Sandbox / The Quest For El Dorado

Needs a blurb, otherwise ready to go

If you played the expansions, feel free to add in and, well, expand.

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Trope list WIP

• Action Girl: The Adventurer card. Depending on edition, she's either Indiana Jane or Allana Quatermain (the 1985 one). It's one of the most versatile and useful cards in the base game and comes with a reasonable price tag for her utility.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Your expedition in general, your meeples by design, and depending on edition, certain cards.
• Adventurer Outfit: A variety of cards, especially the Green and White ones, depict people in khakis and jungle wear.
• Always Male and Always Female: Each card is a pre-defined character, so you have always female Traveller, always male Sailors and so on and so forth.
• Art Shift: There are a handful of official, market-specific editions, that have different artworks on the cards and are also done in different styles.
• Awesome, but Temporary: One-use cards. They usually come with some very potent capabilities, but once used, they go back to the box.
• Beachcombing: As part of the Treasures expansion, there is a completely new game mechanic, allowing players to find other treasures than the El Dorado itself - and even win the game by getting enough of those. Normally, it takes getting rid of a large number of cards, but Metal Detector special cards allow you to get a treasure token by using them instead of trashing other cards.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Jack-of-all-Trades is a white card with 1/1/1 stats. It's nothing fancy, but it can reliably replace three of the starting cards, it's very cheap (there is no starting hand that can't afford it) and it offers badly needed flexibility. A great deal of winning strategies rely on either having a single Jack or at least securing one very early on.
  • On shorter, jungle-dominated boards, Trailblazer is a great card to have, with 3 machetes and an affordable price tag. Its main value isn't even about the increased mobility, but the fact that it allows to skip over 2 and 3 machete tiles, while being accessible from the start.
  • Journalist is a 3 Coin card, and boy, oh boy, she gets the value back in zero time. She allows to buy pretty much any card with the rest of your hand, especially when paired with a Traveller or Jack, giving you 5 Coins in total. Since she's a 3 Coin card, she also bypasses a great deal of Village tiles, either by going through low-value ones or by skipping the literal Cash Gates, and due to her relative cheapness, she can be reliably sourced.
• Card Cycling: A handful of cards, like Compass, Travel Log, Scientist or Cartographer, allow to draw more cards into your hand. Some of them are one-use, others are permanent fixtures on your deck.
• Cash Gate:
  • A triple gate with cards. Each and every new card requires to pay for its value in Coin icons, with card prices ranging from 1 to 5. At the same time, there are only six slots in the market, and until at least one of the starting stacks is depleted (by buying it out clean) or a (pricey) Transmitter is played, no other cards can be added to the market. The new cards, when to be added to the market, must be also purchased first.
  • There are also almost literal cash gates in the form of 2, 3 and, in particular, 4 Coin tiles on the board, which require a high-value card (either a yellow card or a Native) to even consider bypassing them. To a lesser extent, any high-value tile requires some high-value card to overcome directly, but in the case of Villages and Coin-providing yellow cards, it's pretty much literal.
  • If blocking tiles are in play, each of them requires to pay specific price to be picked, thus unblocking the path - for all players. As compensation, the player who paid for it gains the tile and can use it in case of an end-game tie.
• Changing Gameplay Priorities: Early on, everyone wants to buy new cards, but there is usually a point where adding new cards - no matter how strong - will be not only too little, but also too late to make any difference and only make your deck bigger. If expansions are in play, then they can affect both the goals and pace of the game - each of them on their own way.
• City of Gold: Accept no substitute, being on the quest for El Dorado!
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The game is designed in such a way that it can be played by pre-school children, elderly people who have never played anything else than checkers or a group of completely plastered fratbros, as long as any of those people can count to 6. Green cards cross green tiles, blue cross blue and yellow cross yellow, the number on the card shows how many tiles. White cards allow to pick which type of terrain to cross, and pink ones have some special abilities. And since the pink cards have their effects explained with not only the description, but also a pictogram, one doesn't even need to know how to read to play the game or speak the same language as the rest of the table (or the printing on the game).
• Cool, but Inefficient:
  • Millionaire ends up being this in the majority of situations when bought directly. A 5 Coin Yellow card that offers a value of 4. Technically, it allows you to buy other cards, and it's great to move through villages... except if you have 5 coins in your hand, you can buy any other card directly.
  • Both Scientist and Cartographer are incredibly inefficient "draw more" cards, since they are expensive, add just +1 and +2 cards to your hand and trying to cycle your deck using those is one of the finest noob traps there are in the game.
• Cool Plane: The Prop Plane, a single-use 4/4/4 card that's absolutely great for either overcoming some high-value tile or simply cruising over some large section of low-value tiles (particularly water).
• Darker and Grittier: The American market artworks of the cards are both darker (in a very literal sense) and depict characters in a gritty, serious tone. For comparison, the original artwork for cards from the European market edition are all whimsical and almost cartoony.
