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I bought Cartagena from our local game store last Saturday. The game had caught my attention on BoardGameGeek before and when I spotted it in the shelves the decision to bring it home with me was an easy one, as we had been talking about getting a new game with my wife P.
 It's the type of game that I tend to like and search for, that is a light board game. It's for 2 to 5 players and the game time is estimated to be from 30 to 45 minutes. It's a race game where you try to get your pirates through the dungeons of Cartagena to the escape boat before other players. You move your pirates by playing cards. The game mechanics and economy are very neat: instead of picking up cards at the beginning of your turn you get extra cards only if you move one of your pirates backwards.
So far I've only played with two players and I can imagine that it will be a lot more chaotic experience with three or more, as the decisions of other players are bound to ruin your own plans.
 The pieces of the game are ok visually, but you can see that they aim for functionality rather than purely aesthetic values. The wooden pirate meeples are the best of the lot.
Strategically the game is very interesting. The only random factor is the cards you draw, the rest of the game is based on player decisions. As there are only two kinds of player actions (playing a card and moving a pirate forward and moving a pirate backwards and drawing cards) but each player can take 1-3 actions, I suspect the game is based on player skill.
Certainly there doesn't seem to be many factors to even out advantage from the leading player or help out those who get behind. In games with many players "beat the leader" tactic may even things out a little bit. All in all the flow of the gameplay reminds me a little of Lost Cities , which is a great two-player game but a very serious and unforgiving one if you want to win.
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