Game: Age of Discovery

Thread: Re: [Review] Age of Discovery

gittes — 2008-09-24T16:37:52+00:00

After reading this I've added it to my wantlist.

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olavf — 2008-06-20T13:54:09+00:00

Dutch Cover

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Recesvintus — 2008-05-28T20:39:08+00:00

The "Golden Hind", Sir Francis Drake's Ship

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Recesvintus — 2008-05-28T20:33:38+00:00

Vasco N??ez de Balboa

Thread: Re: Multiple Trade Missions/Exhibitions in one Action?

Scootergsp — 2008-02-06T10:52:33+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

That's what I figured it was, but it's always nice to get confirmation.

Thread: Re: Scoring the special mission cards

Arontje — 2008-02-03T19:42:52+00:00

Moviebuffs wrote:
Yes.

Based on the number of contracts you have completed, each expedition where you have completed the special mission scores you the equivalent number of points.

Hmm ... I think you explained it better than me

Anyway ... in the first game we played, I was the only one not to complete 5 trade contracts, and I got creamed when it came to end game scoring

N.

Okay, seems to be right in my eyes. But... At the lower part of the special mission card there is a row with points and trade orders... what is that got to do with anything.

it is a contradiction with the example and it states nothing about it.

I played the whole special mision as follows:

The number of trade orders completed are the number of points per achieved mission at location. (for example present at expedition, 5 times. And you have completed 6 trade orders. Then you get 30 points).

But then also the lower picture of the special mission card comes in. There ou score additional points. The number of trades completed gives you a number of points. The easier the mission the lower these points are.

Thread: Re: Multiple Trade Missions/Exhibitions in one Action?

AlexYeager — 2008-02-03T16:35:32+00:00

Between the "and/or" in the action title, and mentioning that you can send multiple ships out on a single turn with the observation that you can only take the action once per turn, your answer is yes: as part of a single action, you can send out ships onto any number and combination of expeditions and trade expeditions, as lang as you can pay crew costs (and you already have the trade missions). Two expeditions, one expedition and two trade missions, whatever combination you like.

I hope that helps!

Alex Yeager
Mayfair Games

Thread: Re: Multiple Trade Missions/Exhibitions in one Action?

Scootergsp — 2008-02-03T16:03:24+00:00

The rules state specifically that it is permissible:
Rulebook wrote:
You can assign any number of your ships to any
expeditions and your own trade voyages—as long as
you have enough coins to pay the crews! You can
send ships to expeditions, trade contracts, or both on
the same turn.

Same as with buying ships (you can buy more than one if you'd like and can afford them) but Trade Contracts can only be claimed one at a time.

The rules do make a distinction (but don't emphasize it, perhaps unfortunately) that there is a difference between claiming a Trade Contract and sending ships out to fulfill one. I had to re-read this a couple of times before I realized they were talking about two different things.

I was uncertain because the rules don't say that you could spend one of your two available actions during your turn to send ships on two (or more) different Trade Missions/Exhibitions with just a single action. The way that they are written seems to be talking about sending multiple ships on a single Trade Mission/Exhibition.

I agree that they clearly say that you could do both a Trade Mission and an Exhibition of your turn, but it could be interpreted that you would have to expend one of your two Actions on each -- which is wrong because "Sending" ships (whether on Trade or Exhibitions) is considered the same Action and the rules clearly state that you can preform each of the four available actions only once on your turn.

For example: When it becomes my turn; I can use one of my actions to send ships on the green "5" and the orange "6" Trade Missions. And since I am still preforming a "Send Ships Out" Action; send ships on the Antonio de Abreu and Christopher Columbus Exhibition -- assuming that I have all the cards, ships, money, etc.; available at the start of my turn?

Thread: Re: Multiple Trade Missions/Exhibitions in one Action?

Ward — 2008-02-03T15:08:32+00:00

Scootergsp wrote:
The rules don't specifically state that it's forbidden, but I wanted clarification...

Assuming that I can meet all the requirements as far as cards on hand, money, etc.; can I launch multiple Trade Missions as a single action on my turn, or am I restricted to just one per action?

Same with dispatching ships on Exhibitions?

Thanks,
Scooter (JKN)
The rules state specifically that it is permissible:
Rulebook wrote:
You can assign any number of your ships to any
expeditions and your own trade voyages—as long as
you have enough coins to pay the crews! You can
send ships to expeditions, trade contracts, or both on
the same turn.
Same as with buying ships (you can buy more than one if you'd like and can afford them) but Trade Contracts can only be claimed one at a time.

Thread: Multiple Trade Missions/Exhibitions in one Action?

Scootergsp — 2008-02-03T09:18:14+00:00

The rules don't specifically state that it's forbidden, but I wanted clarification...

Assuming that I can meet all the requirements as far as cards on hand, money, etc.; can I launch multiple Trade Missions as a single action on my turn, or am I restricted to just one per action?

Same with dispatching ships on Exhibitions?

Thanks,
Scooter (JKN)

Thread: Re: About Trade Contract Cards:

the1jugg — 2008-01-28T15:50:37+00:00

zaratustro wrote:
I think it's imposible to complete every trade contract cards before the game finishes...

It sure isn't. in our first 2-player game we spent most of our time raising money with trade contracts and finished the stack long before the final scoring.

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patoloko — 2007-12-15T12:03:00+00:00

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patoloko — 2007-12-15T12:02:28+00:00

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patoloko — 2007-12-15T12:02:07+00:00

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patoloko — 2007-12-15T12:01:11+00:00

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-12-10T22:40:58+00:00

unpunched game components

Thread: Re: First person to play on expedition determines color?

Ward — 2007-11-23T19:18:58+00:00

Actually, it is the former case, otherwise the Wild Card ships would rarely be needed. Part of the strategy in the game is blocking your opponents' ability to get onto highly rewarding expeditions.

Thread: First person to play on expedition determines color?

butsam — 2007-11-23T17:30:34+00:00

Is it the first person to play on an expedition that determines the color of all boats (including opponents' boats on that expedition), or is it the first time that player plays on that expedition that determines the color for that player only?

