The Quest for El Dorado

Here is how to play The Quest for El Dorado:

Setup

• Construct the board route using the starting tile, terrain tiles, and the ending tile (the gate to El Dorado) (p. 3, 4). Place a random blockade face up on each connection between two terrain tiles (p. 8).
• Set up the marketplace by sorting all 54 expedition cards, placing 18 different card types into piles next to or above the market board (p. 8, 12).
• Each player receives an expedition board, a player color, and a starting deck of 8 cards (1 Sailor, 3 Explorers, and 4 Travelers) (p. 3, 8). Shuffle your starting deck and place it face down as your draw pile, then draw 4 cards into your hand (p. 5, 12).
• The player who sat down first receives the starting player hat token and places their playing piece on starting space #1 (p. 12). All other players in turn order place their playing pieces on the next vacant starting spaces (p. 12).

How a Turn Works

Each player's turn consists of 3 phases in order:

1. Play Cards: Play cards from your hand to move your expedition and/or to buy a new card (p. 5). When moving, your played card's symbol must match the target space, and its power value must equal or exceed the space's power (p. 6). You can also use remaining card power to continue moving, or spend coin values to buy up to one new card per turn from the market board (p. 6, 7).
2. Discard Played Cards: Put all cards that you played and placed above your expedition board during phase 1 face up on your discard pile (p. 5, 10).
3. Draw Cards: Draw cards from your draw pile until you have 4 cards in your hand (p. 2). If your draw pile runs out, shuffle your discard pile to form a new draw pile and finish drawing (p. 2).

How the Game Ends

When a player reaches one of the 3 finishing spaces on the ending tile, it triggers the final round, and each player left in that round plays their final turn (p. 8). The first player to reach the gate to El Dorado wins (p. 4, 20). If the final round ends in a tie where multiple players reach El Dorado, the player who has collected the most blockades wins (p. 8).