Santa Maria

Played a 4 player game on 2.24.18. Neat, clever game. The mechanic of having each player create their own player board by purchasing tiles and placing them (like Feast for Odin, Patchwork) is a pleasant design. Having the players activate their board by rolling or selecting dice and running those dice along the row or column is unique. What a great little mechanic.Most of the game "made sense." I understood the getting resources, using resources to buy tiles, and using resources to do the shipping action. Using the completed shipping tiles to generate "income" for the 2nd and 3rd years was clever.New players should sit near the tiles that you buy for your player boards. The iconography was too similar to see differences at a distance. And, the iconography could have been better as a whole. We had to have the tiles explained each year.I think it's also good sportsmanship to recommend early moves for the new players. Recommending that they figure out how to get resources, and use those resources to build their player boards, so their dice provide more benefits is probably the best early game strategy. And, the players should be told to use the dice first, before using coins (so you can get the same benefits of a tile twice). This was an immediate purchase for us. Happy gaming!

I like games like this and this one is better than most. It plays great with 2 players and my friends bought a copy after playing it with us.

Santa Maria is a terrific medium weight Euro-game. Sans, AP, this game can be played in as little as 90mins. The theme is pasted on, and not very politically correct, but because it plays so simple and so fast, I can overlook those flaws. A must for any fan of Euro-games, or even non-fans of Euros like me!