I think it is the latter, but the rules (which were otherwise very well written) weren't clear on this point.

Sam

Thread: Re: scoring expedition

butsam — 2007-11-22T23:05:22+00:00

I'm pretty sure it is per boat. Transport values don't matter, # of ships matters. So, 3 boats for one player and 1 boat for the other player will result in more scoring for the first player.

So, in a nutshell, score 2x6, not 1x6.

Sam

Thread: Re: Looking for raw data on the mission cards

butsam — 2007-11-22T21:46:40+00:00

Just to support the point that this is not a complete analysis for the reasons posted:

It seems that if you wanted to maximize the "presence" mission, you would often play a card on a mission that did not necessarily match that mission's color. That would result in lower points for the middle and final scoring, though. There is a trade-off.

You should gather the final score and score per mission data at a minimum...

But then again, you should get 2 players of similar experience levels to be present in all play tests. Then get 3 players, then 4.

Sam

Thread: scoring expedition

orenh — 2007-11-06T18:32:46+00:00

is the 1st and 2nd score of reward for expedition were per Cargo, or per boat : example - you have one boat with transportation 2 on expdition number 8 with the correct color in the 2nd score - is your score is 2x6 or 1x6?

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Gonzaga — 2007-10-23T16:17:22+00:00

Closeup of the cards

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Zopper-Alf — 2007-09-22T07:04:27+00:00

a german player aid - a PDF for easy printing is submitted

Thread: Re: Are The Mission Cards As Out Of Whack As They Seem??

jelerak — 2007-09-14T09:03:42+00:00

I just won a 4pl game with the "all of the ships" mission card filling the 'blue 7' expedition with 4 ships and the 'green 6' with 3 ships thus gaining 18 point for my mission (6 completed contracts).
This was possible because the other 3 players all rushed to occupy the '3' and '4' expeditions in the first turns while I completed contracts, leaving the big '6' and '7' expeditions free for enough time for me to build up my fleet and treasury and fill them in a couple of turns.
I'm still non sure that the mission cards are well balanced but I think the strategy for the player with the "all of the ships" mission card is not decided by the mission; he can wait and see what the other players do.

Thread: Are The Mission Cards As Out Of Whack As They Seem??

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-10T02:35:30+00:00

Is it just me, or are the mission cards in this game fatally unbalanced?

There are four of them, which give you extra bonus points for expedition where you own:

1: 1 or more ships
2: at least half the ships
3: a majority of the ships
4: all of the ships

Obviously, the harder expeditions are worth more points than the easier ones. You can also increase the value of each expedition that scores you points by completing more trade contracts. So far, so good.

The problem is in the screwage. The players with the harder missions have one pretty obvious strategy to use--hog the 3- and 4-point expeditions quickly. It's a lot easier to get the majority (or all) of ships in an expedition that's limited to a small number of ships.

Where the screwage comes in is from the guy with the "easy" mission where he only needs to have 1 ship in an expedition in order to score extra points for it. He's in just as big a hurry to get in on those little bitty expeditions as are the players who desperately need to get in on them! In fact, he's in more of a hurry to get in on them, because they not only help him score bonus points, they also deny his opponents the ability to do so!

Conversely, the guys with harder missions have to work much harder to cut their opponents out of the smaller expeditions. All the 1-ship mission guy has to do is get any ship into the 3- and 4-point expeditions in order to make them either very hard or impossible for other players to score bonus points there. The guy who has to own an expedition's entire complement of ships is really up against it--the only way he can guarantee himself any bonus points is to play a strength 3 ship on a 3-point expedition right away. That not only requires a strength 3 ship to be available to him on his first turn, it also requires him to bankrupt himself on his very first turn!

In other words, every player needs to get in on the smaller expeditions just as quickly as he can, but 3/4 of the players in this game can get screwed even if they manage to do so! Only the 1-ship-per-expedition guy is sure to score bonus points by getting a single ship launched into the smaller expeditions!

The game is balanced well in other areas--if you quickly launch ships into expeditions, you won't have their services available for filling trade contracts. And if you concentrate on racking up trade contracts (and money), you won't score a single point. For all players, the need to balance how one uses one's ships is very real. But the guys with the harder missions just seem so hosed to me. They have to satisfy trade contracts in order to build up any mission-related bonus points, yet they have to hog those smaller expeditions with big expensive ships in order to score those mission points!

It seems impossible to do both, which seems to make the harder missions worthless. The only guy who's going to mop up any mission points is the guy with the easy mission, because he can keep his bigger ships at home to satisfy trade contracts while sending any cheap old rowboat out to screw up expeditions for everybody else...

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

giles — 2007-09-05T18:14:54+00:00

snoozefest wrote:
I'm still not sure about the special mission card balance, though....
They're not balanced - in part because one of them rewards you for placing ships anywhere, while others require aggressive execution of very specific strategies to score points, and those strategies often compromise your ability to score the base victory points that aren't tied to your secret mission. In particular, trying to corner the market on the smaller expeditions means you are NOT placing your ships on the higher value large expeditions; while that lets you get a few more "bonus" victory points from the secret mission, it hurts your overall point total.

Even though the harder secret missions are worth more points, the difference in points is too small to compensate for the large increase in difficulty. Add in that the harder missions force you to choose between base victory points and the secret mission bonus while the easy mission lets you score both kinds of points for almost any action, and the secret missions aren't even close.

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-05T17:47:52+00:00

snoozefest wrote:
The variant I suggested variant (of starting with contracts that match your dual-color-ship card) mitigates this a bit by allowing you to start your small contract (if it is 3 not 4), biding time till "better" ships come along. It doesn't totally fix the problem, of course, but it's a card game and there IS going to be some randomness in the initial ship market (and I'm not sure how you would go about "balancing" it).

Check out the Variant threads here for some interesting ideas...

