Ravensburger The Quest for El Dorado Strategy Board Games for Adults and Kids Age 10 Years Up - 2 to 4 Players

Product Information

I've spoken with Knizia many times since I started covering the game industry full time in 2006, including an hour-long retrospective in 2015 of his thirty-year career as a game designer that remains my favorite interview to date. I've spoken of my love for Knizia designs many times, most recently in my video overview of LAMA, and aside from being a fan of his designs, I'm also a fan of his business practices. More than anyone else I've encountered, Knizia merges the art of design with the business of ensuring that those designs get into print and stay there, and that's where this story begins. Aristocracy is smooth and simple, as expected… at least after setup. First, you must painstakingly lay out a bunch of square land tiles facedown on the 111 spaces of the board, put out 59 more fish and point tiles in their designated spaces, separate the 120 player markers into the four colors, and then you are ready to get to the smooth and simple gameplay. Unlike No Mercy or the next Mandoo Games title (Treasures of Nakbe), Gang of Dice is a Knizia design with no history that I’m aware of. It’s also admittedly the Mandoo game I was most looking forward to trying precisely because it is the most unique of the bunch. Players are competing to earn point tokens by contributing to various segments of wall. If you start your turn as the single largest contributor in a particular row, then you get to claim a point token in that row. But there’s a catch! That point token goes onto one of your cards in that row and weakens your contributions by the value of the points on the token, meaning it’s much harder to claim the second token if you’ve greedily snatched up a high one. Choose a card on the market board that you can afford and put it face up on your discard pile. You may neither use that card during this turn, nor put it directly in your hand. The card will eventually be shuffled into your draw pile with the rest of the discard pile.

In other words, gather up resources to collect sets and score points OR play your markers onto the board to establish connections and race to earn points. There are enough ways to score points here (building a line that connects cities, placing enough markers in one district, placing a marker in all districts, collecting lots of resources and sets of resources) that you’ll always have a decent strategy to work toward. Whether that strategy pans out or not is going to heavily depend on how the tiles are revealed and how tempting those tiles are to your opponents. The weakening of the first player and rewarding of the second player is an important incentive that often convinces folks to give up on the first dibs prize and wait for the remaining one. The row will be cleared out and refreshed, and both point tokens will finally be earned if the second player can maintain their new position at the top until their next turn. It plays equally well at two as it does four. The Quest for El Dorado also works well for experienced gamers and those relatively new to the hobby too. If the rules were a bit more friendly this could easily be an entry level game, if it appeals a how to play video may make it accessible. Overall, The Quest for El Dorado looks great as the board sprawls across the table. I like its overall table presence. Exception: If you play an item card without using its function (e.g. to pass a rubble space, or to spend it as % a coin), place it above the expedition board after you played it, then put it on your discard pile.

Components

So why wait? Join the search for El Dorado today and experience the thrill of the hunt in this exciting and engaging board game.

The worst thing I can say about the components is the cards are those mini cards rather than standard sized, and though I understand the space-saving reasons for using them they just don’t shuffle or play as well as regular cards. The Best of El Dorado You start each turn with 4 cards in your hand. Use expedition cards to move through the jungle or hire more people for your expedition. If you still have cards in your hand (experts or items), you can now choose to keep them in your hand for your next turn, or discard them as well. You may decide for each card individually.

Interestingly, 2022’s No Mercy has a lengthy history as it is a retitled edition of 2021’s Hit! by French Publisher Pixie Games, which is a slightly modified design based on 2021’s Family Inc by Austrian publisher Piatnik, which is itself a reimplementation of 2007’s Cheeky Monkey which has seen many editions over the years. Despite all of that, The Quest for El Dorado has been an irresistible design that Dr. Knizia just can’t leave alone. Yet if there is any game in his entire ludography that lends itself best to expansion content, it undoubtedly has to be this one. This game features all the key ingredients for expansion content: As for the aforementioned expansions, Knizia says, "Being able to control doing the graphics, it gives me freedom to do expansions myself for different territories. There are lots of expansion opportunities in El Dorado, and the advantage now is that I don't have to convince an individual publisher. I discuss it with Vincent, and we do it." When moving on your turn, for each card you play, choose which playing piece that card applies to. Move that playing piece, then choose again for your next card. Since the game's debut in 2017, Ravensburger has released versions of The Quest for El Dorado in German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian — and that was it as far as the company was concerned. Says Knizia, "Ravensburger did not want to cover the other territories, which meant that I had all the other territories to cover myself. This game is too close to my heart, and if they didn't want to cover it, then I wanted to do it myself."

Rivers, Lakes, and a Water Vortex massively ups the water spaces of your map, putting a greater emphasis on paddle cards. But more than that, the rivers and vortex feature arrows that push your explorer one space further if you complete a card’s movement on them. So traveling along these spaces feels a lot like the moving walkways at the airport where you are moving faster and further than the steps you are taking. It’s quite fun to string together a 4 space movement with a couple single paddle cards.

What We Like About The Quest for El Dorado

Assemble your team of explorers and equip them with the tools and supplies they need to navigate treacherous terrain, overcome obstacles, and outwit your opponents. Use strategy and cunning to navigate the jungle, build paths, and reach the fabled city before your rivals.