We played with all the expansion cards except for the purple ones (to keep funky rules to a minimum...)
The game was enjoyed by all, although the cards (being fresh) might not have been shuffled as well as desired.
The player starting with the circle token (longtime gamer) had a poor start and struggled to catch up although I think he might have saved up expensive cards too much.
The game went well, although we coached the newbie a fair bit in the first few rounds to help him avoid common early pitfalls. I had a strong start as the aristocrat player, scoring a decent moneymaker early and then benefitting from a lucky somewhat early game appearance of a shipworker upgrade when anyone else eligible for it couldn't take advantage of it.
I ended up winning the game handily with a large compliment of 9 different aristocrats (won by 20+ points) with my nearest competitor scoring a solid aristocrat bonus but having a very strong blue point economy.
A breakdown of strategies:
Mine (winner): started with a good orange and a few decent green worker choices, giving me a good starting money engine. I used an observatory to help out, gaining two more (I think) workers before pushing for more orange aristocrats. I only went for an upgrade card with the observatory in the last round when the aristocrat deck was nearly depleted.
2nd Place: (lots of St. Petes experience): Got a Debtor's Prison early and went "dumpster diving" for any upgraded greens early as well as blue "upgrade" buildings (ie. 2/6 buildings, etc..) He had a couple cloth workers when the textile factory came out, but chose to go dumpster diving for another cloth worker rather than take the factory. In a defensive move, I bought the factory before his turn came around again. That was a huge help. With the ability to choose ANY card he wanted out of the discard pile, it seemed that the debtor's prison was actually too powerful to our group. (You can get that exact aristocrat you're missing, a guaranteed cheap green worker, etc...) The only drawback I could see is if there wasn't any early upgrading, but with our group of 5 people there were plenty of upgrades going around... With his ability to "dumpster dive" he built up a nice money and point engine and was coming on strong to my lead, only limited by a lack of atristocrats in his scoring. The only reason our group wasn't _convinced_ the debtor's prison was too powerful was that he didn't win the game.
3rd Place: (new to St Pete, but a gamer) Played well and got a huge money lead compared to most of the players but didn't realize he needed to find more uses for his money. Ended the game with $60 or so... Should have spent more the next to the last turn or so...
4th Place: (complete game newbie) Squeaked out a win against the third experienced St. Petersburg player partly due to the group's help to make sure he didn't make early mistakes and also to some judicious use of the other Observatory.
5th Place: Stuck with some bad placements in choices, had a hard time getting a money engine going. Might have been able to make a few better choices here or there but I think the cards were somewhat stacked against him during the game.
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All in all, I had a great time. I love the "improvements" to older cards and enjoy most of the new cards. Looking forward to trying out the game with the purple action cards and seeing how it goes when it is shuffled a bit better...

One side note, I found it interesting in the 5 player game that we used up every card pile except for about a half-dozen of the upgrade cards. Everything else was wiped out in the last round.
I'd love to hear other folks' opinions on the Debtor's Prison... did it seem too powerful to us due to group-think? Was it due to the 5 player game setup? Or am I missing something?



















































