Explorers - How To Play

hi and welcome to watch it played my name is rodney smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to four player game explorers designed by phil walker harding and published by ravensburger who helped sponsor this video in a new world of levitating rocks hidden treasures and unknown mysteries you and the other explorers are setting out to chart these unseen lands based on the rough maps you've been supplied with you'll have to plan your paths wisely in order to become the best explorer so join me at the table and let's learn how to play to set up each person collects one of these double-sided playing boards and a dry erase marker now for your very first game they recommend putting the side of this board face up that shows these values here now each player collects one of each of these tiles the one that shows food is known as the provisions tile the village tile is narrow and the gemstones tile shows gemstones these are all double-sided and for your first game they recommend using the sides that you're seeing face up here and you then set these into their related slots on your board like this each player now collects a set of these eight terrain tiles which are marked from one to eight somewhere on them in a central area the person who most recently traveled to a foreign country is now given this first player token or you can just pick someone randomly that player will now shuffle up their terrain tiles and take four of them randomly returning the rest back to the box each other player will now find the same four tiles based on those values so in this case everyone will ensure they have tiles 2 3 5 and 7 returning the rest to the box now the first player will shuffle the four tiles and pick a random orientation for each one setting them one by one into this area of their player board until the area is completely filled in then each other player should put their tiles into their boards so they match that first player's layout exactly these terrain tiles make up a map and each player will now look for the village on the map which is closest to the center a village is represented by this symbol and it will also have the number inside of that space and to determine the distance from the village to the center you count the most direct path without going diagonally so for example from here to the center would be one two three four spaces but this village here would require going one two three spaces that makes this the closest village so we cross it off if there's more than one village equally close to the center then the first player decides which of those villages everyone must cross off the map has a few different unique symbols on it that we'll learn about later but every space is made up of one of the four main types of terrain known as prairie water desert or mountain every player now picks one of those types of terrain and marks three of those matching spaces with an x starting from their initial village and each x must go into a space adjacent to that first village or another x they've marked so i might pick water and cross off an x here and then here and maybe here the important thing to understand about placing x's whether during the setup or at any point in the game is that an x must always be placed vertically or horizontally adjacent to an existing x you can't place one that is only diagonally adjacent and each x placed on the same turn must be placed on the same type of terrain so here these were all placed in water whereas my opponent here put their three x's on prairie spaces next if you have three players cross out the ten value under all four of what are known as these temple symbols if you have two players also cross out the sixes and we'll assume that we have two players for the purposes of this video finally collect these exploration tiles and stack them face down and that's the setup in explorers players will be charting paths on their maps as they explore which will allow them to cross off spaces and areas that can bring them points collect the most points by the end of the game and you win the game is played over four rounds at the start of a round the first player will shuffle all eight of these exploration tiles they then discard one of them face down unseen to the side with the rest put into a draw pile now the round begins and each round is broken into seven turns made up of two phases each starting with the active player choosing a terrain type now the active player is whoever's turn it currently is and at the beginning of the game this will be the first player as the active player they now reveal the top exploration tile from the stack and select one of the two terrain types showing on it rotating whichever side they've chosen so that that side is closest to them now it's time for the second phase of a turn where all the players add x's onto their maps and everyone can do this at the same time the active player will add three x's to the map that match the terrain type they chose every other player will either place two x's on the same type of terrain that the active player chose or they can place three x's on the terrain type that the active player didn't choose and remember when placing x's they must go vertically or horizontally adjacent to existing x's they can't just be diagonally adjacent but they don't all have to be placed adjacent to each other when placing my three x's on water i could put one of them here and then another x over here and another one here the important thing is that each x is being placed on the same type of terrain during that turn the exception is if the tile drawn is wild these will have two pairs of terrain types shown players still pick a side to use for xs in the standard way but you can mark both types of terrain from the side you choose so the active player picked this desert and water side they could put the three x's on any combination of desert and water spaces so we know how to place x's but why are we placing them well on your map you're going to find a variety of symbols and when you cross off a space showing one of them you'll get their related benefits let's go through each of the types of symbols and see how they work if you ever cross off one of these scrolls circle an unused scroll at the top of your board then during any future turn after the exploration tile has been revealed you can use a scroll by crossing off one you've previously circled to show that it can't be used again and then you get to add four x's to any single terrain type of your choice whether it's showing on the current exploration tile or not and just to be clear any player can use a scroll they have during any turn even when they're not the active player if you cross off a horse immediately stop and place an x on any terrain space of your choice as long as it's next to an existing x it doesn't have to match the other types of terrain that you've been marking off this turn but if you still have other x's to place you then continue your turn as normal anytime you cross off one of these gemstones also cross off one of the gems showing on your gemstone scoring tile here these will provide you with points later as we'll see apples carrots and fish are known as provisions after you cross off one of these also mark the matching symbol on the column of your provision scoring tile here the column you use is based on the current round you're in if you're in the first round you can only cross off items from this first column during