• Deckbuilding Game: With a twist - your goal is to have a deck as trim as possible, while at the same time adding better and better cards to it. In particularly long boards, there might be even enough time to have just the same hand of four cards non-stop.
• Deck Clogger:
  • The starting deck in general, and the Sailor card in particular. Each of the starting cards offers just a value of one in their field, and there are eight of them (two hands). Sailor is weak even among them, as he's just a single paddle, and water is not only the least popular type of tile, but also tends to by default require 2 or more paddles to cross to make it a viable alternative path to going overland.
  • While he can get some use in specific situations, Scout is a double clogger. It's a 1 Coin card (the only card this cheap) that offers 2 Machete icons. Not only is it incredibly inefficient by itself (unless you trashed your entire deck sans 2 cards, which, while highly specific, can happen), but it hogs the market spot, as it's the stack that will never be bought up clean.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Reducing your deck to just four cards. It's pretty tricky (and requires a sufficiently long board in the first place), but you have the exact same four cards non-stop, with full predictability of what you have and no RNG in the game. Plus, it can horribly backfire when done wrong or too early, so it takes some extra skill to pull it off successfully and without other players simply pushing forward in the meantime.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Starting with 4 Travellers in your hand, and thus buying a Transmitter card right off the bat. This allows the player to summon either Pioneer, Native or Millionaire (which, in this configuration, goes from Cool, but Inefficient to an unlimited chequebook to buy future cards).
  • The B side of the starting board has an easy-to-access "trash 1 card" tile, which at the same time keeps accumulating starting Travellers cards (since the only way to move in and out is to pay 1 Coin). Compared with the A side of that board, which accumulates Explorer cards, making it far less effective at trimming your deck just to coin cards. Whoever gets to that tile first gains a massive edge, as long as the board itself consists of more than 5 pieces to pass.
• Discard and Draw: In reverse order, but still:
  • Travel Log allows to draw two more cards, then trash up to 2 cards from your hand. The Travel Log is discarded instantly, being a single-use card. Compass is a lesser example: you draw 3 more cards to your hand, then the Compass is automatically trashed, being a single-use card, too.
  • Scientist draws 1 more card to your hand, then allows to trash 1 from the hand, too. It's a multi-use card that can be played each time you draw it.
• Drafting Mechanic: Each player has their own starting deck, which they expand by buying cards from the market. Each market card comes in 3 copies, so they are a very finite resource. In a four player game, one might end up without a badly needed card (Captain on water-heavy boards or lack of a Native for crossing through tight spots).
• Draw Extra Cards: Compass, Travel Log, Scientist and Cartographer all allow players to draw extra cards into their hand. Compass and Tavel Log are one-use, while Scientist and Cartographer are permanent cards.
• Expansion Pack: A whole bunch of them, adding new cards, board tiles and even rules and game mechanics. They can be combined in any configuration, as their mechanics are self-contained. Depending on the local publisher, they are sold either in bigger packages or piecemeal.
• Extrinsic Go-First Rule: The person with a hat starts first; otherwise, pick at random. The "first player" icon is a fedora a la Indiana Jones.
• Father Neptune: The Captain card, which, regardless of edition, is a seasoned, white-bearded ship captain.
• First-Player Advantage Mitigation: After any player reaches El Dorado, all remaining players can make a move, and the game ends once it's the turn of the first player - who can't move. So unless the first player is the first one to reach El Dorado, or else they are screwed.
• Griefer: A common, semi-viable strategy is built on griefing, particularly in four player game. If you are losing and there is a free spot in the market (since the other players bought some very useful cards, denying them to you and creating a big setback), you can always buy some useless card yourself. You might not win yourself, but you've just clogged the spot in the market with a useless card.
• Human Sacrifice: Implied in the Temple expansion, where one has to trash a card to get part of the key to open the gates of El Dorado. There are four temples and each of them requires trashing one card of a specific colour to gain a part of the key to El Dorado.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Any card with a value of 3. They are very reliable and strong in their field, pretty cheap (Captain costs just 2 Coins, the rest is a 1:1 price tag), and the green Trailblazer is even part of the starting market.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Pioneer and Native are some of the best and most reliable cards in the game, but they both cost 5 Coins. Even summoning them with Transmitter card is tricky.
• Intrepid Reporter: A duo of them: the 2 Coin Photographer and 3 Coin Journalist are both "covering" the adventures of your expedition, while being part of it.
• Jack of All Trades: The white cards offer one of all three types of icons, with 1, 2 or 4 icons. In fact, the weakest of them is named Jack-of-all-Trades in the English edition.
• Literal Wild Card: [Not sure if this is an example]
  • White cards: Jack-of-all-Trades, Adventurer and Prop Plane are the so-called utility cards, allowing them to be used over any tile, as they provide travel over jungle, water and villages. However, you can only pick one type to move, with no mixing.
  • Native can pass over any single tile, no matter what's the icon on it.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • It's a deck-building game with relatively limited options to reduce the size of the deck itself, so unless hogging a trashing tile, it gets more and more random with draws with each added card.
