River of Gold

This is a heavy Eurogame. You play merchant families trading along the River of Gold and establishing influence as you do so. You have two trading ships sailing downstream, stopping to earn money and load goods. You can supply goods to clients. This is your typical order fulfilment mechanism. You can also build trading houses along the riverbank. Trading houses offer benefits to all ships which stop by. The owner also gains benefits whenever the house is visited. So these are the three main things you do - you sail, you fulfil client orders, and you build trading houses. The game ends when the trading house deck runs out. Highest scorer wins. 

The game board looks like this. There are many plots along both banks where you can build trading houses. The game starts with some already built. When you sail, the space where you stop will always touch four plots, possibly some with trading houses built. You'll get stuff from all the trading houses. You will also get $1 from each empty plot. So the worst case is you earn $4. You only sail downstream. If you reach the river mouth, you cycle back to the top and continue from there. 

The river is divided into six segments representing six different provinces. When you pay to build a trading house, you will be able to increase your influence in the corresponding province. At the end of the game, you compare your influence against others at all six provinces, and you score points based on relative position. When your influence reaches certain milestones, you also get to claim benefits. Influence is one reason you want to build trading houses. With the house you have built, you also hope that others will visit so that you can earn the owner's income. You can visit your own house. This way you earn both the visitor's income and the owner's income. Sometimes players naturally build houses close to one another, because such clusters are attractive to ship owners. Ships want to stop where they can reap the greatest rewards. If you want people to visit your house, you want to make it irresistible. 

Those tables on the right are for keeping track of everyone's influence at each province. The point values for the most influential players are listed here. 

One interesting mechanism in the game is your action is restricted by a die roll. You always roll a die before the start of your turn. The die roll determines where you can sail, where you can build a trading house, and which client you can deliver goods to. The die is numbered 1 to 6, so if you want to sail, you pick one of your two ships, and it sails as many steps as indicated by the die. It is possible to adjust the die value. You need to spend divine favour to do this. Divine favour is a type of resource. When you decide to build a trading house, the die value determines which province you can build in. When you decide to deliver goods to a client, the die value also determines which client you can deliver to. Every client is associated with a die value. You can only serve a client if you have rolled that die value. Thankfully you can always spend divine favour to adjust your die value before you perform your action. 

You always have two client cards in hand. When you successfully serve a client, you get to draw two more client cards and then you discard one. When you serve a client, they usually give you a one-time benefit, an ongoing benefit, and also bonus points at game end based on a specific criteria. 

In the top half of this screenshot above, you can see three missions. You get to score points when you complete them. The missions are, from left to right, serving clients of three different types, reaching a specific influence level in a province, and building all four types of trading houses. The game gives you yet another aspect to consider and plan for as you play. 

These are the currently available trading houses you can build. The icon in the pointy half is the visitor income, and the icon in the flat half is the owner income. The black banner in the middle means how much influence you will gain for building the trading house. 

Influence track for Province #6

River of Gold looks more complicated than it actually is. There may be many aspects for you to think about, but every turn you are only choosing one out of three options - sail, build or deliver. Sailing helps you gain money and goods, while building and delivering require spending money and goods respectively. 

It is interesting to watch how players collectively develop the board. There is an uneasy balance between helping yourself and creating opportunities for others. You do want others to visit your trading houses, so that you get income, but at the same time you are hoping you won't help them too much. Your customers are ultimately your competitors too. When you sail and visit others' trading houses, you will also feel a little torn. You want to gain the benefits from the trading houses, and you have to grudgingly accept that the house owners will gain something too from you visiting. I find this delicious. 

One feeling I get when playing this game is happy times fly by too fast. The game always seems to end earlier than I expect it to. The trading houses run out so quickly! I feel there are still many empty plots along the riverbank. I feel I can compete more. I think this play experience means the game is well designed and well balanced. It makes you feel just on the cusp of greatness, and that's when the game ends - on a high note.