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

snoozefest — 2007-09-05T12:23:58+00:00

DSHStratRat2 wrote:
I think the specific problem Jennifer was referring to was one I've also noticed--if the two free contracts you're dealt at the beginning of the game don't match the ships available to buy in your first turn, you're hurting. At least you're hurting in relation to an opponent whose in-hand contracts match up very well with the ships available to him on his first turn.
...
Once the game is rolling, the answer you gave is totally appropriate for strategic choices. But the possibilities for a totally unbalanced starting position in this game are very real indeed, and I wish they had provided a less random starting position in order to avoid that problem. I suppose it's easy enough to try a balanced start variant as Jennifer suggested, but it seems to me that the game should have had that already built in rather than simply handing everyone a couple of randomly dealt trade contracts. Personally, I say start everyone off with more money and no trade contracts so that it's a little easier for everyone to buy what they need in order to get started. If you fall behind in the money race in this game early on, you're in for a long hard road...

Yes, I agree. The variant I suggested variant (of starting with contracts that match your dual-color-ship card) mitigates this a bit by allowing you to start your small contract (if it is 3 not 4), biding time till "better" ships come along. It doesn't totally fix the problem, of course, but it's a card game and there IS going to be some randomness in the initial ship market (and I'm not sure how you would go about "balancing" it).

Thread: Re: Set-Up Mulligan

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-05T09:47:49+00:00

Other "mulligan" options:

1. Each player gets his two trade contracts randomly dealt to him as usual. Then all the flagships are laid out face up and the players take turns selecting the ones they want. Even the last player in line should be able to get something he can use; if not, that player could show the others his trade contracts, draw two replacements, and shuffle his original ones back into the deck. THEN he chooses a flagship from the available remaining ones.

2. Each player gets his two trade contracts randomly dealt to him as usual. Then all the flagships are laid out face up and the players BID on them, bidding in either money or victory points (their choice).

Thread: Re: Scoring the special mission cards

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-05T09:36:47+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:

I played the game for the first time tonight and found that I agree with Boyan... the game does not appear to be finished - the goals and scoring is not nearly balanced as well as I'd expect to see in a published game. With the numbers as they are I expect anyone with the "cockroach" mission (as Bo calls it) who does as many quick trade contracts as possible and then throws level 1 boats on every expedition they can will win easily.

Well, sure, if they can pull all that off, they should win easily! But why are the other players sitting around watching them do all that??

First of all, players with tougher missions have to work quickly to hog the 3- and 4-point expeditions so that they can satisfy their tougher mission goals more easily--with just a ship or two. Second, and more importantly, there's no way you should all be sitting back and letting one player buy a crapload of #1 ships! Those are great for expeditions for anyone's mission, and should be coveted by one and all!

The higher numbered ships are awesome for filling trade contracts easily and quickly while the 1's are great for horning in on expeditions with $3 ships. If the "Cockroach Mission" (love that name, by the way) guy is buying lots of 1's and launching them on expeditions in the early part of the game, how is he getting more money with which to buy anything else?

I find that if you launch ships on expeditions too early, you'll be hurting for money very quickly. And if you get an early start on building your financial empire by working on lots of early trade contracts, you'll find yourself a bit too late to cash in many mission points. I think this gives the game a delightful balance...

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-05T09:21:37+00:00

jschlickbernd wrote:
The second concern is kind of complicated to explain but I think I'll do it by example---

It's my turn. I purchase 2 ships and still have money available. When I purchase ships, new ships are drawn from the deck, and at this time, I draw the scoring card. I can now purchase more ships with an eye toward scoring, particularly looking at the 1 ships. I finish my turn, the other players take their turn, I get another turn to buy some more ships and place too. This seems unbalanced. We were thinking of a rule where you don't replenish ships til the end of your turn, making it such that one player doesn't have two opportunities to react to the scoring card. What do you guys think?

I'm not so hot on the idea of not replenishing ships until the end of one's turn--I like the way they get replaced as soon as one buys them. However, I agree that timing is everything--if the first ship one buys is "replaced" in the market by a scoring card, the guy who revealed the scoring card has too much extra time to react to it. This is especially true if he was just beginning a big ship-buying spree in anticipation of revealing the final scoring card. If he reveals it right away, he's got nearly two whole turns to set up for Final Scoring, and that can make him nearly impossible to catch.

Snoozefest makes a good point, though--everyone should know where the hourglass cards are in the deck, and prepare themselves accordingly when they know they're getting near the top of the deck...

snoozefest wrote:
I don't think it should be a major concern - everyone knows where the scoring cards are, and I think it's part of the game to try to time your economy to pay off when a scoring round is about to happen. But who knows? I really need to play this some more! I'm still not sure about the special mission card balance, though....

As for the special mission cards, I personally thought that they were very well balanced--the "easier" your mission is, the fewer points it's worth. Obviously the guy who scores for each expedition where he's got at least one ship has it easy compared to the guy who has to "own" the entire expedition's complement of ships. But take notice--the points scored for each instance the second guy satisfies are far more generous than the points awarded to the guy who only needs one ship-per-expedition in order to score. And since you know what your mission is all game long, you have to plan accordingly. If your mission is to own entire expeditions, you want to start hogging the 3- and 4-point expeditions quickly so that nobody else can get in on them!

I haven't played this game nearly enough to be an expert yet, but so far I think it's a blast to play. Other than the problem with the unbalanced starting positions, I think it's a whale of a fun game to play. And if you like this one, you should try Vikings as well, which has a rather similar feel to it...

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

DSHStratRat2 — 2007-09-05T09:10:21+00:00

I think the specific problem Jennifer was referring to was one I've also noticed--if the two free contracts you're dealt at the beginning of the game don't match the ships available to buy in your first turn, you're hurting. At least you're hurting in relation to an opponent whose in-hand contracts match up very well with the ships available to him on his first turn.

