Components

• 1 Game Board (center of the table) with 1 Round Marker
• 1 Player Board per player : with 5 colored progress markers + 5 colored auction markers
• 1 Nazar Stone (starting player marker) displayed on player side panel when assigned to a player
• 29 Market Tiles (Day) - 4 randomly removed
• 29 Market Tiles (Night) - 4 randomly removed
• 18 Outposts tiles
• unlimited currencies cards (Pardaos, Ships, Contracts, Compasses)
• 30 Exploration Cards
• unlimited Goods tokens of 5 types/colors
  • Coconut coir
  • Turmeric
  • Pepper
  • Silk
  • Dried fish
    

Setup

The game starts with the day phase : 25/29 market tiles randomly placed on the 5x5 grid of the main board; later for the night phase 25/29 other market tiles will be randomly placed on the grid.

1 Exploration Card is drawn by each player until one player draw an Elephant symbol and becomes the starting player with 5 money, the others with 10.

Gameplay Overview

A game of Goa is divided into day and night cycles, each of which consists of 4 rounds. After the day cycle, remove all tiles from the playing area and setup the night tiles on the instead. At the end of the night cycle, the game ends and the player with the most points is declared the winner.

Each round consists of 3 successive steps :

1. Place Auction Markers

2. Tile Auctions

3. Actions

On Your Turn

Step 1. Place Auction Markers : you are asked to place an auction marker on the grid on an empty space if it is the first one, or next to the previous one if possible.

Step 2. Tile Auctions : each player has 1 turn to decide if they want to overbid or pass the auction related to the spots

• The first auction is to gain the starting player marker + 1 compass card
• Else is to gain the tile under the auction marker

Step 3. Actions : each player must play 1 possible action + max 1 card from their hand + play tiles from their hand until everyone played 3 actions. Then continue with players with compass cards (each action will cost 1 compass card), players cannot keep more than 1 compass card after this step (for future rounds).

• Basic actions are described as tooltips on player board column headers
  • Progress : improve another basic action by moving down 1 of your own progress markers
  • Build Ships
  • Produce goods
  • Collect Taxes
  • Explore
  • Establish an Outpost
• Cards actions are described in tooltips and help button (?) in the bottom left of the game
• Tiles actions are described in tooltips and help button (?) in the bottom left of the game
  

End of game

The game ends after 8 rounds (4 Day rounds + 4 Night rounds), then the game computes scores.

Scoring

You don't score anything during the game, but instead count different elements at the end :

• Progress Markers : Each of your Progress Markers scores between 0 and 10 points as indicated on the left of your Player Board row
• Outposts : You score between 1 and 10 points for your established Outposts :

• Island Symbols : Score Victory Points for each set of identical Island symbols shown on the Exploration Cards still in your hand ( Tiger / Elephant / Urn / Statue / Palm tree / Shell): Each symbol type scores between 1 and 15 points, depending on how many matching symbols you collected :

• Richest player : The player with the most money scores 3 points
• Tiles :
  • Each tile with a specified score gives you those points, but if you also have the Foreman tile, you score 3 points instead of 1 for single-field Depots
  • Be careful with the Duty tile (see page 18): it only grants its listed 5 points if you successfully fulfilled its requirement during the game (you will see a green check on it).

Options

• Bonanza Module :
  • On : add 4 hidden tiles in the market corners at the beginning of Day/Night phases
  • Off
• Planned Expansion Variant :
  • On : you have a fixed number of contracts before establishing new outposts (based on your progression on that action)
  • Off : you draw 2 cards to gain contracts before establishing new outposts
• Automaton (only with Solo) :
  • Level 1 : Automaton starts with 5*1 + 3*2+1*5 coins cards
  • Level 2 : Automaton starts with 4*1 + 3*2+2*5 coins cards
  • Level 3 : Automaton starts with 2*1 + 3*2+2*5+1*10 coins cards
  • random : level is randomly chosen at start between possible levels

Player Preferences

• Interface setting : Zoom icons (+)/(-)/Reset on the top right corner
  • Reset : will make game elements the same size as designed by developer to fit a standard screen (1920px) => common board on the left, player board on the middle, opponent board on the right. If your screen is smaller, you have to scroll down for opponent boards. If your screen is smaller, you have to scroll down for all players.
  • (+) : zoom in to have less elements fit in the screen
  • (-) : zoom out to have more elements fit in the screen
• Ask for turn confirmation : Enabled/Disabled
  • Default: Enabled
  • If enabled, add a step to click "Confirm" or "Undo"/"Restart" before turn ends
• Undo buttons style: "Text"/"Icon"
  • Default : Icon
  • If set to "Icon", display 1 arrow icon instead of "Undo last step" and 2 arrow icons instead of "restart turn"
• Background : Enabled/Disabled
  • Default : Enabled
  • If Enabled, display a light theme background behind game components
• Player panel details : Enabled/Disabled
  • Default : Enabled
  • If Enabled, display 2 more lines of informations in player side panels : count of each good types + count of each card symbol type in hand
• Hand of cards :
  • Bottom of window (default) : display hand cards attached to the bottom of the window, in order to continue to view it when scrolling the page
  • Top of game area : displayed on top (= after status bar title and before main board)
  • Near player board : displayed after your own board and limited to its width
• Display Discard in Hand at anytime
  • Disabled (default): you can only click your cards when you can play them or discard them after action Explore
  • Enabled : you can only click your cards during your actions turn in order to discard at anytime (in order to respect rules and permit edge cases strategies on deck/discard pile)