Mombasa: My favorite game from BGG Con

By Meeple Lady | December 10, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s been a busy week or so being out of town for my cousin’s wedding in LA, but now I’m back! Well, at least until Christmas vacation. I finally got a chance to get Mombasa on my table during last night’s game night. My two friends came over (we unfortunately couldn’t find a 4th player), but the night went well and my friends enjoyed it! Success! I always get a little nervous being the only person teaching a game as I’m afraid if I don’t teach the game properly, it could affect their judgment against a game that’s otherwise awesome. But I’m lucky I got to do a demo at BGG Con as well as play an entire game (albeit we got a lot of the game rules wrong) so I already had experience playing it. Plus, I read, read and reread the rulesbook so I could quickly answer questions.

Here's an up close shot of a player board. At the beginning of the game, everybody has 3 card slots, which then you can unlock a 4th and 5th one later in the game. — At the beginning of the game, everybody has 3 card slots available on their player board. You can then work to unlock a 4th and 5th one later in the game.

As you can tell from the post’s title, Mombasa is my favorite game that I purchased from BGG Con. It has it all — eurogame worker placement, hand management, area control and stock holdings. Players are competing to gain the most money by acquiring shares from four companies on the board through seven rounds.

Each person has their own player board and two bonus markers, and everybody has the same starting cards. These cards include goods (either cotton, coffee or bananas) of various amounts, expansions cards and a bookkeeper card. Players simultaneously pick three cards face down — these represent what goods or actions can be spent in that round. Everybody turns their cards over, and then in turn order, players can do one of five actions:

Use one or more good cards of the same type to buy a card on the board or advance on company stock tracks.
Use all of your expansion cards to expand 1 company on the map.
Use 1 bookkeeper card to advance on the bookkeeping track and use the rewards to get more books.
Use 1 diamond merchant card to advance on the diamond track.
Place 1 bonus marker on an empty bonus space.

This is a sample of the cards available for purchase in the market. The price is on the bottom right side of the card, plus the modifier on the board, depending on where they are placed.

There are 12 face-up cards on the board that can be purchased. As the game progresses, cards of increasing value come up. These cards are useful to purchase better cards or to progress on the bookkeeping track, which gives you points. To move up on the bookkeeping track, you must have played the bookkeeping card as well as the resources needed to satisfy moving along the books. When you move your marker along this track, you receive the benefits from the last book you land on. Once you use your action cards for actions, you flip them over so that everybody knows you spent them.

In Mombasa, you move up a stock track while working to improve the price of that company's stocks. — In Mombasa, you move up a stock track and work to improve the price of that stock. You can see that the Mombasa stock is doing well because there are many black trading posts on the map.

Expansion cards help you move trading posts onto the map for a particular company. When you do this, you reap the benefits of the space you landed on on the map, plus it increases the value of that particular stock. If you’re far along a stock track of a particular company, you want to increase its value more so than the other companies.

When you acquire and play a diamond merchant card, you move along your diamond track. You may also reap benefits based on where trading posts are placed on the map. On both the bookkeeping and diamond tracks, you get victory points the farther along you move on it, but mostly importantly, it’ll open up a 4th and 5th card slot for you to lay more action cards down during each round.

Here's an up-close shot of the diamond track. You get victory points by moving along the track, as well as opening a 4th slot for your action cards. — Here’s an up-close shot of the diamond track. You get victory points by moving along the track, as well as opening a 4th slot for your action cards. I do love the sparkly diamond component!

Lastly, you can use your bonus markers to acquire benefits on the board, such as having the most of a particular resource, getting the first-player token, or using special abilities for the next round. There are also benefits that are unlocked when you move up a stock track.

Once everybody runs out of actions, the round is over. This begins the “End of your action phase” portion, which I think is the coolest mechanic of the game. You pick up one of your resting decks above your player board, and then flip up the used cards you played in this round and move them up to their respective resting decks. So where you place your cards for the round is crucial and strategic on how soon you can get them back into your hand. And that is the brilliance of this game! You may choose to pick up one resting deck because you need the exploration card back, but the other pile may have more resource cards that could help buy more items. There are tons of strategic decisions to make!

Here's an up-close shot of the bookkeeping track and what each book required. — Here’s an up-close shot of the bookkeeping track and what each book required.

From the few games I’ve played of this, there doesn’t yet seem to be one clear strategy to winning the game, which is great. I’ve seen guys who advanced all the way on the bookkeeping track or diamond track and didn’t win. It’s all about balancing your stocks in a company that’s worth more, as well as maximizing each round, because those 7 rounds will be done before you know it. Another thing I love about the game is that the stock tracks are reversible, giving you different options for each game. I unfortunately didn’t win my game last night, but that’s OK. The fact that my friends loved it (and will play it again) is almost the same as winning for me. Well, almost …

Anyway, I can’t believe it’s almost 2 weeks until Christmas. Where did 2015 go?? Anybody buying games for their friends and family as presents? Share which ones! Until next time, have a wonderful holiday season!

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