One of the things that struck me about the two games I just discussed is how different it is explaining the rules. The rulebooks are about the same length: Memoir ‘44 is 18 pages, while Goa’s is 12 (with slightly smaller text). Memoir ‘44 seems to come naturally to people. It goes something like this:

“Infantry move 1 and attack or move 2 but don’t attack. Their attack strength is 3, 2, 1 as the distance increases. Tanks move 3, can still attack, and can shoot up to 3 away at full strength. You get points by eliminating enemy units. Every turn, you play a card at the beginning, do what it says, and then draw a card at the end.”

Now, there are other wrinkles, and I usually take the time to explain them: the concept of “ordering” units can be a little confusing, it seems, and one opponent seemed averse to reading the cards. (He would play it and then ask me what it did!) There are other complications, too, but they’re all… intuitive and seemingly easy. Forests stop your movement but provide cover. Flags on battle dice make you retreat, unless you can’t, in which case you lose a figure. If you attack someone at close range and force them to retreat, you can move into the square they vacated, and even shoot again if you’re a tank.

On the other hand, trying to explain the rules of Goa to someone who’s never played it before is an immensely difficult task. Even experienced gamers have their eyes glaze over with confusion. There are just too many elements. Furthermore, there’s no way of fully explaining one element of the game without bumping into terms from one of the others. Let me try: Most of your points will come from advancing down these “technology tracks.” You advance technology with ships (how do you get them?) and certain combinations of spices. Spices come from plantations, which you can get in an auction (what auction?) or from a colony (what colony?) Well, colonies give you points too, and you get them by using an action (what’s an action again?) and flip two cards (What’s on these cards again?)and add your colonist technology bonus and making up the difference with loose colonists, but if it fails, you get another colonist for free, but that’s probably bad…. I’m getting confused just writing this. Don’t even get me started on the tiles, each of which has to be explained individually, or the exploration cards, which I just advise people to ignore on their first game. Most players seem to figure it out about halfway through the first game, which is frustrating for a game that’s as unforgiving as Goa. Choosing the wrong plantation or colony can give you a maddeningly hard time of advancing your technologies in a useful way for the middle half of the game.

And it’s strange, because Memoir is not really a shallower game than Goa, or not much. But I would give Memoir a shot with a friend who wasn’t much into board games, but would never in a hundred years play Goa with someone, no matter how brilliant, who wasn’t already used to Catan, Puerto Rico, etc.

I think a lot of the strength in Memoir ’44’s ease of learning comes from its theme. Not only is the subject matter familiar, but the game follows the theme very strongly–although it’s highly abstracted, it wouldn’t be inappropriate to call it a simulation of World War II battles. Goa, by contrast, is a theme added to beautify an abstract game. The ideas of exploration, competitiveness, and exploitation do come through in the play, but it’s not at all clear how the rules facilitate any of this.

This is not to say that Goa is a bad game. Far from it, and because it lets more people play, I’ve been able to bring it out more than Memoir. However, the ease of learning Memoir is really startling, certainly a reason to recommend the game and certainly a goal to aim for in design.