Race to El Dorado

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Race to El Dorado
Game data
author Pure Knizia
graphic Franz Vohwinkel
publishing company Ravensburger
Publishing year 2017
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 30 to 60 minutes
Age from 10 years on

Awards

Race to El Dorado is a board game by the German game designer Reiner Knizia , which was published by Ravensburger in 2017 . In the same year, the game was nominated for Game of the Year together with Kingdomino and Magic Maze .

Style of play

The race to El Dorado is thematically about a race through the South American wilderness to the legendary Eldorado , where treasures in the form of gold, jewels and valuable artefacts await the winner. The players play the role of an expedition leader who uses maps to put together his expedition team and continuously improves it by hiring new members or buying helpful items. The game combines elements of a racing game with a deck building , as known from Dominion or other games.

In addition to the instructions, the game material consists of:

  • seven large map tiles printed on both sides,
  • a starting field plan and a target field plan,
  • several smaller map pieces,
  • six blockages,
  • two pieces each in 4 player colors (blue, white, green and red),
  • four player boards,
  • 8 basic cards per player color (one sailor, three researchers and four travelers),
  • a market table,
  • 54 expedition cards,
  • a starting player marker,
  • 36 cave tiles (for the cave variant)

Game preparation

At the beginning of the game, each player chooses a color and receives one pawn each (two pawns with 2 players), a player board and the set of 8 basic cards in his player color. A game plan is put together from the map parts, with the various parts resulting in a variable route between the starting field map and the target field map. A barrier is placed between each part. The market board is placed in the middle of the game and equipped with expedition cards according to the instructions. Starting with the starting player, the players place their figures on the starting spaces. Then they shuffle their base cards and put the pile as a face-down draw pile on their player board. Finally, each player draws four cards in hand.

Game flow

Actions per turn
  • Play cards
  • Move a figure, buy cards
  • Discard cards
  • Draw cards

The players play in clockwise order, starting with the starting player. The player whose turn it is begins his turn by playing individual cards from his hand and, depending on these, either drawing his pawn on the board or buying cards from the market display. Each card can only be used once in a turn and is then put on the discard pile. Some of the cards that can be bought in the market can only be used once and are marked accordingly; these cards are removed from the game after they have been used.

A movement takes place on or over different landscape fields. To move his figure, a player must play a card that corresponds to the type of landscape and has at least the strength indicated by the symbols on the field. These are mainly forest fields (with one or more machetes), water fields (with one or more paddles) and village fields (with one or more coins). If a player has strength left after entering a field, he can move to other fields of the same type of landscape until it is used up. However, several cards cannot be combined to move to a landscape space with a high strength value. Special fields are the scree fields and base camps. In the rubble fields, a player must discard the specified number of cards regardless of their strength value in order to enter them. In the case of a base camp, the cards required for this are removed from the game and are not returned to the card stock. Mountain fields and fields on which another pawn is standing may not be entered. If a player wants to cross a barrier, it is revealed and the player has to pay the required strength value in order to advance.

Cards can also be used to buy additional cards. The value of the cards is paid in order to buy new cards from the market display (for cards with a coin symbol the value corresponds to the strength value, for all others 1/2 coin per card). In order to buy cards, the player puts cards from his hand in the slot that corresponds to the stated purchase price of the cards he wants to buy. This card is then also placed on the shelf and only comes into hand when it is drawn from the draw pile. Only cards are bought from the market display, on which a maximum of six types of cards can be placed. If a slot is sold out and thus empty, a player can decide when purchasing a new card type from the display to the market display and then to buy the card.

At the end of a turn, all played cards and all newly bought cards are placed on the discard pile. If a player still has cards in hand, he can decide to keep them or discard them as well. Then as many cards are drawn from the draw pile until the player has exactly four cards in hand again. If the cards in the draw pile are not sufficient, all available cards are taken first, then the discard pile is shuffled and laid out as a new draw pile. From the new pile the player then fills up his hand cards to four.

End of game and evaluation

The game ends when a player reaches one of the three spaces on the target board. The figure is then placed in El Dorado and the round is played to the end. If another player manages to arrive in El Dorado in this round, the winner is the player who has overcome and can show the most barriers.

Game for two players

The same rules apply to the two player game as to the three to four player game. In this version, however, a player takes over two pawns and may decide which of his pawns to move each time he plays his cards. The winner is the player who reached El Dorado first with both pieces.

Cave variant

For the cave variant of the game, the 36 cave tiles are required in addition to the material from the normal game. These additional caves enable the player to find tiles that bring advantages by exploring caves. When setting up, four cave tiles are stacked face down on each mountain space. As soon as a player stops next to a cave pile with his figure, he can explore it and receives the top tile. He puts this down in front of him and can use it at any time. If a player wants to explore a cave several times, he must first leave the mountain in one turn and then come back on the next turn. After a cave tile has been placed, it is removed from the game.

Expenses and reception

The game Wettlauf nach El Dorado was developed by Reiner Knizia and published in 2017 by Ravensburger in a German and an English edition. The game was released for the Nuremberg Toy Fair 2017.

The game was nominated for the Game of the Year award in 2017 alongside Kingdomino and Magic Maze . The jury justified the admission as follows:

“The 'Race to El Dorado' combines card deck building and racing games in an extremely catchy and clever way. March ahead? What a feeling of happiness when the helpers allow an intermediate sprint. Spend time optimizing the expedition team? Sure, otherwise the endurance is missing in the end. Or dawdle to hinder the competition? Yes, that's just fun! And for these reasons, the tactical hunt through the jungle is always varied and exciting. "

At the German Games Prize 2017, the game was ranked 11th (which was designated 10th place by the organizing publisher due to the double occupancy of 6th place).

extension

In 2019, the first expansion for the main game appeared with "Heroes and Demons".

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Game rules and assembly instructions for the race to El Dorado at Ravensburger
  2. ↑ Versions of the Race to El Dorado in the BoardGameGeek database; accessed on July 1, 2017.
  3. ^ Race to El Dorado in the Luding games database ; accessed on July 1, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Race to El Dorado on the website of the game of the year e. V .; accessed on July 1, 2017.

Web links