Example: I start the game with a 3-point contract in brown, and there's a #3 brown ship available to buy right away. My very first turn, I spend $5 to buy the ship and then spend my last dollar to start it off on satisfying the trade contract I was randomly dealt from the deck! Zoom, I'm off to the races! Meanwhile, my opponent's randomly dealt starting contracts are both 6's, which require a much larger expenditure in ships to get started. Right off the bat, they're forced to buy more trade contracts just to get one they can actually use, and buying a blind one from the deck is really scary that early in the game. If they pay a buck just to draw another 6, they're really hosed at the starting gate!

Once the game is rolling, the answer you gave is totally appropriate for strategic choices. But the possibilities for a totally unbalanced starting position in this game are very real indeed, and I wish they had provided a less random starting position in order to avoid that problem. I suppose it's easy enough to try a balanced start variant as Jennifer suggested, but it seems to me that the game should have had that already built in rather than simply handing everyone a couple of randomly dealt trade contracts. Personally, I say start everyone off with more money and no trade contracts so that it's a little easier for everyone to buy what they need in order to get started. If you fall behind in the money race in this game early on, you're in for a long hard road...

Thread: Re: Looking for raw data on the mission cards

easterly1 — 2007-08-19T05:45:11+00:00

4 player game

present - 8 areas

half - 6 areas

majority - none

All - 3

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

snoozefest — 2007-08-15T19:55:05+00:00

DarrellKH wrote:
The designer maintains that balance is not detrimentally affected by the mission cards, once all players are experienced with the game. Tom Vasel seems to agree.

My jury is still out, but I think it depends on how much of a metagame you play.

I've seen/heard the same, and would like to play it with experienced players more. One problem, though, is that the first game appears imbalanced and people may not want to play it again!

Some strategic advice in the rules may have been helpful in avoiding this issue. It seems to me that the person with the get-all-the-cubes card needs to:
- try to monopolize a color of ship, if possible
- get on ships early
- get on the small expeditions, to fill them up quickly; so trade long-term gain (special mission VP) for short-term loss (fewer VP from expedition)

Any corrections/modifications? Any other advice?

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

snoozefest — 2007-08-15T19:47:03+00:00

DarrellKH wrote:
I somehow missed that, in my haste to explain the game, I guess. The designer just confirmed it in an email, too.

Don't know how that improves the game. Seems like it would just make it take longer, but I don't know.

However, in a bit of a contrast to that rule, the designer answered a follow-up question with:

"But, yes, if you have 5 ships and 5 coins to pay for assigning them, then you can send them all off to different expeditions or send three on expeditions and assign two to a trade contract or whatever... and everything with one single action."

Yes, but that's not repeating an action. The action is to send ship(s) out ... meaning with one action you can send multiple ships. You just cannot choose that as your 1st action, then again as your 2nd (why would you anyway, since 1 action is all it takes?). The gist is that you cannot take gold twice (probably good --> tighter economy) or buy 2 contracts (again limits the amount of money a player can get quickly) in one turn, but you can buy as many ships as you like and send as many ships as you like out to expeditions and/or trade missions.

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

snoozefest — 2007-08-15T19:12:33+00:00

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

DarrellKH — 2007-08-15T17:21:17+00:00

I somehow missed that, in my haste to explain the game, I guess. The designer just confirmed it in an email, too.

Don't know how that improves the game. Seems like it would just make it take longer, but I don't know.

However, in a bit of a contrast to that rule, the designer answered a follow-up question with:

"But, yes, if you have 5 ships and 5 coins to pay for assigning them, then you can send them all off to different expeditions or send three on expeditions and assign two to a trade contract or whatever... and everything with one single action."

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

boomtron — 2007-08-15T17:00:52+00:00

Here is the quote:

"Important: You can never choose the same action twice in once turn. For example, if you take coins and cannot (or do not want to) choose another action, you must skip your second action that turn."

Probably as specific as it possible can be.

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

DarrellKH — 2007-08-15T16:26:37+00:00

Lucas wrote:
The rules I downloaded specifically say that an action cannot be done twice, (page 4, under the list of actions) whereas you state that they may. Is there some change or clarification somewhere?

I saw that in the rules, too, but something about the phrasing didn't strike me as being as specific as you put it. That is, I don't think it came right out and said, "You cannot perform the same action twice."

I'd like to know what the designer's intent was. It would change the game quite a bit, if players could only perform a given action type once per turn.

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

boomtron — 2007-08-15T15:22:19+00:00

The rules I downloaded specifically say that an action cannot be done twice, (page 4, under the list of actions) whereas you state that they may. Is there some change or clarification somewhere?

Thread: Re: Slideshow Review

DarrellKH — 2007-08-15T13:27:32+00:00

The designer maintains that balance is not detrimentally affected by the mission cards, once all players are experienced with the game. Tom Vasel seems to agree.

My jury is still out, but I think it depends on how much of a metagame you play.

Thread: Slideshow Review

snoozefest — 2007-08-15T03:03:06+00:00

This and other rules summaries and reviews can also be found at my blog.
The .m4a file (playable in iTunes on PC or iPod) is here

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RULES
Components/Setup
Expeditions
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- numbered 3-8 (transport limit), in various colors
- each shows point value during first and second scoring round: x/y
- put all of these on display
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Trade Missions (Contracts)
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- show colors (same as above) and value (gold paid to player for fulfilling contract)
- deal each player 2
- place 4 face up; the rest are nearby face down

Ship cards
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- each shows a number (=transport value), a number of coins (the cost of the ship = transport value + 2), and a color (matching expedition colors)
- make 2 rows of 5 face up cards
- shuffle the rest into 3 piles of 6, 2 piles of 7 (face down); shuffle a scoring card into the 3rd and 5th piles, then place these above the 2 rows
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- when ships are bought, will replenish market by drawing from face down piles, from left to right.