  • The cave tiles are purely random. You might gain a +1 machete token or you might get the token that allows you to reuse the Transmitter card (which you might gain after all Transmitters were used up).
• Master of All: The white cards offer all three types of icons. This makes them not only great for flexible mobility, but also good for buying other cards (as they are treated like Yellow cards).
• Mayincatec: Duh. You are in a vaguely Latin American setting, searching for the mythical El Dorado. The expansions add some Mayan remnants, but they are "Mayan" at best.
• Money Grinding:
  • Trashing Sailor and Explorers early on, so your deck is just Travellers. It is a great way to secure potent funding despite weak Yellow cards in your deck.
  • Treasure Chest is a 3 Coin, single-use card that offers 4 Coins of value when played. It's very likely to have a starting hand that allows you to buy it and thus grind the money for a big payoff.
• Native Guide:
  • The Native card, which is a local tribal that joined the expedition. It's an expensive Pink card, but it offers the all-powerful ability to skip a single tile, no matter what the movement price of that tile is. Pretty lame when it's a 1 cost tile, but it might be the only card capable of bypassing certain tiles. It also has the special ability to ignore trashing tiles, without having to permanently drop the cards from your hand.
  • The members of the Mayan tribe from one of the expansions are those, too. While they offer the same benefits as various regular cards, they cost extra to be added to the deck. However, they can be stacked on the player board to be used when needed, exceeding the regular hand limit of four cards.
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: The expansion added marsh tiles, that are inhabited by caimans. Each tile of the marshland is considered dangerous, and thus they have to be crossed in a single go, rather than finishing the turn standing there.
• Not Completely Useless: Sailor, oddly enough. There are such board configurations where having even a single paddle is better than having none at all. This comes from the limited number of cards that offer paddle icon. In the Temple expansion, he gains a new value - as a sacrifice to get the blue part of the key to El Dorado.
• Not the Intended Use:
  • Green, blue and pink cards are all worth 1/2 Coin when buying new cards, which can be useful.
  • Prop Plane can be used as a 4 Coin card for buying cards. Meanwhile, there is nothing preventing people from using Treasure Chest not for buying new cards, but simply advancing over village tiles.
  • Buying new cards very late in the game might be a better way of cycling your deck than actually just passing your move to draw a new hand.
• Obvious Rule Patch: The Temple expansion exists just for one purpose: to prevent players from trashing cards early to the smallest deck possible and to also enforce a pace of the game that doesn't allow to simply rush straight towards the El Dorado.
• Ominous Fog: Demons of the Jungle expansion adds fog tiles that require extra effort to cross through them.
• One Person, One Power: Each card represents an individual who only provides one specific icon: green cards machetes, blue cards paddles and yellow cards coins. Averted with white cards, which are not only Jack of All Trades, but also Master of All.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The dragons from the aptly titled expansion Dragons are of the Mayan variety - long, feathered flying snakes.
• Parasol of Prettiness: The Millionaire holds one of those, while fanning herself with a High-Class Fan in the European edition of the game.
• The Pioneer: The highest value Green card is a hardy pioneer, who offers whooping 5 machetes in a single go, allowing him to chop a trail through the jungle with zero issues.
• Plot Coupon: In the Temple expansion, you need to collect four pieces of the key to open the gates of El Dorado. This enforces a visit to the temple itself and requires trashing a card there to gain the piece in turn.
• Power at a Price: Downplayed. Buy better cards... and make your deck bigger, making it less likely to draw that card. There are ways to trash cards from your deck, but they are far more limited than the ability to keep buying new cards.
• The Remnant: One of the expansions adds a handful of Mayans, still living the old way, as cards for your deck.
• Ridiculously Difficult Route: The game is played by first arranging those with the map tiles,  and then racing towards El Dorado, overcoming all the obstacles. Expansions add additional tiles, obstacles, dangers and rules that further complicate movement.
• Roaring Rapids: One of the expansions added directional river tiles, enforcing the way to pass through them and automatically moving meeples one tile further down the river.
• Scoring Points: As an optional rule to resolve potential ties. Players can use blocking tiles between pieces of the board that have point value to them. If more than one player reaches El Dorado in the end, they have to compare values (from 1 to 9) on the blocking tiles they've collected.
• Skeleton Motif: When expansions added "dangerous tiles" (move can't be finished on those tiles, they must be passed), they are marked by a skull symbol.
• The Team Benefactor: The Millionaire card is a 5 Coin cost, but also 4 Coin value card. She allows to buy the majority of cards all on her own, and with any other single coin, any card you want.
• Unstable Equilibrium: Any player that gets a starting hand of 4 Travellers can directly buy Transmitter, which is a Disc-One Nuke.
• Vanilla Unit: The starting deck: 3 Explorers, 1 Sailor, 4 Travellers. They are all value 1 cards in their respective fields, with absolutely nothing going for them, to the point they quickly turn (and Sailor starts as) into Deck Cloggers.
• Wild Wilderness: The expeditions have to pass through a jungle-covered wilderness, with the only civilisation around being the sparse native villages. Expansions add even more "wild" tiles and dangers to the mix.

