), each player must choose a role from among those not yet chosen. All actions happen first with the chooser, and then proceed clockwise until the action phase concludes.

Unused roles gain a $100 cash bonus at the end of each turn, so the next player who chooses that role gets to keep any cash bonus associated with it. The governor advances to the next player at the conclusion of a turn. This results in a drastic change of the previous turn's role choosing order so that the player who was governor and had first role choice will have last role choice in the upcoming turn.

The full details for each role are displayed below. Actions that are mandatory are phrased with "must" while optional actions or privileges use "may" in their descriptions. The player who chooses a role is also entitled to an optional privilege if available.

Planter

Action: Starting with the chooser, each player may select a plantation if they have plantation space available.
Privilege: The chooser may opt to select a quarry instead of a plantation, as long as quarries remain in the supply. Quarries which are equipped with tools provide a discount of $100 when building.
Note: The revealing of plantations is the only random element of the game other than seating arrangement.

Builder

Action: Starting with the chooser, each player may buy one building paying with cash and/or equipped quarries by proxy.
Privilege: The chooser pays $100 less.
Game Terminating Condition: If a 12th city space becomes occupied, the game will end once all players have selected roles.
Note: Players cannot purchase a duplicate building of the type they already own.
Note: If the cost of a building to a player becomes less than $0, the cost of a building shall be treated as $0.
Note: Players may not build beyond their 12th city space.

Equipper

Action: Starting with the chooser, players receive a tool from the tools ship in clockwise order until the ship is empty. After which every tool controlled by the player can be rearranged to and from plantations, quarries, and buildings.
Privilege: The chooser receives an extra tool from the supply if the supply is not depleted.
After Equipper Role: After all tools have been rearranged, the tools ship is refilled with an amount either equal to the number of players or the number of unoccupied tool locations on buildings, whichever is greater.
Game Terminating Condition: If the ship cannot be refilled in full, the game will end once all players have selected roles.
Note: If players have more tools than places to allocate them, they must house their additional tools on their island until they can be moved.

Producer

Action: Starting with the chooser, plantations and production buildings may produce goods.
Privilege: If supplies remain after all players have produced goods, the chooser may produce one extra good. The extra good produced by the chooser must be of a type that they produced during this Producer role.
Note: With the exception of banana, all equipped plantations require an accompanied equipped production building to produce a good.
Note: Because each player produces goods in order, it is possible for later players to not receive any or all goods if production exceeds supply.

Trader

Action: Starting with the chooser, players may sell one good not already present at the trading house for cash, if the trading house is not full.
Privilege: The chooser gains $100 extra if they make a trade.
Note: If full, the trading house empties once the Trader role ends, returning its contents to the supply.
Note: Players are permitted to sell a good to the trading house that does not result in any cash awarded, which is possible with the banana good.

Shipper

Action: Starting with the chooser, players must load goods onto the ships for Victory Points (VP). Loading continues in clockwise order indefinitely until no player can make further shipments. Each player must load goods if possible and must load only one type of goods on each turn. A ship can only accept loading if:
1. The ship is empty and the other two ships do not already have this good type present.
2. The ship has at least one empty slot and the goods being loaded are of the same type as the goods already on the ship.
Privilege: The chooser earns an extra Victory Point if they make a shipment (for the first shipment only).
After Shipper Role: After all loading, goods that were not shipped are "spoiled" and returned to the supply. Players are allowed to protect one individual good from spoiling, in addition to other protections afforded by the warehouse buildings. The ships that have reached capacity are emptied and the goods returned to the supply.
Game Terminating Condition: If the Victory Point supply is exhausted, the game will end once all players have selected roles.
Note: After electing the good and which ship to use, a player must load as many goods of that type as possible.
Note: When the wharf is selected instead of one of the three ships, it can accept goods already present on a ship.
Note: If no Victory Points are available to award from the supply, extra VP are used in order for proper calculation of total VP received from shipping.
Note: After electing the good to ship, if there is a choice of empty boats then the one which can hold the most of that good must be chosen (i.e. the most "effective" ship must be used).

Investor

Action: No action.
Privilege: The chooser receives $100 cash.
Note: Not used with three players. One Investor role used with two and four players. Two Investor roles used with five players.

Buildings

Tropic Euro can be played with various building configurations:

Standard: the fixed set of buildings included in the original Puerto Rico board game.
Random: a random selection of buildings from the full set of buildings (standard buildings plus the buildings added in the Puerto Rico expansion released in 2004).
Expansion: all of the expansion buildings plus three random "large" buildings from the standard set of buildings.
Custom: each player takes it in to select an available building for the game (right-click / ctrl-click on the building spaces in the main window to choose a building).

Full details on each building are available in-game as a tooltip (place your mouse over the corresponding building).

Differences from the Puerto Rico board game

Tropic Euro has very similar game mechanics to Puerto Rico, but some of the concepts, roles, resources and buildings have been renamed to match the new theme:

1 doubloon -> $100 cash
Colonists -> Tools

Settler -> Planter
Mayor -> Equipper
Craftsman -> Producer
Captain -> Shipper
Prospector -> Investor

Corn -> Banana
Indigo -> Cocoa
Tobacco -> Rubber

Hospice building -> Planter Toolmaker building
Fortress building -> Toolbank building
(Expansion) Guesthouse building -> Toolshed building

The original board game rules state that the Victory Points acquired from shipping should be hidden from other players until the end of the game, whereas Tropic Euro adds an option for these VP to be shown or hidden on a per-game basis.

The cost of the factory and university buildings have been swapped, as recommended by the Puerto Rico creator Andreas Seyfarth.

All players that start with a banana plantation start with $100 less than the players that start with a cocoa plantation, to improve the balance of the game. This was confirmed during testing over a very large number of games for the hard difficulty AI player, and a fuller discussion on this is available at the BoardGameGeek forums.

The tie-break condition has been modified more in favour of cash with Tropic Euro: in the event of a tie, the player with the most cash is given the tie-breaker (and then total quantity of goods if still tied).

Tropic Euro requires Java 6 or newer for Windows / Mac OS X / Linux.