Take on the role of a colonial power seeking fame, glory, and riches in the new world. As you proceed through three centuries, you will launch expeditions of discovery, colonize regions, expand your merchant fleet, and develop your economy. As the competition heats up, you will recruit specialists (Merchant, Soldier, Captain, and Missionary) to help you gain an edge over your opponents, declare wars, and build capital buildings that give your nation unique advantages.

Can you re-write history? Play the Age of Discovery and find out!

....salivate....salivate.....

The figures look nice!  I wrote up a session report (on BGG) after I played this twice at Origins, Summer 2006.  I will be interested to see if there were any more rules tweaks since then.

Valerie

What about the luck factor and analysis paralysis?
In this respect, similar to Caylus, PR, El Grande, AOS?

Luck factor:  This was most evident when exploring new areas.  They varied in strength and if you didn’t have enough explorers (? soldiers?), it was a wasted turn.  I saw one player that was conservative--he only explored when he had enough to defeat the maximum strength it could be.  I saw another player take a lot of risks, and he was successful about half the time, but had spent less resources.  Over time the luck seemed to balance out--you either spent more time collecting resources or you were only successful half the time.  However it would be possible for a single exploration to be the tipping point at the end of the game if two players were neck and neck.  While that might feel like the winner came down to luck, the truth is the players would have had to do a lot right to be neck and neck for the win to begin with.

Analysis paralysis:  Too hard to say.  This depends so much on who you play with.  I remember that the game flowed fairly quickly with a few moments when people needed to “take a second” to make a decision.  Of course, a slow player could do that often and take far more than a second, but I don’t think that will be a general tendency.  But with just two plays it was too soon to tell.

Hope that helps!
Valerie

OK about AP. Regarding the luck factor, could you compare it with the games I mentioned?

Mario,
Since it has been 6 months since I played it and I generally find such specific game comparisons difficult anyway (in an apples and oranges kind way), I may not be very helpful.  I generally found that there was enough luck in AoE III to keep some moments suspenseful but certainly not enough to make the game feel chaotic or unbalanced.  If pressed, I’d say this is more luck than Caylus or Puerto Rico (where starting set up is the only luck in the game) and closer to El Grande and AoS (where cards or dice rolls for goods growth add some small luck elements).

Without giving too much strategy away I can say that when I last counted cards (Glenn is still tuning I think) the “trusting to luck” exploration card draw will have an average return below some of the other options, but a maximum possible return a little above all other options.  An easy fix for anyone this bothers is to remove the high and low cards from the deck or play with them face up. The distribution flattened a little more each time I saw the prototype.

Ray, if this truly is a viable “fix” that some are likely to prefer, you might want to mention to Glenn that it would be nice if it was included in the rules as an “official” variant.  Many groups are reluctant to use a variant unless it has the publisher’s blessing (i.e., they prefer an “advanced game” rule to a house rule).

Of course, if he’s already planning to do that, never mind!

Glenn posted a rules draft on BGG:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browser.php?itemtype=file&gameid=22545

This draft of the rules does include a starting player variant (but so far no others to answer Larry’s question).  There is a section for “Appendix III: Discovery Counters and Cards” that gives the breakdown of cards for those who want to see the variance.

Regarding face up play, IMHO the random cards give the game its sense of discovery (and this game is about exploration, right?) but do so early enough that any favor they might give can be undone with the El Grande like area competitions and the Capital building combos a less discovery focused player can put together.

Reading the rules I agree: it has Caylus, Struggle of Empires and El Grande mechanisms.

I’ll buy it, no doubt!

Actually, what it reminds me of more than anything else is Leonardo da Vinci, with the central mechanism of the placing of the workers/colonists.  Of course, AoE was more or less fully designed before Leonardo even came out.  The similarity is a happy one, as I like LdV and hope to like AoE even more.

And U also coul include…
Tahuantinsuyu: for the discovery counters, similar to Local Culture Markers, with the strength of the native resistance in that area, the VPs. earned for conquering the territory, and the ongoing supply of money/labor that the region gives to the player.