Things You'll Need:
- Puerto Rico board game
- Strategic mindset
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Step 1
Choose Captain when the ships are already half-full and you have too many barrels not to. If your barrels are likely to rot when the player on your left chooses Captain, don't give him the opportunity. Captain to make sure that your biggest crop gets on the boat, and gets you victory points.
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Step 2
Figure out exactly how the ships are likely to line up if you don't pick Captain. If there's plenty of room for everyone's barrels and all your crops are likely to get on a ship, then there's no real rush to pick Captain aside from the extra victory point. If your barrels are all safe, you may be better off picking something else. Conversely, if your crops may be forced off the ships, pick Captain to avoid letting that happen.
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Step 3
Abuse the Harbor for all it's worth. If you pick Captain and have the Harbor, you get three victory points for shipping a single barrel. This makes picking Captain almost always worthwhile, especially if other players can only ship one barrel each, since it gives them only a third as many victory points as you.
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Step 4
Choose Captain when the player before you just chose Craftsman. Now that everyone has barrels, you want to be sure that you control the ships, and ideally, you want to get other players' cash crops stuck on a ship before they can trade them. A Captain phase almost always follows a Craftsman phase, so if you don't pick it, someone else will, and they'll get the victory points instead.
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Step 5
Hold off on Captain if you have an unmanned building that really helps you during the Captain phase, such as Harbor or Lighthouse. Unless your barrels won't fit on the ships during someone else's Captaincy, you'll be better off picking Mayor instead. If you do have barrels that won't fit on the ships, you may still want to hold off on Captaining to man a Union Hall, Wharf, or Warehouse.
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Step 6
Look around the table at what barrels people have before Captaining. If you have only one or two types of goods--especially corn--you really need to Captain to make sure you get all the corn on a ship. If you have four or five types of goods, you may not need to choose the Captain role, but choosing Captain will let you effect what goods even get ships. If you can drop a barrel of coffee or tobacco on a ship while everyone else is producing indigo and corn, you can seriously impede their shipping game.
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Step 7
Consider your trading options before choosing Captain. Cash crops like tobacco and coffee are only worth one victory point per barrel on a ship, but they're worth a lot more in the trading house. Don't Captain if it will force you to ship your one barrel of coffee when you need money. On the other hand, you can sometimes choose Captain to make sure that the three ships have no room for your cash crop, so your lone coffee can stick around for the trading round.
