Expedition
December 16th, 2004Four of us played Expedition. This was discussed far more in 2000, when I first started playing games, but the increasing flood of new eurogames seems to have submerged this classic.
Bruno Faidutti provides a decent rules summary:
There are three different expeditions, figured with arrows of different colours, leaving Europe to discover archeological sites. Each player on turn advances one of the expeditions, trying to reach one of his secret goals, or one of the public common goals. Travel vouchers and action cards make for some special actions and nasty tricks, such as change a goal card, move the last arrow of an expedition or place a blocking token.
Expedition works very well. It is easy to learn and requires a nice amount of planning. A couple of years ago, I played this with a family of non-gamers and they loved it. The adults I played it with this time also got a lot out of it.
I just read Rick Heli’s capsule review, which mentions a rule we played incorrectly, due to an incorrect translation – more than one arrow of each color may be placed on each black line. This changes the game a lot, and probably for the best, as otherwise some remote locations become impossible to visit, requiring spending travel vouchers to remove the research mission. I will use Rick’s translation next time. Obeying Rick’s advice, we always play the Variant A branching rules, as it reduces luck.
As an archaeology grad, I enjoyed the board and cards, with detailed German descriptions of the various ancient sites. I just wish they were in English. This game is begging for a reprint. It has to be better than all pure educational games on the market.