Gold
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- each player gets 6
- rest in bank

Score Board
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- place one cube from each player on the score track, and one on the contract track (bottom)

Players each get...
- the rest of the cubes of their color
- 6 gold
- 3 single-use cards: 2 wild cards allow you to play a ship of ANY color, ignoring normal restrictions; 1 card allows you to reserve a ship for one turn (different distribution for diff # players)
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- 2 contracts
- 1 random wild ship card; remaining wilds are out of game. These are usable for 2 different colors shown on card, and can count as transport value of 1, 2 or 3
- 1 special mission card
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Game Play
You get 2 actions on your turn. There are 4 options (you MAY NOT take the same action twice):
- Take 2 gold
- Buy ship(s)
- Buy ONE trade mission contract
- Send ship(s) on expeditions and/or trade missions (= contracts)

Take 2 Gold
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- from bank
- no limit on money

Buy Ship(s)
- the BOTTOM row is the current market; top row is future market.
- when you buy from bottom row, immediately slide the card above it down
- place a ship card in the empty spot by drawing from the leftmost pile of face down cards at the top; if a scoring card is revealed, finish the current turn, then EVERYONE gets one more turn, then scoring occurs
- cost = #coins shown at bottom of card
- add to your hand
- if scoring card is drawn, set aside and draw another ship card; after player finishes turn, there's a final round for EVERYONE to get a turn before scoring occurs.

Buy ONE Contract
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- any of the face up cards, or top card from draw pile (immediately replace face up card when purchased)
- cost = 1 gold
- goes to your hand

Send Ship(s) on Expeditions and/or Trade Missions
- Trade Missions
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... play contract face up in front of you, along with ship cards of the same color as the contract
... sum of ship transport values must equal contract value
... cost = 1 gold / ship card (or 2 gold if using your wild ship card)
... place a cube on the 1, 2, or 3 space; indicates number of turns to complete, with bigger payoff for longer time
... will advance the time cube one space at the start of each future turn; get paid when cube advances 3-> 2-> 1-> done
... when contract finished, advance your contract counter on Score Board one space and return the ships to your hand
- Expeditions
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... play ship card(s) to expedition(s), with 1 cube per ship card
... for any Expedition, all ships must be the same color as first ship played there and the sum of transport values may NOT exceed the transport limit of that expedition
... cost = 1 gold / ship card (or 2 gold if using your wild ship card)
... ships remain till end of game
... Shows 2 sets of x/y numbers. Use first pair in first scoring round, second pair in second. Each ship (cube) gets y VP awarded if ship color matches expedition, or x VP if not

Scoring
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- First Scoring: only score cubes on expeditions
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- Final Scoring: score expeditions, special mission cards, and get 1 VP per ship NOT on an expedition (trade mission ships DO score)
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- Special Mission Cards: multiply these two numbers
... top half of card: shows condition required (at least 1 ship on an expedition; half the ships on expedition; majority of ships on expedition; all ships on expedition) -- # expeditions matching the condition
... bottom half of card: top row of the table shows #s for contracts you've completed; use the multiplier # shown in the row below

COMMENTS
The Good:
- cheap ($20-25)
- fast: plays in about 45 minutes
- well made: could have been a board, but the tiles work pretty well, are reasonably sturdy, and nice to look at
- tough decisions: timing (how long to invest in contracts, when to buy ships, when to go on expeditions, when to anticipate/control the game end, when to use your single-use cards) is important, money management is tough
The Bad:
- balance: It seems as if some Special Mission Cards are significantly harder to achieve than others, with the VP award not appropriately adjusted.
- luck: setup (which ships and contracts come out, which dual color ship and contracts a player is dealt)

Overall, a good game probably worth having although there may be some balance issues (fixable with variants?).

Thread: Re: Trade Contract Question

Ward — 2007-08-14T03:00:03+00:00

I'm pretty sure Darrell hit the nail on the head here.

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

snoozefest — 2007-08-13T17:43:14+00:00

jschlickbernd wrote:
The first concern is getting screwed with the Trade Contracts. Has anyone come up with a way to mitigate what happens when you get two trade contracts that don't match your hand and either there are no appropriately colored ships available or you go last in the turn and by the time it's your turn to buy, there are no correct ships?

Hi, Jennifer!

I'd thought about a variant start: give everyone a small (3 or 4) contract and a large (5 or 6) contract at the start, in the colors of their wild card. I'd love to try it but Mary isn't crazy about the tgame so we likely won't be buying our own copy....

jschlickbernd wrote:
The second concern is kind of complicated to explain but I think I'll do it by example---

It's my turn. I purchase 2 ships and still have money available. When I purchase ships, new ships are drawn from the deck, and at this time, I draw the scoring card. I can now purchase more ships with an eye toward scoring, particularly looking at the 1 ships. I finish my turn, the other players take their turn, I get another turn to buy some more ships and place too. This seems unbalanced. We were thinking of a rule where you don't replenish ships til the end of your turn, making it such that one player doesn't have two opportunities to react to the scoring card. What do you guys think?

I don't think it should be a major concern - everyone knows where the scoring cards are, and I think it's part of the game to try to time your economy to pay off when a scoring round is about to happen. But who knows? I really need to play this some more! I'm still not sure about the special mission card balance, though....

Thread: Re: Trade Contract Question

DarrellKH — 2007-08-13T17:37:15+00:00

Jennifer, I don't recall mention being made in the rules about discarding trade contracts. (Don't have them available with me, but I've read them 2 or 3 times.) I get the impression the designer wanted the players to work with what they have - play a contract out, if you want to get more, at that point. The deck is rather small for 3- and 4-player games, which looks to be an intentional design constraint. Letting players discard undesired contracts might lead to the tactic of spending all your money to monopolize the cards, and singularly deprive the other players of chances to further their own cause.

Thread: Re: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

DarrellKH — 2007-08-13T17:25:01+00:00

If there are no contracts in your hand or face-up that match your flagship or the ships available, then you're going to have to do one of two things.

1) Buy contracts from the draw deck. This is my choice, as whenever you do this, you're depriving the other players from having those contracts.
2) Use your wild card(s). Sure, you're using them when nobody else is, but at least you're getting a contract going.

