Might Boards’ Excavation: Earth Kickstarter Preview

Excavation: Earth is a game of alien archaeologists and artefact trading for 1-4 players

Setup

1. Place the Mainboard in the middle of the table with the Round marker on the first space of the Round Track and give each player all components in their colour.
2. In random order, place each player’s Turn Order marker onto the Turn Order Track at the top of the board.
3. Give the first player 6 Credits, the second player 7, the third player (if present) 9, and the fourth player (if present) 11.
4. In reverse turn order, each player selects a race to play and places the respective Player board in front of them.
5. Each player places their Fuel marker on the top spot of their Fuel Track, marking that they start the game with 5 Fuel.
6. Each player places 20 Crew cubes next to their Player Board to form their personal supply and leave the remaining 4 cubes in reserve.
7. Shuffle the deck of 60 Action cards.
8. Deal 7 cards to every player to form their starting hand. Players’ hands are kept secret from one another.
9. Reveal 3/4/5 cards (for 2/3/4 players) from the top of the deck, and place them face up next to the board to form the Surveyor Forecast.
10. Place the Initiative tokens in supply next to the Surveyor Forecast.
11. Separate the Artefact tiles by Region (colour), and form five face-down draw piles.
12. Draw 3/3/4 tiles from each pile (for 2/3/4 players), and place them face-up on the map onto the Dig Site of the corresponding colour and icon.
13. Draw 2/3/4 tiles from each pile, and place them face-up on the matching colour spaces in the Black-Market section of the Map board.
14. If playing a three-player game, remove 1 Buyer meeple of each colour (including white) and return them to the box. If playing a two-player game, remove 1 white and 2 meeples of each other colour instead. The rest of the meeples form the supply of Buyers.
15. Arrange the supply of Buyers on the Popularity track: White meeples go into a separate group, all the other colours are placed on the track so that each space has one of every colour on them. In games with less than 4 players, the highest-numbered space(s) will be empty.
16. Shuffle the deck of Buyer cards, then put two cards aside. Draw cards from the deck of Buyer cards, for each card drawn place a Buyer of the shown colour into one of the Markets. (Always take Buyers from the lowest numbered space on the Popularity track that has the necessary colour.) Repeat this until there are exactly 3 Buyers in each Market. When the Buyer deck empties, simply reshuffle all cards including the ones put aside, and continue drawing.
17. Each player places one of their Explorers on the first market location and another one on the fourth market location of the world map.
18. Finally, in turn order, each player selects a starting location (Market, Dig Site, or Black-Market depot) for their third Explorer. It cannot be any of the two markets where the first two Explorers were placed in the previous step. Multiple players can select the same location.

Game Play

The game lasts three rounds and each round has three phases:

1. Preparation Phase (skipped in round one)
2. Actions Phase
3. Market Scoring Phase

After three rounds, players earn additional Credits for their Galleries. The player with the most total Credits wins

I. Preparation Phase

This phase is skipped in the first round.

1. Cycle Black Market: Move the top tile of each Black-Market stack to the bottom of the same stack.
2. Reset Buyer Queues:

• For all Market queues with 4 buyers, return the frontmost Buyer to the supply, and slide the rest forward.
• For all Market queues with 2 or fewer Buyers, place Buyers from the supply, by drawing a card for each space from the Buyer deck and placing a matching meeple from the lowest numbered space with the drawn colour available. Do this until there are 3 Buyers in each queue. If a colour is drawn that has none remaining, ignore it and draw another card until all Markets have 3 Buyers. If the Buyer deck runs out of cards, simply reshuffle all drawn cards and continue drawing.

3. Resolve Surveyor Forecast:
   • For each card in the Surveyor Forecast, draw 3 Artefacts of the matching colour: place the first two face up on the map onto the Dig Site of the corresponding name, and the third one face up to the bottom of the Black-Market stack of the same colour. If a particular colour stack has ran out, simply draw as many as you can and ignore placing the rest.
   • Discard all Surveyor cards from the Forecast. Then if it’s the beginning of the 2nd round, draw 3/4/5 Action cards to create a new Forecast.
4. Determine Player Order: Determine the new turn order based on the Initiative tokens held by players: Each player with an Initiative token sets their position to equal the number on their token, players without a token will follow them in the new order, in the reverse of the previous turn order. Then, return all Initiative tokens to the Surveyor Forecast board.
5. Get new cards:
   • Deal 6 Action cards to each player.
     – These cards must be kept separate from the cards carried over from the last round if any.
     – If the draw deck empties during this, reshuffle the discard pile and continue dealing.

