Santa Maria

Santa Maria is a streamlined, medium complexity euro-game in which each player establishes and develops their own colony in central America. The game features elements of dice drafting and strategic engine building. Dice, representing migrant workers, are used to activate buildings. You will produce resources, develop your colony, form shipping routes, send out conquistadors, and improve your religious power to recruit monks. Each recruited monk may be trained either as a scholar (for special abilities), as missionaries (for immediate rewards), or be appointed as a bishop (for possible end-game points). The player who has accumulated the most happiness after three rounds wins the game. Dice are used in a unique way in Santa Maria: Each die activates a complete row or column of buildings in your colony. Within the row/column, buildings must be activated in order from left to right or top to bottom. The die is then placed on the last activated building to block this space. It is therefore crucial where you put new buildings in your colony, and also the order in which you use the dice. The available specialists, bishops, and buildings vary from game to game, which makes for near endless replayability. Despite including dice, the game is low on luck. The game has no direct destructive player conflict, and all components are language independent.