Earlier this year, I backed Gold Country on Kickstarter — it was one of those games that clearly struck a chord (gold!?) with me and was doubled up with a game called Totally Human (which I’ve no real interest in, tbh) as part of the same Kickstarter from Bitewing Games. At the time I was probably feeling a post-Xmas rush but knowing that it’s another re-jigged Knizia classic probably helped considerably — the original was called Spectaculum and no, I’m not familiar with it either, but I am usually quite good at clocking whether or not a Knizia game will appeal to me, and this did, so…
As it happens, I might have been feeling even more flush than originally thought, because I’d also opted for the deluxe bundle that included the Bona Fide Bonanza mini-expansion, metal gold coins, deluxe tiles & bag, and 4 big metal prospecting pans for an extra $35 or so — more of which shortly!
Anyways… I did actually write about my first go at playing this earlier in the week (you can read about that on the blog here: First Play… Gold Country and Coffee Rush: Winter, 08Sept26), but basically you’re investing in gold mine shares and manipulating the price of them by placing wooden claim tokens / tents onto a board and activating various ‘marker tiles’ as you go, with whoever has the most money at the end being declared the winner. A simple enough premise, but with devilishly strategic decision-making throughout — classic Knizia in other words…
I’m not sure why, but all the deluxe components were actually shipped separately, so there were separate bags for the upgraded tiles, the gold coins, the extremely weighty metal prospecting pans (a purely visual thing that makes a very satisfying clink whenever you drop metal coins into them!), and the Bona Fide Bonanza mini-expansion. Annoyingly, the heavy metal pans were packed almost directly on top of the core box in my package, so I’ve got slight dents on the bottom of the box cover, but thankfully they don’t seem to have gone through to the inside of the box. Phew!
The main box itself is a compact 28cm x 19cm x 8cm (approx), but with the basic and deluxe components inside (incl. the pans and coins!), it does weigh a rather hefty 2 kilos — wowsers!
Inside the core non-deluxe box you’ll find a large bag of 15 x black wooden ‘bandit tents’ and 96 coloured wooden coloured tents (4 x 24 in different colours, namely white, blue, orange, and purple), as well as relatively thin punchboards that give you 60 x coin tokens, 75 x marker tiles and 4 starting value tiles (all showing ‘5’ and coloured accordingly for each mine). There’s also a small double-sided tri-fold board of thick card (2 different maps), 4 small and flimsy thin player screens; a large, patterned drawstring bag (which I have to say is much better than the deluxe ‘upgrade’ bag which is both smaller and not as stiff or stable), some empty baggies, and a pack of cards. The cards include 44 standard shares, 4 starting ‘secret mine’ shares, 9 action cards, a ‘hardware store’ card, and a very miserly 2 player aid cards (which I wasn’t impressed with at all: having at least 4 player aids —especially if they’re double-sided— means you can have both cards and sides showing for at least 2 players, which makes infinitely more sense and is easier for everyone). The rulebook is just 16 pages, very clear and concise, and has several illustrated examples of how things work, so big credit to whoever helped put that together — well done!
Deluxe or not?
There are several significant differences in the deluxe components, not least the heavy gold coins and super-heavy metal pans, thicker acrylic marker tiles, and small wooden boats instead of cardboard tokens (used for the flipside of the board) — the difference is significant and probably worth the extra $35 or so, although those metal prospecting pans could’ve definitely been smaller and lighter! I wasn’t so impressed with the ‘deluxe bag’ however, because it’s considerably smaller than the one in the standard box, but it is still handy to hold all the upgraded tiles for the base game (or even all the original counters if that’s your bag, so to speak!) — that’s a minor complaint, perhaps, given the rest of the stuff is excellent compared to the original components (see full gallery of comparison pics below).
It’s worth adding that both base and deluxe components all fit in the same box (see below), albeit with a little bit of adjustment and the need to squish the two drawstring bags a bit into appropriate places. And I kept the little cardboard box insert to help protect the cards and separate the metal pans from the rest, thus hopefully preventing damage to the deluxe tokens.
Bona Fide Bonanza mini-expansion
As it happens, the mini-expansion also fits comfortably inside the core box, but then it’s only 12 more cards and a tiny rule sheet. I haven’t played Gold Country with this mini-expansion as yet, but it adds objective cards to the game that can be taken as part of your mine transactions phase (normally used for buying / selling shares). The objectives pay out additional monies for achieving them —or will cost you if you don’t— but there is nothing stopping you taking the same objective multiple times and winning or losing accordingly!
And finally…
I played my first game of this last week and besides making it clear that I probably should not gamble on the stocks and shares market, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing hour or so (including the teach, which was relatively easy). I would of course very much like to play it more often, and will maybe even introduce the mini-expansion into the next game, although I’m also keen to try the flipside of the board (which has a river running through the centre of it and introduces ships, gems, dynamite, and underground tunnels)… Ooooh!
— Alex Bardy, 12Sept26
