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Cuba Board Game Review
by Steven Ng
Rum, banks, hotels and a golf course or two. Now that's the life! You get to control all that and other facets of business and government in pre-revolution Cuba. Use your workers, architects, tradeswomen and mayors to develop and operate various businesses in this tropical paradise. Harvest products, ship off goods, cater to tourists and control government statutes to defeat the competition and become the most powerful person in Cuba!
Cuba is a strategy board game similar in both mechanics and theme to Puerto Rico and Endeavor. The game takes place in pre-revolution Cuba, and your goal is to become the most influential person on the island. Starting with your original plot of land full of resources and crops, you will need to decide how you want to grow your business to maximize profits and gain the most influence in government.
You could focus on producing sugar and converting it to rum and then shipping it off. You could even focus on raw produce and ship them off instead. Not interested in physical supply chain? You could focus on building inns, hotels and golf courses. Or you can take control of the banks and the market and bribe your way to victory! There are many paths to victory in this game.
The gameplay in Cuba mainly revolves around 5 action types or roles that you can play. You start the game with a 4 x 3 plot of land. Each square on the land can produce a product or resource, which include sugar, citrus, water, brick and wood. You produce these items by using the Worker role or action. You place the Worker on any square of your land, and you activate all buildings and produce resources and crops on the squares that share a row or column with the square the Worker is on. So if you want to produce more citrus this turn, you would place the Worker on a square that shares a row or column with 2 citrus plots.
The next role you can use is the Architect, who allows you to erect buildings by paying their resource cost. There are 25 buildings in the game, most of which are unique and limited. These buildings produce a variety of effects, such as converting sugar to rum, converting finished goods to victory points or cash, or passively producing victory points or cash. There are also special buildings that control ship movements, veto edicts and increase your influence in government. Erecting the buildings require you to put the building tile on a plot square on your land, effectively reducing the amount of crops and resources your land can produce. Since there are a limited number of these buildings, your strategy will have to be fluid enough to change depending on what buildings your opponents erect. The Architect also allows you to directly gain victory points instead of erecting a building.
The Foreman role allows you to use the abilities of all buildings that are located on the row and column activated by your Worker. The Tradeswoman role allows you to buy and sell crops and goods in the market. This is where you can sell stuff for cash, or buy more goods to be shipped or converted into other goods. The market in this game is organic and depends on player actions. If a large amount of one good is being sold to the market, its buy and sell price becomes cheaper. The Tradeswoman also has an alternate ability of getting a free resource or crop.
The fifth and last role is the Mayor, which allows you to ship your products. There are 3 ships sitting at the docks, with one more on its way to Cuba. Each of these ships accepts 5 specific products. Shipping these products will give you victory points. Supplying products to the ship that has been sitting at port the longest will get you more victory points. The Mayor also has an alternate ability which allows you to gain cash.
The catch is that there are 5 roles, but you can only perform 4 of them each round. The order you play them is also important, as players play 1 role each in turn until everyone has played all 4. The 5 roles also have an influence value, with the Mayor possessing the most influence, and the Worker possessing the least. Players compare the 4th and final role they played that round, and the player who played the highest influence role becomes the new starting player.
The role card that wasn't played that round is also important, as it influences how many votes you get in parliament. Players combine the influence value of their unplayed card with any cash "incentives" they wish to add, and this total value becomes their final vote. The player with the highest vote gets to pass into effect 2 out of 4 statutes or edicts that are available every round. These includes edicts that allow you to spend cash or goods to gain victory points, as well as ones that reward you for being good at one facet of business. There are also statutes that slightly change some of the game rules. Controlling which statutes are passed is important, as they will reward one style of play much more than others, and you always want the right statutes active in order to boost your chances at victory. The game lasts for 6 rounds, after which the player with the most victory points wins the game.
Cuba takes some of the most interesting mechanics and rules from the best games out there, and combines them into a package that somehow works beautifully. The premise is very engaging as well. Who doesn't want to be in control of the rum factories, hotels, banks and the corrupt government of a tropical island paradise? It is like the hit Tropico computer game, but in board game form. It is also supported by a number of expansion sets that add new mechanics and keep the game fresh.
Complexity: 3.5/5.0
Playing Time: 1.5 to 2 hours
Number of Players: 2 to 5 players
About the Author
You can read more about Cuba at ageofboards.com/Steven maintains a board game review website at ageofboards.com/ - a website devoted to the best and latest board and card games. You can read game reviews and customer comments via this website.
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