I don't mind spending time and money to buy new contracts. They make your position with your ships more flexible, improve the chance of having back-to-back contracts with the same ships, and improve the chance of concurrent contracts. Not to mention what I already mentioned - you'll have them, and nobody else will.

Thread: Fun Game; a couple of concerns

jschlickbernd — 2007-08-13T15:14:10+00:00

We played it three player twice, and enjoyed it (actually enjoyed it much more than the highly touted Theben). Has planning and strategy, both of which we like a lot.

The first concern is getting screwed with the Trade Contracts. Has anyone come up with a way to mitigate what happens when you get two trade contracts that don't match your hand and either there are no appropriately colored ships available or you go last in the turn and by the time it's your turn to buy, there are no correct ships?

The second concern is kind of complicated to explain but I think I'll do it by example---

It's my turn. I purchase 2 ships and still have money available. When I purchase ships, new ships are drawn from the deck, and at this time, I draw the scoring card. I can now purchase more ships with an eye toward scoring, particularly looking at the 1 ships. I finish my turn, the other players take their turn, I get another turn to buy some more ships and place too. This seems unbalanced. We were thinking of a rule where you don't replenish ships til the end of your turn, making it such that one player doesn't have two opportunities to react to the scoring card. What do you guys think?

At any rate, we did like the game, in fact it was the only game that got requested twice during our five day vacation. Comments on these issues much appreciated!

Thread: Trade Contract Question

jschlickbernd — 2007-08-13T14:56:05+00:00

Hi, it says that you can only hold 4 trade cards. If you already have four, can you discard one to draw to 4? Thanks.

Thread: Re: Spielbox Secret Mission Variant

Limp — 2007-08-08T11:23:13+00:00

Another variant consist to draw a mission at the beginning of the game :
This mission become the unique and the same for all the players...

Thread: [Review] Age of Discovery

TomVasel — 2007-08-07T01:00:11+00:00

The theme of Age of Discovery (Mayfair Games, 2007 – Alfred Viktor Schulz) seems to be one of exuberance – sailing out to discover new lands. Make no mistake, the game is one of mechanical maneuvering; but the shipping theme is there, and the bright colors give this game a charm that adds to the mechanics. At the same time, the game has stirred up some debate on the internet, as one of the four special cards seems wildly underpowered.

I disagree that the specific card is too weak; I actually prefer it and consider it balanced. But it is a pointer to a fact about Age of Discovery; it’s a game that must be played more than once to truly understand its intricacies and winning strategies. It’s intriguing and requires some thought as to how best use one’s money; but there’s certainly more to the game than initially appears, and it feels quite “meaty” for the forty-five minutes it lasts.

In the middle of the table, twelve expedition cards are placed. Each of these expeditions is assigned a number from “3” to “8”, is one of six colors (red, yellow, blue, green, white, or black), and has victory points printed on it for the two scoring rounds. Each player takes a pile of wooden cubes in their color as well as six coins. Players place one of their cubes at the beginning of a scoring track, as well as the “0” space of a trade contracts track. A pile of trade contract cards is shuffled, with four being placed face up next to the draw pile, and a pile of “ship” cards is shuffled and placed in a way that basically results in two rows of five face up ships and five draw piles. Each player gets some special cards, depending on the number of players, and one “flagship” card. Finally, each player is dealt a special mission card, and the game is ready to begin, starting with one player.

On a player’s turn they may take two of the following four actions in any order.
- Take two coins from the bank.
- Take either one face up contract or the top one from the contract deck. This costs one coin. All contracts may be kept in a player’s hand.
- Purchase ships from the bottom row of chip cards. Each ship is a different color and has a value from “1” to “3”. The ships’ prices are printed on the cards, and the player can buy as many as they want – with the ships from the top row moving down to the bottom row and being replaced themselves by cards from the first draw pile. All ships bought go face up in front of a player.
- Send ships on expeditions and or trade contract voyages.

When using a trade contract, the player plays the contract face up on the table in front of them. Each contract has a number of completion, and the player must play ships whose value equal that total AND are the same color. The player must also pay one coin for each ship sent. After doing this, the player decides how long the voyage will last, placing a cube on the number of turns (1, 2, or 3). At the start of each future turn, they move all cubes of this type one to the right. When it moves off the contract, the player receives money equal to the corresponding length of the trip. Fox example, on a trade contract with a value of “6” one turn returns nine coins, two turns returns eleven coins, and three turns returns fourteen coins. All ships are returned to the player, the trade contract is discarded, and the players trade contract marker is moved up one space.

When sending ships to an expedition, a player must pay attention to the number on the expedition; the sum of all ships there may never exceed it. The first ship to any expedition may be any color; all succeeding ships must be the same color. Players place one of their cubes on the ship(s) to denote ownership, and pay one coin per ship.

Players may use their “flagship” as a normal ship, except that each flagship acts as one of two different colors, can be a value of “1”, “2”, or “3”, and costs two coins to put out. A player may also use their “wild ship” action card to assign a ship to an expedition or trade contract, even if not the necessary color. Finally, the reservation card can be played by a player to allow them to “reserve” a ship or trade contract until their next turn.

The game has two scoring rounds. In the first, when the card comes up in the ship piles, each player receives victory points for each ship they have at the expeditions. Ships will score more points if they match the color of the expedition. The second scoring is similar, except a player also scores one point for each ship in front of them, and points for their special mission. There are four special missions, and each offers a bonus for a different setting.
- One requires the player to have at least one ship at an expedition.
- Another requires the player to have at least half the ships at an expedition.
- Another requires the player to have the majority of ships at an expedition.
- And the last requires the player to have all the ships at an expedition.
For each expedition that meets this requirement, the player receives a bonus that corresponds with how far they’ve moved on the contract chart. For example, if I have the one ship bonus card and have done six contracts, then I would receive two points for each expedition that I have at least one ship at (in a two player game. All points are totaled together, and the player with the most wins!

