Exploration games?

lol

hey, why is Age of Empires III not popular around here? Isn't that an AT game?

Black Barney wrote:

lol

hey, why is Age of Empires III not popular around here? Isn't that an AT game?

From BGG's description:

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22545

"Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery features beautiful artwork from the PC game and from renowned artist Paul Niemeyer, but is a typical eurogame. Age of Empires III has hundreds of plastic figures, including ships, doubloons, colonists, merchants, captains, missionaries and soldiers."

Yeah, I had read that as well but figured they were just catering to BGG to not turn them off. It seems like the second you put hundreds of plastic figures that includes ships, captains and soldiers, the game instantly becomes AT.

If the game contained hundreds of cubes, then it would be another matter

It's an area control Euro with plastic figures instead of cubes. I didn't like it all that much. Probably will never play it again.

While I haven't played it yet--got it from Barnes in the last F:AT math trade--wouldn't Conquest of Paradise fit the bill? It has exploration, war, conflict, empire building...

Again, I haven't played it-but would be far more conflict than Age of Empires III (but I may be wrong).

Yeah, I meant to mention CoP but I forgot...I do think it would meet a lot of the established criteria. The setting/geography is very specific if that makes a difference.

Age of Exploration from TimJim games seems to fit pretty well. There's an emphasis on victory points but at the same time you can subjugate the Incans and Aztecs, circumnavigate the world, on and on. I own a copy but have only played solo; love to try it with more sometime.

Safe Return Doubtful is a game about Arctic exploration that sounds pretty cool, although getting a copy may require an expedition to the four corners of the earth.

On PC there are of course Sid Meier's Civilization games. Every time you play the game randomly generates an entire planet, so the early stages really scratch that exploration itch for me. Ditto Colonization.

Also on the PC is Armageddon Empires , an excellent boardgame-like game set on a randomly-generated tract of post-apocalyptic Earth. Because of the variety of cool and dangerous things you can find, exploring in that game is particularly fun.

I haven't played them since high school, but I remember liking the exploration aspects of Mystic Wood and The Sorceror's Cave, even though the art on the tiles was incredibly lackluster. I'll bet someone's gone and made some pretty updated tiles, though. Were either of those games any good?

Does Tales of the Arabian Nights have a good exploration feeling? I haven't played it, but it seems like it may be a good candidate here.

Aarontu wrote:

Does Tales of the Arabian Nights have a good exploration feeling? I haven't played it, but it seems like it may be a good candidate here.

Not really. I would put it more in the camp of adventure games like Talisman. In other words you move to a space, draw a card and then some crazy shit happens to you. Fun but not really an exploration game.


As for good exploration games I've played:

Dinosaurs of the lost World
Mystic Wood
Conquest of Paradise
Merchant of Venus
Magic Realm


-Will

I agree about Magic Realm, the exploration aspect is important, although not the main aspect of the game. Merchant of Venus also has a good feeling of exploration on the first part of the game, when everyone is discovering the cultures on each planet and creating trade routes. I like exploration games like these, where exploring actually provides you with the means to accomplish your goals later on, so it's not just exploring and getting points...

I also enjoy the BSM Padora games, especially the second one where you explore alien planets. It's got a lot of flavor with very little components and pictures, but it sets your imagination alive...

This is off-topic, but since it was mentioned... I haven't played Source of the Nile, but someone posted a link to this online dice game on the Source of the Nile forum on TOS, and I've been enjoying that a lot lately: www.history.com/expedition/game/ (I'd actually like to know if anyone knows of more solo dice games like that, where there's a little bit of character and theme to it.)

Hey, thanks for the link, I like dice games like this... I recently made one about space trading that can be played solo: Star Trader's Luck. I posted recently about it on in my blog .

Thanks for all the responses, guys. iguanaDitty hit the nail on the head with exactly the kind of game I was looking for. Thanks, lizard! I've ordered a copy of Age of Exploration, and am trying to get my hands on Safe Return Doubtful, which is looking pretty doubtful. I wish some of these old DTPers would either sell the PDFs for PnP or VASSAL, or just allow others to make VASSAL/Cyberboard modules.

It's interesting that Richard Berg himself has stated that AoE is a major advance from Conquistador (which I've played) and way ahead of New World (which I haven't). I'm looking forward to it. I've played quite a few of the other games that are mentioned, and a lot of them are great, but I'd classify them as either empire building or dungeon crawls, not exploration, despite anywhere from light to heavy doses of exploration in the game.

Michael Barnes wrote:

Well, once again we touch on a great theme for an AT game that routinely gets shunted off to the side in favor of orcs and elves.

Very true. It got me thinking about what I'd want from a pure exploration game, and why we don't see more of these.

Here's what I want:

1. Strong narrative. The game should tell a story. This means the theme will have to be very strong and reflected in the mechanics.

2. Strong sense of connection with my guy. This is related to Branham's 'this is me; these are mine' test, and it's got to be there for an exploration game. I don't want to own lands or rule an empire, either (well, I do, but not right now). I want to be the explorer, with a band of soldiers/askaris/whatever, some bearers/porters, some animals, supplies, etc.

3. Limited player interaction/multiplayer solitaire/solitaire. I know this is the kiss of death for a lot of ATers (e.g. Runebound), but explorers just didn't go fighting each other, except in the most indirect ways. I don't want to fight over territory. The explorer's greatest threat was the enviroment: nature and natives. The vast majority of conflict should be as a race: who gets there first, who tells the world about it first. If it can't be soloed, it's not an exploration game, pure and simple.

4. Push your luck. Just like reality, I want to feel like I'm in danger of losing everything at any time. I want to feel hard pressed by the environment: like the fucking thing hates me. If I make a big discovery, I'd like the challenge of deciding whether to keep going or turn back and bank it.

5. Variability. The essence of exploration is the unknown. This is one of the things I love about Source of the Nile: you have absolutely no idea what awaits you over the next hill. Africa turns out completely different every time. Seven Cities of Gold was the same; the game would construct an entirely new New World. It looks like Age of Exploration has fixed locations, but offers variability in its mechanics; I guess I'll find out what I think of it soon enough.

6. An appropriate method of measuring success. This is almost certainly VPs. They're used very well in Source of the Nile. I especially like that your explorer's profession changes how many VPs you get for different discoveries.

Anyway, those are my ideas. Any thoughts?

I'd like to see an exploration game along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie (one of the first three, anyway) or the excellent Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon. Players are competing to explore a dangerous, trap-laden ruin, obtain a specific artifact, and then escape alive. Other players can attack them on the way out to try to get the artifact.

Shellhead wrote:

I'd like to see an exploration game along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie (one of the first three, anyway) or the excellent Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon. Players are competing to explore a dangerous, trap-laden ruin, obtain a specific artifact, and then escape alive. Other players can attack them on the way out to try to get the artifact.

Sounds like Indiana Jones meets DungeonQuest.

(that would rock)

Shellhead wrote:

I'd like to see an exploration game along the lines of an Indiana Jones movie . . . Other players can attack them on the way out to try to get the artifact.

But only if they speak Hovitos.