Rajas of the Ganges

PROMO: Rajas of the Ganges: Mango Village (2017) Rajas of the Ganges: Tiger Expansion (2018) Rajas of the Ganges: Snake Expansion(2018)

WANT Promo: Rajas of the Ganges: Blessings of Kedarnath (2019) Rajas of the Ganges: Goodie Box 1 *have most

Jeff - STG CON 2018

A fun euro with some interesting twists. Sometimes turns felt a bit constrained. The board is a little hard to look at as it is SO busy. Actually took me a while to adjust to it, which was an odd experience. Almost like looking at one of those pixel pictures (a bit of hyperbole there). I'd play it again though.

This is right in my wheelhouse of preferred games with the Euro dice mechanism, (like Castles of Burgundy, Marco Polo I&II, Lorenzo, Coimbra, Grand Austria Hotel, etc).

I consider this is a good or maybe even the best game to introduce new players to the Euro dice genre. It is simpler and more noob friendly than some of the comparable titles mentioned above and easier to pick up and teach.

The game play was tighter than I imagined. There is always something to do but not a lot of dice mitigation. The race aspect isn't always my favourite end trigger but we are adapting well and it adds variety when deciding what to play.

Unfortunately we had a bad shuffle of the tiles in a game where after a few rounds the entire tableau was all straight roads. This stifled the map building to some degree. This is an odd occurrence but it can happen.

Up'd my rating after many plays and added Goodie boxes. The extras generally make things easier but it is the variety that keeps the game fresh.

The board might scare people off, but this quickly becomes a very smooth play - more excellent medium-weight design from the Brands. Played twice in one evening and keen for more.

A mash of up of a racing game combined with worker placement, but with some original twists on both genres, with vibrant colours, nice visuals, and solid components.

The goal of the game is to be the first player to match or exceed the value of both your money and points tracks (you have two different tracks that run opposite directions around the edge of the board), or have the greatest differential if multiple players accomplish this. This is what makes it a race game, and therefore the length of the game is variable. I have never seen this feature before, so points for originality.

On your turn, you place a worker (you start with 3, and can unlock up to 2 more) on either a free space, a space requiring you to pay money (and therefore reduce your money track!), or a space requiring you to pay a die. Dice (and there are 5 bright colours of them) are a currency which are needed for many of the action spaces (this is yet another small but unique twist to worker placement by the Brands, they did something different but also slightly unique with worker placement in Village).

There are 4 main areas of the board: 1) the palace, which has a variety of acquiring die spaces, and it also has 6 specific action/helper spaces that require a specific die value (one of the nice features of this game is that the game places value on all values of die, not just high ones), 2) the river, where you have a boat meeple that moves one direction, acquiring valuable one time bonuses as you move, and it is a real decision as to whether you want to race ahead to get the big bonuses, including an extra worker, or go slowly and pick off lots of useful bonuses along the way, 3) the quarry, where you build buildings (by paying the appropriate die costs) to add to your personal player board/estate. This is a significant way to score points in the game (it should be noted that you can increase the point value of each type of building, and many of the tiles have these buildings on them) as well as income/money and you can also acquire one off bonuses. There is a bit of a tile-laying aspect as you need your roads to connect to your central estate/house, and 4) the markets, where you will score money for specific tiles on your estate board. As a free action, you can at any time, flip a die over to its opposite side so long as you have enough karma (there is a karma track which you can move up or down on).

The game scales very well from 2-4 players, it's simple enough to jump in and play, but it's definitely a strategy game with various ways to approach it. It is well supported, with so far "goodies boxes" of mini expansions, several of which are no brainer add ons to make the game more interesting.

Own the [boardgame=286383]Goodies Box 1[/boardgame] , the [boardgame=306920]Goodies Box 2[/boardgame] and the [boardgame=234158]Mango Village[/boardgame] the [boardgame=264233]Tiger expansion[/boardgame] and the [boardgame=264018]Snake expansion[/boardgame] promos.

Intimidating at first glance because the board is so busy with iconography, but actually plays quite smoothly and quickly. I quite enjoy the balancing act between your two different VP tracks and having enough dice left to do actions. It's one of the few race games that manages to keep the tension up the whole time, with fun combos that can slingshot players from behind. There are plenty of ways to manipulate your dice, so you always have options even with a bad roll. Hits that mid-weight Euro sweet spot just right for me.

20-06-2018 (133)

Good worker placement dice game, with very bright and colourful artwork. Always fun to play.