I can't remember every single detail of the session, but I wanted to post a few details about this session because I feel I played really, really well and won without using what many feel is the "most powerful" strategy of abusing expedition cards. I think what I'll do is go over each aspect of my strategy and how it affected the game.

This game was played at the South Bay Boardgamers club. Three of us had played before, and the forth, my girlfriend, was trying it for the very first time. She was low balled one or two times, but otherwise, I feel she played very well. The other two players know Goa well and put up a great fight.

First, the flag. I bought the flag from someone else the first turn, and then maintained control of the it for quite a few turns, even buying it from myself once when I felt I was low balled. As many Goa veterans say, people often undervalue the power of the flag. The extra action is awesome, even early in the game - I like to think of it as one more action in my pocket for the last round - and having control of what gets bid on can really change the outcome.

Also, I acquired as many extra actions through other means as I could. I put an emphasis on advancing my tracks equally, collecting 2 extra actions that way, and actually bought 2 actions from myself during a bid for 20. When I later used one of those actions on collecting 3 ships, another player pointed out that I just spent 19.5 on 3 ships. I corrected him, pointing out that I would have done that anyway - I spent the cash on having 2 more actions right at the end of the game, which, as you'll see, probably won me the game.

Additionally, if I had only one action left, I always, always held onto it until the next round. I always had the feeling that something I acquired during the bidding could make my actions much easier and keep me from needing to use that action, say like if I bought a colonist tile.

Next, as I said in the title, I never bought a single plantation during the game. This wasn't a conscious decision or anything, but it just worked out that way. I usually bid on most plantations, but somehow I never quite had enough money and was outbid. That and there was always something more valuable on the table I wanted to buy. Because I could only rely on my colonies, I had to be incredibly efficient in my collecting and spending of spices, which is one thing that I'm really proud of how well I did.

On that note, colonies were key to this game for me. On the first turn the 1 colonist per round tile came up for auction, and I bid all my money at that point on it, something like 13 or 14. It put me at a disadvantage monetarily for a few rounds - although that was offset somewhat by having the flag - but the effects were well, well worth it. For most of the game my colonist upgrade track was only at +2 colonists, but I managed to complete the 4 colonies before anyone else and have my pick of the dual-spice-type colonies. I was also very, very careful not to waste any actions, so I always waited until I only needed 2 or 3 more to complete the colony. If I ended up drawing 5 or 6 colonists, so much the better - the next colony would be that much easier to found. On my last colony, Calicut, I drew 2, and used up every single colonist card I had (8) to found it. Now that's efficiency.

Next, expedition cards. Now, just because my strategy didn't revolve around them doesn't mean I didn't use them. My philosophy on expedition cards is that their ability decreases in value as the game progresses. My reasoning is twofold - first, while expedition cards give you cool free stuff like ships and colonists, they aren't any better than level 2 upgrade tracks. And yes, the other powers such as upgrading without ships/spices are really nice, but only if you draw them at the right time. As the game progresses, the likelyhood of drawing the "right" one decreases because your strategy becomes more and more narrow. Would you rather draw a advance without ships card early in the game when it saves you a action to advance an important track, or late in the game when you already have your ship track to +4? It just feels like you wasted an action at that point. So anyone taking cards when the B tiles are out for reasons other than endgame VPs is probably wasting their time, in my opinion.

On that note, the first colony I founded was the red/black Quilon, and I immediately upgraded the expedition and colonist tracks. Once I had Cochin, I upgraded the expedition track again and drew 2 cards. One was the advance without spices track, which I used later on to bump up my spices track to +4. The other was 5 cash which I cashed in right away.

The last turn of the game I'm especially proud of, and I remember it well so I'll describe it in detail. I managed to buy both the vice-king and the trading tile by spending every last cent I had. At the beginning of the turn, my upgrade tracks were at (counting the initial spot as "level 1"): ships: level 4, spices: level 4, money: level 2, expedition: level 3, colonists: level 2. I was also sitting on an extra action from the last round, 4 ships, my colonies were full of spices, and I had a matching pair of palm tree expedition cards.

My first two actions were to upgrade the money and colonist tracks to level 3, earning me an extra action right then, totaling 2 for me. I then used the vice-king to bump the expedition track to level 4. My third action was to draw 2 expedition cards, luckily giving me a third palm tree symbol and a shell, locking in 7 points in cards alone. I then used the trade tile to swap for the "refill 3 plantations" tile, which I used to collect 2 ginger, a cinnamon, and a pepper, exactly what I needed to upgrade the ships track to 5. My 2 extra actions were to collect 4 ships and upgrade the track to five.

At the endgame, my final score was 48, which included a 3-vp mission I had been lucky to pick up cheap (for 5). My tracks were at: 5, 4, 3, 4, 3. I had all 4 colonies, 3 matching cards, and 1 unmatched card. I spent all my money, and I only ended up with 2 spare colonist cards (from the 1 colonist a round tile, as I founded the 4th colony 2 rounds before the end) and 1 spare spice, a nutmeg that just wasn't needed. Now that's efficiency.

And it wasn't like I creamed the other players, it was a close game. I believe the scores were 40, 41, 44, and 48, all of which are high scores for Goa from what I've seen. I was proud of my girlfriend getting the 40 in her first game of Goa, she caught onto this game a lot faster than I did - I believe my first game's score was somewhere in the 20s.

Whew, anyway, I don't know if anyone wants to read that, but I absolutely love Goa. I feel I'm really, really good at it, and I only get better every time I play. Thanks for reading!