San Juan (Second Edition)

San Juan is a card-driven resource management game set in the capital of Puerto Rico during the Age of Discovery. To set up, place the main deck of building cards, the trade marker strips, scoring pads, and pencils within easy reach of all participants. Five main role cards—Constructor, Overseer, Trader, Mayor, and Prospector—along with the starting Governor card are laid out in the center of the table. Each player receives a starting Indigo Plant card (which acts as their first building) and a starting hand of four random cards drawn from the deck.

The primary objective in San Juan is to construct productive buildings and municipal structures representing your growing colonial settlement in Puerto Rico. Players manage their hand of cards carefully, using them simultaneously as currency to pay for construction, as merchandise to trade for new cards, or directly as buildings placed in their personal play area. Whoever scores the highest number of victory points through buildings, built-in card values, and strategic bonuses by the end of the game wins.

Gameplay proceeds in rounds led by the Governor, who holds the Governor card at the start of the round. The active Governor selects one of the five available role cards from the center, placing it in front of them and claiming its unique privilege. All players then perform the main action associated with that role card in turn order. Once every role has been chosen and executed by all participants, the Governor card passes to the next player to the left, and a new round begins.

At the end of the game, players tally their final victory points using a dedicated scoring sheet. Points are compiled from four main sources: the baseline victory point values printed at the bottom of every constructed building, bonus cards stored beneath the Chapel during the Governor phase, special end-game scoring multipliers from unique violet buildings like the Guildhall, City Hall, and Triumphal Arch, and potential bonus points from the Palace based on total accumulated points.

The game does not run out on a fixed number of rounds; instead, it triggers an immediate end condition. As soon as any player completes the construction of their twelfth building during a Builder phase, the current round is played to completion, and the game stops immediately for final scoring.