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Tivia WIP

• Creator's Oddball: At least in Poland, the publisher is Nasza Księgarnia, a book publishing house that specialises in children (as in - kids below teen age) literature and school books. To their own surprise, the game became one of their best-sellers and the single biggest source of revenue from a single title.
• Money, Dear Boy: The original release by Ravensburger has each and every expansion sold separately, solely for the sake of hiking up the price of the full set. Keep in mind that the majority of expansions are just 2-4 new, small tiles and 0-12 new cards to be added to the baseline.

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YMMV WIP

• Cheese Strategy: And both are described in the manual as desirable:
  • The "trash dance", which is a back-and-forth between a trash tile and any nearby tile, with the goal of getting rid of as many cards as fast as possible. Done right, and it can completely break the game. Done badly, and the other players will simply outrun you.
  • The default rules allow players to discard any cards they don't want or can't use by the end of the round. This allows to always draw new 4 cards, even when having a sub-par hand with some useless cards. A Popular Game Variant explicitly forbids this rule, as it syphons out any challenge from the deck bulding.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Sailor, one of the starting deck's cards. It's a 1 paddle card. It's by far the most useless card that is a Deck Clogger in anything, but name. It's usually the first card to be discarded, even on water-heavy boards.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Transmitter card. It's a special card that's special even among special cards. When played, it allows the player to summon any card to the discard pile, no matter if it's in the market or still in the box, and it doesn't even count as a buy action (so the player can get two cards in a single round). This is further compounded by the fact that if the starting hand contains 4 Travellers (which has a pretty high chance of happening), Transmitter is literally the only card with such a high cost from the starting market, enforcing it's going to be bough and used to gain any of the powerful cards that are still sitting in the box.
• Popular Game Variant: Many players don't play with the "discard any cards you don't like" official rule and instead use "discard all cards and pass the round" to make it less cheesy.