Cuba: El Presidente — Rules Manual

Michael Rieneck & Stefan Stadler
EL PRESIDENTE
ENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:52 Uhr

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Table of contents
2-3 Materials
3-4 Set-up
4 Overview of the action phase
4 Playing the Cuban cards
4-5 The actions of the Cubans
5 End of the action phase
5-6 The events
6 From one round to another
7-8 Appendix:
The new ships
The 5 new buildings
The new acts
Tactical hints
El Presidente
Cuba expansion
for 2 to 5 players
Game idea
The adventure in Cuba goes on. Now
several Cubans and even a president
also come into play. This expansion
provides new tactical possibilities.
Besides this, new ships, new acts, and
new buildings are optionally available.
This expansion must be played with
Cuba; the objective and the play remain
essentially the same. All new features
are described below.
Materials
1 gameboard
1 president's car
6 "Cuban" cards (big)
2 donkey cards (big)
2

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3
6 ship cards (big)
8 statute cards (small)
5 building tiles
1 press tile
Set-up
First, set up the basic game.
1. Gameboard: Place the new game board so that it’s touching the upper edge of the “Cuba” game board in such a way that you create 4 complete spaces for the bills above the Capitol.
2. Car: Put the car in front of the first space on the “Avenida del Presidente” (President Boulevard).
3. Ships: Shuffle the 6 new ship cards into the ship card pile.
4. Buildings: Place the 5 new buildings, along with the buildings from the basic game, face up to the right of the game board. If you'd rather play with the original number of buildings, you can choose to replace any 5 buildings of the basic game with the new ones.
5. Cubans: Shuffle the 6 new Cuban cards and randomly distribute them face up on the 6 big spaces of the new game board, putting 1 card on each of the 6 spaces.
With fewer than 5 players, replace some Cuban cards with donkey cards:
• The players can choose which Cuban cards shall be replaced.
• The female dancer must be included in all games!
5 players: All Cubans cards are used.
4 players: Replace 1 Cuban with 1 donkey.
3 players: Replace 2 Cubans with 2 donkeys.
2 players: Replace 1 Cuban with 1 donkey.
6. Statute cards: The players agree on the number of rounds they want to play. There are 2 new acts per type of act so that the game can now be played for 8 rounds:
• For 8 rounds, shuffle the new acts into the respective stacks.
• If you play fewer than 8 rounds, remove the appropriate number of cards from each statute card stack before you start playing.
2 other acts (example: Newspaper publishing house)
2 subsidy acts
2 tax acts
2 duty acts
EL PRESIDENTE ENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:52 Uhr S

