Entdecker

Overview

This game is designed by Klaus Teuber of Settlers of Catan fame. It is a revised edition of Entdecker, published in 1996. My copy, published in 2001, is titled Entdecker, Exploring New Horizons. The german edition is titled die Neuen Endecker, presumably meaning The New Endecker.

The game starts with a blank game board that represents an unexplored sea. Initially only a few tiles, representing known islands are laid on the map. As the game progresses, players spend gold to send forth exploration expeditions, and tiles are laid onto the map representing discovered sea and land areas. Players then try to stake their claims on newly discovered islands by placing explorers, forts and even complete settlements. Once completely explored, islands yield points to the players with the greatest influence determined by having the biggest units on the island.

At the end of the game, additional points are scored for having the most success in the exploration tracks (more on this later.)

Game Mechanics

Exploration. This is done by choosing a known space leading and placing the ship token in the space. The player then declares how many tiles (open or closed, one type only) he will use during the expedition. He then pays gold for the exploration and opens the tiles and places it adjacent to an empty space adjacent to his ship. The space must be connected by sea. He moves his exploration ship to the newly opened space. At any point, he may choose to end his turn by placing a token (explorer, fort, settlement) on land masses that his ship is currently in.

Special Events. Certain tiles have question mark symbols on their backs. These signify special events such as storms (prematuring ending your turn), meeting pirates (lose gold in hand), finding a gold mine (bonus gold) or finding a village (additional explorer on the explorer track).

Gold. This is the heart of the game. Performing actions in the game costs gold. Expeditions cost 1 gold for each tile randomly turned over, and must be paid before any tiles are turned over. Players may also choose a predetermined tile, but this costs 4 gold. Placing explorers, forts and settlements also cost gold. Whoever runs low on gold first must roll the gold die to determine his gold production, he gets this amount and everyone else gets one more gold piece han he does. This is a neat mechanism to regulate how many actions players can perform. The rich get richer, and the poor must cut back on his expenses and let someone else roll the gold die. Otherwise, he will simply fall further behind, and be unable to compete with other players in placing large pieces on islands.

Scoring. There are two kinds of scoring in the game.

• First, when islands are completed, scoring takes place, largely determined by the size of the island. One point is given to for each space of island with certain tiles giving bonuses (+5, +10) Players are ranked by the size of the tokens they have placed on the island, with the number of each type of token being a tiebreaker. Thus, a settlement beats all other types of tokens, regardless of numbers; two forts will beat one fort plus any number of explorers. The first player score full points and the next player score half of what the first player gets, and the third player scores half of what the second player gets, etc. Settlements and forts then get returned to the players pool for reuse.
• Secondly, when islands are completed, explorers are not returned to the player's pool. Instead, explorers on the island are placed by his player on one of seven(?) exploration tracks. At the end of the game, players with the most tokens on the track will score 5/10/15 points, depending on a closed chip. The first player on a track will a peek at this, as well as the player placing an explorer on the "eye" space of the track.

Player with largest VP total at game end wins.

Comments

An exciting exploration game. It is deep enough for experienced players to want to come back to it again, and yet simple enough to teach to beginner gamers.

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