River of Gold

Summary

👥 A game for 2 to 4 players
⏳ Play time is 60 – 90 minutes
🏢 Publisher is Asmodee

Introduction

Along the bustling waters of the River of Gold, merchants and samurai clans compete for wealth and glory. Will you invest in ports, markets, and temples to expand your influence? Or will you sail the river wisely, complete lucrative contracts, and gain the favor of the nobility?

With a beautifully designed board, fast-paced gameplay, and minimal downtime, this is an accessible yet strategic game that you can get to the table quickly. Are you ready to become the richest trader on the river?

Let’s get in on the table

In River of Gold, you follow these 4 steps in order

Step 1; Spend Divine favor

You may choose to spend divine favor to change the face on your die for each dive favor spent. If you increase your die above 6, it becomes 1

Step 2; Take an action, you can choose to build a building, sail with a ship or deliver to a customer.

Build a building

You can build a building on a place that is corresponding with your die. Choose a space that you can ‘buy’ to build and pay the Koku costs to the supply. Now you can choose a building tile to place and place it on the board. The last action is to place a clan marker on the building tile and move your influence marker along its path and gain any rewards you reach or pass

Sail with a ship

Choose one of your ships and move it downwards the river by the number of spaces shown on your die. Collect the visitor rewards from each of the 4 shore spaces adjacent to the river space where your ships end its movement. Empty shore spaces have a reward of 1 Koku.

The owner of the tiles your ship is touching now collects the owner rewards from those buildings.

When your ship completes its journey by reaching the end of the river, you gain 3 Koku or any 1 trade good and discard the building tile at the end of the building row. Now move your ship X steps forward how many you have left.

Deliver to a customer

Choose 1 customer cards from your hand whose region matches the icons/ number on your die. Discard the trading goods equal to that customer’s order. If you do not have the right kind of trades or not enough good, you can’t deliver.

Place the customer faceup near your clan board and gain any customer rewards. If the customer has an ongoing ability, you gain this for the rest of the game. Draw 2 new cards and keep 1 and discard the other.

Step 3; claim Masteries

Claim masteries are goals for extra points, when you’ve meet or exceed on or more masteries. you can only claim one mastery, just place your clan marker on one of the rewards and immediately score those points.

Step 4; Roll your die and end your turn

Roll your die for the next round and end your turn

The emperor’s visit
At the end of Era 1, all players receive rewards from the buildings that they own. Just like a building has been visited by another player. Now the tile from Era 2 will be added to the building row and the game continues with the next player, when all the players has received their rewards.

The game ends

The game ends when the last tile from the Era 2 stack is moved to the building row. The active player triggers the start of the end of the game at the end of his turn. That player receives 5 points and the other players receive 1 last turn.

When the rest of the players has finished there turn, we’re going to count the points. You receive points for:

Regional influence; The players that are 1st, 2nd and in some regions are 3th with influence gain points values. The values are listed in top of the region.

Customers; Each player scores points for the total number of customers they have delivered to,

1 customer scores 2 points,
2 customers, gain 5 points,

3 customers, gain 9 points
4 customers, gain 14 points
5 customers, gain 20 points
6+ customers, gain 27 points

Customers bonus; Players who have delivered to merchants, nobles and artisans score those customers endgame points.

Conclusion & our score

Difficulty: 1.88/ 5
Re-playability: 8
Our score: 7,5 out of 10 dice

The game looks absolutely stunning! The artwork is just really cool, but the gold especially stands out and looks amazing on the table. The rules are simple, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the actions felt a bit too basic.
You only have three actions to choose from, which makes the game move much faster—definitely a plus.

The available actions are straightforward: sailing, building on a location, or fulfilling a customer card. The first action is easy and gives you a lot of benefits, sometimes even helping your opponent if you pass by their buildings. This way, you can quickly and easily score points, coins, and/or goods. However, once you reach the end, sailing continues from the top of the board. A short action is then triggered, removing a building tile and allowing you to gain either three coins or one of each type of good.

The other actions felt a bit more engaging, but those are the only two left. What you can do depends on your dice roll, but luckily, you can use Divine Favor to adjust the outcome.

With River of Gold, you’re getting a game that plays quickly, is easy to learn, and looks fantastic. We’re unsure if it will stay fun over time—it’s not a game we’d put on the table every week, but we also wouldn’t say no if someone suggested playing it

We want to thank Asmodee for this review copy and the opportunity to write about it.