the second round you only mark symbols off in the second column and so on so now that i've crossed off a carrot on this provisions tile in the first round if i crossed off another carrot on the map during the same round nothing extra happens on the provisions tile as the carrot symbol is already marked at the end of the round you'll score points for the x's on the provisions tile as we'll see this is a key when you mark one of these off also circle an unused key here at the top of the player board keys are used with temples this is the symbol for a temple and you can only put an x on a temple if you already have a key that is circled on your board you then use the key to unlock the temple by crossing the key off and then you can add an x to the temple's space once you've crossed off a temple locate the temple icon on the side of the board adjacent to that map piece so for this temple that would be here you then circle the highest value showing on its track so that would be the 12 in this case and those are all the various symbols you might mark off and some of them will have benefits that happen later so we'll discuss those more then in the meantime once everyone has placed their x's the current turn ends at the end of a turn if any players circle the temple value they announce which temples they explored and any players who did not explore that temple must now cross off the values the other players had circled this turn so if i had explored this temple and circled this 12 every player who didn't also explore that temple this turn must cross off that temple value this means if this player explores this temple on a future turn they will now circle this lower remaining value let's say we had three players now remember if you have three players only one of the temple scoring markers will start the game crossed off now if more than one person explored the same temple let's say these two players explored this temple on the same turn all remaining players cross off as many values from highest to lowest as the number of players who did explore those temples so with these two players circling the 12 that means this remaining player must cross off the 12 and the 8.

either way with the turnover the player seated to the left of the active player becomes the new active player and they draw and reveal the next exploration tile from the stack picking aside and then the next turn is resolved and turns will go on like this until all seven exploration tiles have been played now i should mention on the seventh turn in a three player game there will be no active player the final tile is flipped over and each player makes their own choice about which side they want to use and then every player puts three x's in the terrain type that they chose either way at the end of the seventh turn the current round comes to an end here each player checks to see how many provision symbols they crossed off from the column of the current round and then you gain points based on how many symbols you marked two points for crossing off just one five points if you marked two and ten points if you crossed off all three so in this case i would gain five points which i would then fill in right here and look that's a little sloppy but not too bad for given the fact that i'm writing this upside down now at the end of the second round you check this column for how many things you crossed off and you'd fill in this space and so on at the end of a round you also check to see how many total gems you have marked off and then you fill that amount into this space at the end of the first round at the end of the second round let's just say we had crossed off a few more gems you then total all the gems you have crossed off at that point which includes any from the previous rounds and you'd mark that new total here and so on and you keep doing this at the end of each of the rounds that ends the round and now the first player token is passed to the left and that person begins the new round by gathering together all eight of the exploration tiles shuffling them discarding one face down and revealing the top one to begin the first turn the rounds will continue like this until the end of the fourth round which brings you to the end of the game you now add all the points you gain from the provisions tile and enter them here and the totals from your gemstones you put here now check each of your villages and count how many x's you have in the single squares directly above below to the left and right of it if a village has one x beside it you score three points two x's scores you five three will score you seven and having all four x's around it gains you ten so in this case we've got two x's beside this village so i would score five points for it you score each village separately putting their values in the related boxes and then total those values and put the total here now add together all of the temple points you circled and put that total here this box is for recording achievements which are used in the expert mode we'll discuss in a moment but otherwise you now add together all of the points from these boxes to give you a final total that you record right here the player with the most points wins and in the case of a tie the tied player who crossed off not just circled but crossed off the fewest number of scrolls wins and if there's still a tie the tied players share the victory now with that you understand the basic rules but now let's learn the expert rules when setting up one person now randomly picks which side of the player board will be used and they also randomly pick which side of the provisions gemstones and village tile will be used these other sides have new scoring rules which you'll find explained here in the rule book so just look them up as necessary and you'll also find new rules for the temple scoring on this side of the player board which is explained right here once a player has set up their player board the other players as usual set up their boards to match now you can also play with achievement rules when you're ready to do this after the four terrain tiles have been added to each player's board the players decide how many achievements they want to play with either one two or three and then each player randomly takes that many of the remaining terrain tiles that they didn't use and flips these over these sides show a unique goal which is scored at the end of the game unless it says otherwise for example this one scores a player six points at the end of the game if they used no horses whereas this one gives you 12 points if you manage to cross off all the x's on any one row or column of your map the catch is that each player will have their own unique achievements as there's no duplicates now we won't go through all the achievements here but you can look them up in the rules as they come up in your games there's also special rules for solo play which i'll leave for you to discover on your own but otherwise that's everything you need to know to play explorers if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and i'll gladly answer them as soon as i get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and lots more over on the games page at board game geek and i'll put a link to that in the description below and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime we post a new video and if you'd like to support us directly you can join our patreon team which i'll have linked below but until next time thanks for watching