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The players determine which
cards to remove or they are
removed randomly.
Overview of the
action phase
On his turn, a player can choose a
Cuban card from the game board
instead of a character card from his
hand. After that, he immediately
does
the action indicated on the chosen card.
Each player has one more turn in total
(five turns) during the action phase than
in the basic game. Exception: in a two-
player game, the players will each play a
card six times, since each player selects 2
Cuban cards.
At the end of the action phase, there is
always one Cuban card left. The president
rides in his car to this remaining Cuban
and thereby triggers a specific event.
Playing the
Cuban cards
• Sometime during the round, each
player must
take 1 Cuban (except in a
two-player game).
• No player may take a donkey.
• Each Cuban may be used only
once per round.
• When a player chooses to take a
Cuban, he removes the card from the
layout, puts it in his play area (on the
table near him), and does the action
immediately. After that, he puts the
card aside until the next round.
• A player may never use a Cuban in
the same turn that he uses a hand
card (worker, tradeswoman, etc.), but
only instead of it.
• Each player is free to decide in which
turn he will play a Cuban.
The Cuban’s actions
The dancer gives
a player the right to be
the starting player
When a player chooses the dancer, he
immediately becomes the new starting
player; as such, he moves the starting
player card to his play area. Therefore,
the starting player rule of the basic game
is not used with El Presidente.
• If nobody chooses the dancer, the
starting player passes the card to his
left neighbor at the end of the action
phase.
The musician gives
a player money
When a player chooses the musician,
he immediately takes 2 pesos.
The day laborer
stores products
When a player chooses the day laborer,
he may immediately store all his
products (citrus fruit, sugar cane, and
tobacco). This does not apply to
products that he gets later.
The harbor master
changes ship positions
When a player chooses the harbor
master, he may immediately exchange 2
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neighboring ships in the harbor with
one another.
• This does not apply to a ship at sea.
• The harbor master can exchange the
ship on position 2 in the harbor with
either of the two other neighboring
ships (position 1 or 3).
• The player may forego an exchange.
The lawyer uses
a building
When a player chooses the lawyer, he
may immediately use one of his own
buildings once.
• First, he must pay 1 peso.
• The worker's position is irrelevant.
The revolutionary gives
a player 1 victory point
When a player chooses the
revolutionary, he immediately scores 1
victory point.
End of the
action phase
The president triggers an event
At the end of the action phase, the
president rides in his car to the Cuban
that has not been chosen by the players.
This Cuban is of no further importance,
but the space on which he is standing,
is. Each of the spaces shows a symbol
that stands for an event.
When the president reaches the space,
he triggers the respective event.
• The car moves along the 6 spaces
of the “Avenida del Presidente”
(President Boulevard).
• The president never
drives to a
donkey.
• It is not possible for the car to not
move at the end of an action phase. If
a card is left on the same space as in
the previous round, the car “moves”
to the same space and the event is
repeated.
When does the event take effect?
Some events are effective immediately,
some later; others do not become
effective until the next round.
The events
Space 1
In the next round, each player
sends 2 (not 1) of his characters
(hand cards) to parliament. That means
that in the next round each player has
one less action. Thus, in the respective
parliament phase, each player has the
total number of votes for both of their
characters sent to parliament.
Space 2
All current bills for this round
are passed automatically. The
next parliament phase is omitted since
voting is not necessary.
• If the church owner has used the
church for his veto, all 3 remaining
bills are passed.
EL PRESIDENTE ENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:52 Uhr

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6
Space 3
Every player who plays his foreman during the next action phase may move his worker at the same time. So everybody has the possibility to move his worker twice – with the worker (as usual) and with the foreman. This is of great advantage particularly for the use of buildings.

Space 4
Each player may immediately pay 1 peso and overbuild one of his own buildings. Beginning with the starting player, each player may take a building from the layout and build it on top of an already existing building on his plantation board. To pay the building costs for the new building, the player has to pay only the difference in resources.
Example: Anna wants to overbuild the cement factory with a hotel. She has to pay 1 wood and 1 water, in addition to the obligatory 1 peso. However, building costs are not reimbursed. So, if Anna overbuilds a saw mill with a small bank, she pays just 1 peso, but does not get back the difference in wood from the saw mill.
Overbuilt buildings do not give a player any additional victory points in the final scoring and have no influence on taxes or subsidies.

Space 5
The leading player immediately loses 2 victory points. If two or more players are tied for the lead, each of them loses 2 victory points.

Space 6
Beginning with the starting player, each player, in turn, may take a piece of any one kind of merchandise (citrus fruit, sugar cane, tobacco, rum, or cigars) from the market:
• They may take merchandise only from the market, not from the stock.
• The players take the chosen pieces from the market from right to left, i.e., always the cheapest tobacco, rum, etc. first.
• When a player chooses a product, he may store it immediately; he need not put in the lot first.
• If, on a player’s turn to take something, nothing is left, he gets nothing.

From one round to another
• Car: the car remains at its new location until the president drives at the end of the next action phase. This is important to remember for spaces 1 and 3, as those events take effect later.
• Cuban cards: at the beginning of each round, reshuffle all Cuban cards and distribute them anew on the 6 spaces (as during the set-up).
• Final round: in the final round, the events of spaces 1, 3, and 4 do not have any effect on the game.

