Rajas of the Ganges First Impressions

Rajas of the Ganges, a worker placement game where you need to spend dice to take actions.

Also, look at those purdy colours!

In 16th century India, the powerful empire of the Great Moguls rises between the Indus and the Ganges rivers. Taking on the role of rajas and ranis – the country’s influential nobles – players in Rajas of the Ganges race against each other in support of the empire by developing their estates into wealthy and magnificent provinces.

Rajas of the Ganges Summary

Looking over my shelves I actually do not have ANY worker placement games. I have games like Bora Bora where you place dice to take an action but it feels more like action selection than worker placement.

Similarly, Santa Maria does just that too. You’re placing dice to activate rows or columns of buildings.

So for me, mechanism-wise, this should go on the shelf as I weirdly don’t have a worker placement game at the moment.

This has a bit more than just placing a worker. You have to pay the cost of the space too. Paying in dice is interesting as it means there is the randomness of the roll to contend with and not just having the right colour.

There are spaces that you need low-value dice for too so it’s not all about who rolls highest, it’s about who plays the best.

There are plenty of spaces on the board to get things done. Some are more useful than others but there is very rarely ‘no option’ left.

This doesn’t mean there isn’t a fight for space. The ‘optimal’ space may not be available. I’m just saying you always have a thing you can do.

There are a few options and ‘mini-expansions’ in the box to mix it up game to game too.

Jesta ThaRogue