Some comments on the game…

1.) Components: Once again, Mayfair does a great job with this game, with high quality components filling out the nice plastic insert in the smallish box. The colors on everything are bright and cheerful, even though the chap on the front cover looks a little stilted. There’s no game board, per se, but the expedition cards basically form one; and you’ll need a decent amount of room on the table to fit the ship cards between them. The cards and coins are of high quality, although the bonus cards look more complicated than they really are – I have to explain them multiple times before each game.

2.) Rules: The rulebook is eight full color pages and has many explanations and illustrations. I had to play through a couple rounds to actually understand how everything clicked together; but once I got it, it was rather easy. I have no problem explaining the game to people, although it’s sometimes hard to comprehend that “buy as many ships as you want” takes the same amount of actions as “take two coins”. Also, as I said above, it takes a bit to understand the bonus cards. But players MUST understand them, as they are critical to the game.

3.) Bonus cards: Some feel that the “have one ship at an expedition” is MUCH easier than the others, particularly the “have all ships at an expedition” card. Even though the “all” bonus card has much higher point bonuses, it’s negated by the fact that every time the “one” player places a ship and completes their goal, they are canceling the goal of the “all” player. For inexperienced players, I would agree; but once you understand the game, this is much less of a problem. The player with the “all” bonus card must realize that it’s important that they completely fill an expedition as quickly as possible. Some of the expeditions can be filled using only one ship, and others with only a few. It may take a couple plays, but I think strategic players will find the four bonus cards well balanced.

4.) Scoring: Bonus cards are important, because they are the lion’s share of the points. I’m not even sure why there is a first scoring, because it’s so miniscule compared to the second scoring. Maybe it’s just to wake up lethargic players. A player can score a lot of points if they ship at the larger expeditions, but a player is usually better served attempting to either complete their bonus or spoil the bonus of another.

5.) Money: The action “take two coins” is used almost every turn, as money is tight in this game – it seems like you have to pay to do everything! Really, though, a player needs to complete some trade contracts to get some serious money. I find it interesting, though, to determine how long to wait for the trade contract reward. Waiting two weeks only slightly enhances the coins returned, so is the extra time worth it? At the same time it costs money to send ships out on these trade routes, and taking money NOW isn’t always the most economical move. I have yet to master the intricacies of the financial part of this game, but I’ve started moving towards mostly doing two-week trade routes at the beginning of the game, and one-week trade routes near the end.

6.) Fun Factor: Age of Discovery is typical of many designer games, in that the players are slowly increasing their money and their ships throughout the game. However, a player who dallies too long about this may find themselves with few spots to place their ships in the expeditions. Send your ships out too soon, and you won’t be able to complete the all-important trade routes (for both money and bonus points). Wait too long, and other players will determine the colors and possibly stop you from completing your bonuses. Add to this tension a few special cards that help you when it seems that the luck (the ships that are available) goes against you, and Age of Discovery becomes a slightly cutthroat, intriguing game.

Lasting less than an hour, Age of Discovery will likely present a problem to new players, as they struggle to determine what exactly to do. But once played repeated times, some neat strategies present themselves as players learn the timing of when to purchase and place ships. Certainly a game for experienced gamers, Age of Discovery takes some common mechanics and puts an interesting time-limit feel to them. Delay too long in this game, and you won’t discover anything. It’s a satisfying two-player game and works even better with three (okay with four). Yes, it’s yet ANOTHER game about sending out ships in the 1600’s, but it’s a good one.

Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games”
www.thedicetower.com

Thread: Re: Looking for raw data on the mission cards

giles — 2007-08-01T14:20:13+00:00

weishaupt wrote:
When I get about 20 sets of results, I'll figure out the average for each card and work out what the numbers on the missions cards ought to be.
I don't have any data for you, but I can tell you the flaws in this method.

The secret mission cards essentially force you to choose between making a play optimized for immediate points, or playing to optimize the points you'll eventually get from your secret mission. (This is a good design feature.) Different secret mission cards require greater tradeoffs, therefore looking only at the points gained from the secret mission cards themselves will badly skew any analysis. And of course you have bias from player skill too, both in total score and score from secret missions.

If you want to accurately analyze this from play results, you need a series of controlled playtests: games with the same players playing under different conditions - secret cards still need to be distributed randomly because knowing who has certain cards may change players' strategies. Then you must compare a large enough pool of results to mathematically compensate for the randomness in the card distribution. Or you can deal with statistically significant numbers of randomly selected games from the general public. Either of those is hard, but both generate accurate data on game balance.

It is possible to get coarser data from less work, but you still need to consider a secret mission cards impact on total score, not just the direct points awarded in final scoring.

Most good games aren't subject to practical, exhaustive numerical analysis, but approximations are often "less expensive" than correlating a statistically significant amount of playtest data. Because the conflicting goals of the secret missions will create extra randomness in player decisions, I suspect that an approximation analysis will yeild better results for Age of Discovery than a statistical analysis of random games, but both options are valid techniques, as long as they consider the total score from different courses of action with each mission card, not just components of the score.

Thread: Re: Age of Discovery With 2 Players

GoPanthers — 2007-07-30T11:23:53+00:00

Played it three times with two and thought it played really well. Highly recommended.

Thread: Re: Spielbox Secret Mission Variant

Ward — 2007-07-23T16:46:59+00:00

Interesting variant. Not sure a variant is necessary, but would probably be worth a try.

Thread: Re: Age of Discovery With 2 Players

edralla — 2007-07-22T19:14:58+00:00

Thanks for the report -- we had a very similar experience.

My wife and I played for the first time last night. Like you, our first game lacked a lot of efficiency. By the time we were into the second half of the game, we had it figured out, but we were stuck with some early mistakes. We also put such a premium on maximizing our income, that we didn't think to take a bunch of short trade missions to achieve our secret missions. Once that nuance was realized, it completely changed the tone of the game.

We definitely think this is a very good two-player game. A lot of decision-making, a great deal of opportunity costs to weigh and balance, and actually a fair degree of subtle interaction (screwing up your opponents plans depending on which ships you reserve/buy, which expeditions you launch, etc.).