• • Then, each player simultaneously looks at the cards dealt with them, picks 2 cards to add to their hand, and then passes the remaining 4 cards to the next clockwise player.
  • Each player now selects 2 cards to add to their hand from the set of 4 that was just passed to them and then passes the last 2 cards to the next player.
  • These final 2 cards are now added to their hands.
  • Finally, each player resets their Fuel Track to 5.

II. Actions Phase

The Actions Phase is resolved in the turn order shown on the board. Each player must take two actions on their turn. There are seven possible actions to choose from:

1. Travel
2. Excavate
3. Market
4. Export
5. Smuggle
6. Survey
7. Pass

When a player passes, the other players keep playing, but any further turns of players that have already passed are skipped for the remainder of the round. Players continue taking turns until all players have passed. Once all players have passed, proceed to the Market Scoring Phase

III. Market Scoring Phase

At the end of each round, Credits are awarded for each Market’s Influencers. The player with the most Crew cubes in the Influencers area of a particular Market gains Credits equal to the higher number shown on that Market; the player with the second-most crew members in the Influencers area gains Credits equal to the lower number.

Game End

The game ends at the conclusion of the third round. Each player gains credits for each row and column in their Gallery according to how many samples in that row/column are protected by Security Guard cubes.

At this point, the player with the most credits is the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the highest number of remaining Artefacts on their Player Board wins. If still tied, players share the victory.

First Impressions

When I first received the Excavation: Earth I won’t lie, I was blown away. I loved the box artwork, the individual aliens & the world design really grabbed me. Then glancing at the rules quickly, I noticed that this is a Market Resource style game. which I really enjoy these…… until I hate them! Because that other player screwed up my plans!

 Game Play

On the recent long weekend, I had a BBQ at a friend’s house and took Excavation: Earth with me. Well, in all honesty, I had only just picked it up and it was already in the car, but I did plan on bringing it. Like me the 3 other players I played Excavation: Earth with also really like Market Resource style games. And I have had a few people question, why I always get people I know like a certain style of gameplay. Isn’t that loading the decks a little? The answer to this question is, no! As when playing with people that know love these styles of games, they are the biggest critics of them. And these critics loved Excavation: Earth.

Our first game of Excavation: Earth took just under 3 hours, and wow what a game. I’d read the rules multiple time and had an amazing strategy going in. I was looking forward at flexing a bit against Dean, Michael and Michelle. As these 3 love Euros games and normally beat me. This time would be different……

And Game 1, my plan was going perfect and I ran to an early lead. I was actually pretty chuffed with myself, as this never happens vs Dean & M&M (Michael and Michelle are married FYI). Then I placed a cube in my gallery and I was out, I thought I had it all worked out, but I never thought to count the cubes. Let’s put it this way, game 1 didn’t quite end as it started, I think I Iost by 30ish points.

The next 3 games, took around the 2-hour mark, & I learnt from my mistakes of game 1. I even placed second, which against this crew is pretty impressive, as they are amazing at Eurogames and among the best strategy players I have ever met.

Art

The art of Excavation: Earth is exceptional, I love the Aliens and the world Philipp Kruse has created. The colours leap of the table and that along with the footprint of Excavation: Earth on the table makes people stop! We had several people at the BBQ come over and actually watch full games.

The character design of Excavation: Earth is stunning. As soon as I saw the box art, I was floored. The uniqueness of the characters, the variety of colours and yet they all felt like explorers from far off lands. Yet the use of the world map and silly, common items as the artefacts really helps ground the game and allows players to connect to the game.

The artefacts are an extremely clever touch, they could have quite easily used anything for these and I love that they used silly and very ordinary items like soccer balls, Godzilla Toys and how to use a toilet sign. I know this game is set 2000 years in future, and yet I love the silly things they have used.

My only real issue with this game is the character standees. I love the characters, but I just find they get in a way and block the board. As at times, I found we had to move them, as you couldn’t see what was under them or at times blocks parts of the boards

Final Thoughts

David Turczi and Mighty Boards have a hit on their hands here; from the art design, to the strategic gameplay and the ridiculous artefacts. This medium to heavy euro is a must-play, and I have proof. Of the 3 people I played it with, both Dean and Michael plan to buy Excavation: Earth and Michelle have added it to her Divorce list.  Yes. That is exactly as it sounds; it is a list of games she gets to keep if they ever divorce. He was not happy when she called this game!

If like me, you love a medium to heavy euro with a blend of strategic gameplay, stunning art & awesome fun….. until Dean screwed me on turn 3 and messed up all my plans and made me finished 3^rd!

Check out the Excavation: Earth Kickstarter here