Movement and Market

How cards move your expedition, buy cards and cycle your deck in the 2017 edition.

Play cards

Play any number of cards from your hand to move, buy one card, or do both. A card can be used once this turn. For a card with more than one movement colour, choose one colour and use its full power only in that colour. Use movement cards first, then total the remaining cards’ purchase value. Items are limited to one use per game when their printed effect is used; an item spent as a generic card for rubble or money goes to your discard pile instead.

Landscape spaces

Each landscape hex has a terrain symbol and a power requirement. Play one card whose terrain matches the hex and whose power is at least that requirement. Move one adjacent space; if the card has leftover power, continue across adjacent hexes of the same terrain, subtracting the power used each time. You may stop early, but unused power is lost. A second card begins a new movement and cannot be combined with the first to enter a high-power hex.

Rubble and base camps

For grey rubble or red base camp, discard any number of cards matching the number of symbols. Their colours and powers do not matter. Cards used to enter a red base camp are permanently removed from play; cards used for rubble go to the discard pile. Mountains and spaces occupied by any pawn are impassable.

Buying cards

You may buy at most one card per turn, even if you did not move. A card with a coin icon contributes its printed value; any other card contributes half a coin. Add the value of any number of cards and buy one card you can afford. Put it face up in your discard pile: it is not available this turn.

Initially, buy from the six market stacks. Once a stack’s three cards are gone, that supply becomes available. When any market slot is empty, you can buy from any available supply; refill the empty slot with the chosen supply’s stack. If no slot is empty, buy only from the six displayed stacks.

Discard and refill

At turn end, put all played cards that were not removed from the game into your discard pile. You may keep unplayed expert and item cards in hand, or discard each one. Draw until you have four cards. If the draw pile empties before you have four, shuffle the discard pile and continue drawing.

Blockades

The first pawn to cross a blockade pays its printed power with cards exactly as for movement and takes that blockade. Removing it is a separate movement step; moving onward beyond it costs another step. Once removed, the spaces it blocked are open to every player. Collected blockades break ties at the finish: most first, then highest value.

Two-player game

Each player controls two pawns starting on spaces 1 and 3 versus 2 and 4. Both of your pawns must reach El Dorado. For every card played, choose one pawn and use that card’s full movement for it; you cannot split card power between your pawns. Pawns remain obstacles even to their owner’s other pawn.