Thread: Age of Discovery With 2 Players

MartinStever — 2007-07-22T16:13:33+00:00

Yesterday I played two games of Mayfair's new Age of Discovery with my friend Glenn.

Pre-game:
It took about 20 minutes to get the game punched, sorted, and to read through the rules aloud. The rules were well written, so hats off to Mayfair for a good English translation.

Game 1:
On each turn a player gets to take 2 of 4 possible actions. In the first game we weren't efficient with our turns. When buying or launching ships as one of a player's 4 possible actions, you can buy or launch more than one, if you're thinking ahead. As beginners, we were tending to do things in a linear fashion: 1)get coin 2)buy trade mission, 3)launch ship, 4)repeat. So by the end of turn 5 we both realized we could do things smarter and had left a lot of money/actions on the table, so to speak.

This game has variable score timing, meaning the players are not exactly sure when the two scoring phases will take place as it's triggered by a card draw. In this first game, when the first scoring card came up, I was in an advantageous position. One of my trade fleets had come in, which meant I had boats and money available to place them on my one turn after the scoring card had come up and before the scoring actually took place. I launched all my ships with the exception of two into scoring expeditions.

Each player has a single secret objective for the game. My objective was to have ships taking part on expeditions alone, without any of Glenn's ships. So on this first scoring I locked up 3 expeditions by taking all available slots, meaning Glenn couldn't put down a ship later and mess up my objective. The move reduced my scoring in the first scoring round significantly, but it also locked in a big score for last scoring round.

Glenn only put out one ship for initial scoring, so I pulled into a 14-point lead. However, Glenn had many more ships than I did to play through the second half of the game.

In the second half of the game, we played much more efficiently, buying more than one ship at a time and playing more than one mission as well. We both made another "rookie" error, in that we didn't maximize scoring on our secret objectives. The scoring on the secret objective is dependent on completing trade missions during the game. In an effort to maximized money by sending out long expeditions, we both failed to complete 10 trade missions for maximum scoring, but instead ended up completing only 9 missions each.

When it came time for final scoring, we both got most of our ships out into the expeditions. Again, we both made the mistake of having ships at sea on trade missions when the final scoring card came up, meaning we couldn't redeploy the ships for maximum scoring. In the final scoring phase I was able to dink Glenn. I knew he had a lot of ships to fill up one of the two highest scoring expeditions, so I put one ship of a different color into the expedition, meaning Glenn's ships couldn't play there. It was an accidental dink, as I didn't really plan it, but effective nonetheless.

I ended up winning by 19 points, so most of it came from getting out there in the first round of scoring successfully.

Game 2:
Now that we'd figured out the rules and the keys to being efficient, we were. The game went much faster both in terms of speed of play and in that there were fewer turns in the game. We were much better at optimizing our two actions per turn to get our income to flow faster, so we could buy ships faster.

Again, in this second game, I chose to get some ships out for early scoring. I got about 12 more points than Glenn.

In the last half of the game, it felt like I was getting crushed. I kept ending up $1 short of being efficient. I wanted to buy 3 boats and launch three missions. Twice I was $1 short. At the same time, Glenn was putting out 3 at a time. AS we approached the game end, Glenn put out three ships all timed to arrive in three turns. It was clear that if his ships came in, I was doomed. I put out two trade missions arriving in one turn...again short $1 from putting out three missions.

My two trade missions arrived, and I was determined to end the game before Glenn's ships came in. On my next turn, I started buying the cheap ships, chewing through the deck, trying to get the card triggering final scoring to pop up. The scoring card was the last one I could afford to buy while still leaving me some money to put ships out to sea. *whew* If the scoring card had been one further down in the pile, Glenn would have crushed me. Instead, he conceded as he had no money to launch his few remaining ships, while I'd get about half of my ships to sea.

So after two games, I think it is a very good 2-player game.

Thread: Spielbox Secret Mission Variant

GoPanthers — 2007-07-21T21:44:03+00:00

To avoid equity problems, perceived or otherwise, Christward Conrad of Spielbox (4/2007) recommends the following variant. At the beginning of the game, no missions are dealt. Instead, all four missions are placed face-up on the table. Right after scoring the middle round each player jots down on a piece of paper the mission of his or her choice, to be revealed only at the end of the game. It's perfectly fine if more than player chooses the same mission.

To push this even further, if you play Age of Discovery several times, you may want to keep track of the missions that get chosen most often--and add a modest bonus to the unpopular ones.

Thread: Re: About scoring ships on expedition cards:

Thomas_de_Monet — 2007-07-17T17:06:38+00:00

I am making a copy of your post to put in the game box for future reference and argument avoidance!

Thank you Alex.

Thread: Re: About scoring ships on expedition cards:

Great Dane — 2007-07-17T12:58:57+00:00

It certainly helped me!
Thanks, Alex!

Thread: Re: About scoring ships on expedition cards:

AlexYeager — 2007-07-17T11:48:48+00:00

As mentioned earlier in this thread, 6.2 states that "Any ship can be assigned to any expedition or trade contract by playing this card." Note that it does not say it CHANGES the color; just that it makes it a legal play. There is no "memory" of color involved; you simply get to play the ship, with all other features of the ship unchanged.

More specifically: using a Wild Card to play the first ship on a expedition is a wasted play. The color of the ship is not changed by the Wild Card, and the play of the ship was not enhanced or made legal with the card. The original color of the ship stands for all future plays at that expedition.

I hope that helps!

Alex Yeager
Mayfair Games

Thread: Re: About scoring ships on expedition cards:

Ward — 2007-07-17T11:12:30+00:00

Great Dane wrote:
Ward wrote:

Scenario Two: the expedition is now blue and the Wild Ship card was wasted.

The Expeditions cannot change colors, only Ships.

This is definitely incorrect according to the rules. They state that the first ship on an expedition sets its color, so it may change from the color on the expedition.

Where do you find mention of a ship changing colors?