Goa Review

Goa - Destination: Spice Islands

Goa, by designer Rüdiger Dorn, is a game for 2-4 players set in colonial India where players are working to create the most successful colonies. Success comes through skillful advancements on a number of technology trees, monetary gain and establishment of colonies. The game works well with 2, 3 or 4 people. In terms of feel and complexity, I would compare this game to Puerto Rico, where you are working on resource management and investments into improvements. Additionally, it is the case that you will be investing in one thing to get another to get another thing. This is a very meaty game.

Lots of choices to be made each turn, many ways to win and much more to do than a turn will allow. Sessions move along quicky with almost no downtime and last anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours.

One nice point here is that the actions phase of each person's turn is split up in three actions with each player taking a pause after one action to let others take their action. In this way, instead of a player taking a long time to make three moves, each player makes one move in turn. As such, turns between players move fast enough that one has just enough time to plan a next move before it then comes up.

The game plays in two parts – an auction and then player actions. The auction is a once around bid which begins to the left of the player who selected the tile up for bid. Players bid for money and bids must be progressively higher. Players may pass and may bid on as many of the tiles selected as they have cash for. The highest bid wins each tile and money is paid to the player who selected the tile. In the event the player who picked the tile also wins the tile, money is paid to the bank.
The tiles come in different forms, all good things, but basically they are a way to get ships, spices, cash, discovery cards, colonists, extra turn cards, VPs and the all important plantations.

Players get 3 actions and take one at a time rotating around the board until they all have played out their actions. On a player's they may do one of 6 things all of which correlate to one of their 5 tracks:

1. Build ship(s) (get ships) - Ships are needed for Action 6 to advance a track.
2. Harvest (get spices) - Spices are needed for Action 6 to advance a track.
3. Tax (get cash) - Cash is needed for the auctions. Also, the player with the most cash at game end gets some VPs.
4. Discovery (get discovery cards) - Cards offer bonuses and VPs at end of game.
5. Create a Colony (get a colony plantation) - Plantations are places to receive spices from Action 2 or from bonus cards or tiles.
6. Advance on a Track - Increases the yield of Actions 1 - 5 above and give VPs.

Each track on the player mat has 6 levels, starting on top at the first level. Investments in each track (action 6 above), advances a marker down the scale which will yield greater results when taking actions 1 - 5 above. These results are clearly notated on each space of each track, so players know what each advance will get them in future.

The game lasts 8 rounds, 4 for the first half and 4 for the second. The grid is replenished with new, more powerful tiles between halves. After the final person has taken their last action available in the last round, the game ends and players total their VPs.

This is one of those games where 3 actions a turn is never enough to do what you want, so hard choices need to be made to make the most of the actions that you can do to try and maximise those all important VPs.

Review by Brian