Port Royal Review - with Tom Vasel

I love this game! I played it at GenCon50 and have had a blast playing it at home. I would also say to be sure to get the right measurements for card sleeves because mine are a bit too big, but they still work great.

It does scale well. I've played a 7-player game of it before. That's probably the upper limit, but because everyone can buy on anyone's turn there's not a whole bunch of time spent just sitting and waiting.

Love this game! Is this a reprint?

A 120 deck card? I love Tom's verbal screw ups =)

This is a (new) US publication of the original game. I have the Czech edition, which was basically a translation of the original german one. From what I can see they changed bits of the art - in the original the ships did not have "nationalities", only colors (yellow, red, green, blue and black). They also changed the font on the lower part of the cards and also for the card names. Also, "MISSION" was added to the mission cards.

The main setup is not good here. The screen is middle of the picture, what else is middle of the picture? Toms belly. You should not frame it so that the head is at the very edge of the picture.

this one is in my top ten. I can play it with my kids or really competitive. it plays very well with two players or up to five. with the expansion you can even play it very nicely solo.
And it is a small box which is good for holiday and for my space for boardgames. and it plays under an hour.
perfect, I love it.

They should have included the expansions in this version. Also thats one ugly box cover.

SJG has said they have no plans to publish the expansions. Since their version is incompatible with the PS expansions, I'd strongly suggest purchasing the PS version to maintain the option of adding expansions later. On Amazon currently, the PS version can be imported for less (including shipping from Europe) than the SJG version is selling for (with free prime shipping)!

I played this for the first time a few weeks ago. Not my usual style of game, but majority ruled we'd play it. I was pleasantly impressed. I didn't win, of course, but afterwards understood why I hadn't won. Sign of a game I'd like to try again. Give it a chance.

No hammer of doom?!?!

This has been my 2p game of choice lately, and now I am interested in trying it with more. I got it Tom, based on your review of the PS version, and I wish I had the cover being pipe-smoking pirate from the back/PS version. Everything else is great like you said.

Great game! I like the original artwork way better though.

Great game. Get the Pegasus Spiele version. Smaller box, nicer cover, compatible with the expansions, no ugly font nor “flags”.

This is a great game, but I prefer the Pegasus version. I can see that the redesign of the flags from colors to nationalities would help color blind players, but for those of us not color blind, the colors are easier to recognize from across the table. What they SHOULD have done, is make the character cards more readable from a distance, as the tiny characters all look alike and we spend half the game picking up the cards and peering at which ones they are. The icons are kind of small as well, and since you need to identify them on the table and not in your hand (you have no "hand"), they NEEDED TO BE BIGGER. The Pegasus rules also are different in that you only get the second card with 4 ships, and a third with 5, just three ships doesn't get you any additional cards. A minor thing and that could be played either way. I've the PS expansion, but it's nothing to write home about-- a couple of extra characters and a couple of different ships. The "vice admiral" is like half an admiral, gets one card when there's 5 on the table when the full admiral gets 2 cards, etc. A good game but a re-design could have inspired me to go out and upgrade, where this version, not so much.

Yeah, buy the Pegasus version. That one already has two expansions AND a portable version, that is ALSO compatible with the regular game.

and now the inner videographer in me sees the missing brick and the total lack of head room in the shot

That TV takes up too much room in the frame. In the double trouble videos it's even more cramped.

Is there a reason the tv and decor, aren't level or is the camera tilded? I makes it hard for me to focus.

If you don't bust every time you draw a card, you're doing it wrong.

AMERICAN ships? in a PIRATE game?

My family loves this game :) Can You suggest something similar ?

I just don't get it with the German version widely available in English as well as its expansions what is honestly the point of releasing this at all. The new box cover is stupid and doesn't match the game and the very few changes that were made in this quote on quote "American Version" are so minimal that there is literally no point in owning this at all if you already have the European versions and their expansions. If you're going to re-release something don't just change the box cover and then call it your game. Forgive me they did associate the ship's colors with corresponding countries as if that made a big difference in how the game was played. The whole point of reprinting something or bringing something to America is usually predicated on the fact that the original versions either aren't available in English or are very rare and hard to get a hold of. Since neither one of those is the case then what exactly is the point?

This artwork is a bit worse than the original one. It's much more confusing while the original artwork was very clear. Still, it kept 95% of the original artwork and still looks good. Also, the expansions could be a nice thing to buy but they seem to not really be well known. I actually didn't know about them until today even though I have searched for them before. Publishers need to up their game especially when they have such a great game on their hand.

Thank goodness for your reviews. Your ability to get the rules across in just a brief description is matchless. I have struggled to work them out from the booklet and other videos but it took this review for me to grasp them properly.

It's a great game and I love the gold coins on the back of the cards. There's a simpler expansion / standalone game called Port Royal Unterwegs!

Amazing game. Play it every day with my co-workers at lunch :)

American-flagged ships in Port Royal is anachronistic.

A Danish ore Swidish would make so much more sense than the american. Danes (The vikings) are known saylers. Americans are not in any way

Disgusting, why would they ruin the game. Buy the original.

Can we all just take a moment to acknowledge Tom for being the gold standard at explaining games? All these years and he has just refined and perfected the process to make the walkthrough not only useful but enjoyable. Thanks Tom for all of the hard work involved with these.

THIS IS BEST GAME I EVER PLAYED, BUT UR EXPLANATION OF HOW TO PLAY IT IS TERRIBLE & DOESNT EXPLIAIN IT BARELY AT ALL.

Thanks for the review