EL PRESIDENTEENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:53 Uhr

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7
Appendix
The new ships
The 6 new ships are self-explanatory to a
large extent. They act in the same way
as the 15 ships in the basic game. However, the wood freighter is the only ship
that declares wood as merchandise
(while it is lying in the harbor). (Important
for the features of mayor and branch offices.)
The 5 new buildings
Casino
Building costs:
1 stone, 1 water + 1 wood
If a player uses his casino with the
foreman, he either pays 5 pesos to get 2
victory points, or vice versa. That means
that the casino owner can also give up 2
victory points to get 5 pesos. This feature
can be used twice per round.
Customs office
Building costs:
1 wood
If a player uses his customs office with
the foreman, he can load any one piece of
merchandise from the general stock onto
any one ship in the harbor. He does not
get victory points for it; it just blocks the
loading spot.
Instead, the owner of the customs office
may also take off any one piece of
merchandise from a ship of his choice in
the harbor and put it in the general stock.
In this way, he vacates a loading spot on
a ship that has already been occupied.
Again, he does not get victory points for
this. This feature can be used once per
round.
Beach café
Building costs:
1 stone + 1 wood
The beach café has a special status.
It can be used anytime you want to do a
second action with one of your cards,
including without a foreman. The owner
of the beach café may use the alternative
features of his tradeswoman, his
architect, and his mayor, even if they
have already been used by another
player (have been marked “occupied”).
Statue
Building costs:
1 water + 5 stone
During the game, the statue is not of any
concrete use. At the end of the game,
however, it gives its owner 1 additional
victory point per building, i.e., 3 instead
of 2 victory points. This also applies to the
statue itself and the warehouse that is
already printed on the plantation board.
The foreman has to activate it in the final
round for the statue to take effect.
Newspaper
publishing house
Building costs:
2 stone + 2 wood
When a player uses his newspaper
publishing house with the foreman, he
gets the press tile. He immediately puts
it on one of the 4 current bills. If this
marked bill does not
pass in the
following parliament phase, the owner
of the newspaper publishing house
earns 1 victory point and
1 peso. This
also applies if it belongs to the player
who passes the bills (and selects 2 other
bills).
EL PRESIDENTEENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:53 Uhr S

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8
The new acts
There are 2 new acts per type of act.
Tax acts
• One act requires 6 pesos tax
• The other act requires 1 peso for
every 10 earned victory points.
Duty acts
• One act requires, as duty, pesos as
high as the current tax.
• The other act requires, as duty, any
one product and any one resource.
Subsidy acts
• One act gives 1 victory point for
each unit of rum and/or cigars that
a player owns.
• The other act gives the non-leading
players advantages. The players get
victory points according to their
position on the victory point track:
position 1 gives 1 victory point,
position 2 gives 2 victory points,
position 3 gives 3 victory points, etc.
If several players are in the same
position, they get the same number of
victory points; however, they occupy
one place each (as in a horse race).
Example: one player gets 1 point for
1st place. One player gets 2 points for
2nd place. Two players are in 3rd place;
they both get 3 victory points each, but
occupy positions 3 and 4, so the player in
5th place gets 5 victory points.
Other acts
• Export act: when a player supplies a
ship, he gets 2 victory points for each
piece of merchandise supplied,
regardless of the position of the ship
in the harbor.
• Control act: the alternative features of
tradeswoman, architect, and mayor
do not apply; this also affects the use
of the beach café.
Tactical hints
Depending on the playing situation,
the Cubans' actions differ in strength:
• When a player makes an early
decision, he has more choices.
• If some Cubans have already been
chosen, players have fewer choices
left, but more influence, instead, on
which event the president will trigger
next.
Important to consider: when a player
chooses a Cuban card, he automatically
prevents the event of the respective
space.
Authors:
Michael Rieneck and
Stefan Stadler
Illustrations:
Michael Menzel
Layout: Steffi Krage
Text: Annegret Schoenfelder
English translation: Sybille & Bruce
Whitehill, "Word for Wort"
Edit of English translation:
Jay Tummelson & Scott Tepper
Copyright:
© eggertspiele GmbH & Co. KG
Hamburg, 2009 / www.eggertspiele.de
EL PRESIDENTE ENG_ENG_RIOGRANDE_NEU:EL PRESIDENTE_Spieleanleitung_ENG 24.03.2009 11:53 Uhr S

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