Back from Hiatus; Goa
Posted by Rob Herman at January 2nd, 2007
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Rule 0. I’m sorry for the unannounced break; I wish I had the excuse of a bustling holiday season or personal issues to deal with, but really, it was just a combination of laziness and running out of things to write about. But I’m feeling refreshed from break and have a list of articles to write that will last at least half a month, so here we go.
My birthday fell over the hiatus, and one of the two games I got for it was Goa (subtitled Destination: Spice Islands), not to be confused with Go. Themed after the Dutch exploitation of the Spice Islands, It’s not the first and not the last in a line of games devoted to the European exploitation of some hapless colony. In the play, the most similar game is Puerto Rico; like that game, Goa features several resources that need to be weighed, considered, bought, and sold as each player more-or-less independently tries to build a powerful economy and amass victory points (VP).
The innovative mechanic of Goa, and certainly the thing that makes it most interesting, is the auction mechanic. The game lasts for eight turns, and before every turn, each player designates a tile (representing some resource or privilege) to be auctioned off. There is only one round of bidding for each auction, and the auctioneer has the privilege of bidding last. If the auctioneer buys the item, he or she pays the bank; if any other player wins the auction, that player pays the auctioneer. Money has (almost) no other value over the course of the game, except that the player with the most at the end wins a small VP prize.
This auction mechanic is nuanced, at times very cutthroat, and certainly where the game is won or lost. The rest of the game is quite complicated and rather hard to describe. Shipping spices back home aboard ships allows players to progress technology tracks; the technology tracks provide VP and also increase the rate at which players produce spices, ships, money (for use in the auctions), and so on. You are well-served by buying things in the auction that are still difficult to produce on your own, and so on.
In having this consideration for the careful planning and best use of limited resources, Goa feels very similar to Puerto Rico between the auctions. On one hand, being so closely compared to such an excellent game must be a good thing. On the other hand, Puerto Rico is excellent, and like Settlers, similar games have to be able to win the “why don’t we just play X instead?” argument. Goa is a longer game, probably by 30 minutes, which is to its disadvantage, because it doesn’t really pack any more payoff into that time. The rules sound like complete gibberish to new players (more on this in a later article) and it’s certainly not friendly to the novice board gamer. On the other hand, the strategy is certainly not wanting, and Goa brings a level of direct interaction that Puerto Rico lacks.
Also, we are pretty close to settling on a couple of houserules. One is that players’ cash reserves are public knowledge. There is no need for secrecy; all transactions are public, and keeping track of opponents’ levels is such a powerful and important strategy that a player not keeping track would have little hope of beating an opponent who is. Second is that instead of rotating actions, each player takes their first three actions all in a row. This affects the game only very rarely (and not in a surprising way, or one that gives a huge advantage to any particular player or strategy) and makes it faster and less confusing as players are encouraged to plan their turn all at once.
For a conclusion and recommendation: If you enjoy playing Puerto Rico or similar games against strong opponents, get Goa. You’ll have fun and be able to struggle with them more closely than other games. If Puerto Rico or Catan leave you tired or frustrated, or if your group hates games that take over an hour, leave Goa aside; you’ll play it once and leave it on the bottom of your shelf forever.
Before teaching Goa to people, I’ve started explaining “imagine a typical Euro game, with the various elements you have to balance to advance. Now imagine 2 Euro games mashed together.” I think that explains the complexity, but it also explains why everyone I know who games frequently is a big fan of Goa. It’s everything they like turned up to 11.
Personally, I enjoy the part of the game you didn’t cover, where you are basically playing solitaire to improve your empire. As you say, it basically is a solo game during those parts. (I still wouldn’t change it so that everyone takes their 3 turns in a row. The early rounds usually have a race to get the first pick of colonies, and that can be important.) I’d probably do better if I started placing more emphasis on the auctions, though…
It’s not too long. I’d say my games are usually just over an hour, which I consider normal. Recently, I was at I’m Game and we decided to play “speed Goa” in the 40 minutes before they closed. It was a lot of fun, and we finished with time to spare.
Your description of Goa, I think, is highly apt. Turned up to 11, certainly.
You’re right that the right to pick a colony first is potentially important, but I’m not sure that it changes the game enough to be worth putting aside a houserule that could hasten the game substantially. Clearly playtesting is called for; I’ll try to do it at my next opportunity.
Having played Goa (admittedly incorrectly) with both the taking three turns at once and alternating turns, I found that taking three turns at once to be a bit confusing. There a lot of things you can do during your turn that are not actions. It was a bit confusing as to how many actions a person had taken. It just seemed to flow better alternating turns.
I do foresee a change in first turn strategy. It is preferable to advance the colony track by one before trying to found your first colony, to insure a success. With alternating turns this would take two actions, allowing a less risk adverse player to attempt to get a better first colony. I think the fact that you also bid for who gets to go first balances this out.
Unrelated, does Puerto Rico have any kind of balancing mechanism on who gets to go first in the game? Goa does it randomly but penalizes the first player by lowering their starting income.
I suppose my first impression of Goa is that it has a fascinating auction mechnic sandwiched between relatively uninteresting and non-interactive turns. The first time through the game with many new players, this is really quite painfully evident. Since it takes all players quite a while to take their actions, the game ends up being a small portion of auction action and the remainder somewhat tedious solitaire. I’d be willing to give it another shot to see if it improves if the game goes a bit faster.
As for Puerto Rico, yes, there is a balancing mechanism as to the starting player. The first and second player start with Indigo, while the remainder start with Corn. Since Corn is quite favorable to Indigo, this balances out the fact that the first players have a better of selection of initial jobs. I’ve played quite a lot of Puerto Rico, and have no memory at all as to which positions I’ve started in, which leads me to believe that the balance is fairly good.