Hi.

Last weekend I tried Conquer the Horizon with two friends. The game was pretty interesting.

The facts about the old world were:
- Colours
- Theocratic dictatorship
- Not high developed (We interpreted that as "Not more developed than the Europe of Columbus or Cortez.")

Speculations about the new world:
- Black and white (I confirmed this on the very first scene)
- No mountains (This was neither confirmed nor ignored.)
- People with duck heads. (That was confirmed as well and produced quite a lot other hybrid races.)

I played the Governour, my friends the Missionary and the Naturalist.

The game started smoothly, the rules were not really a problem. I found it interesting that in the beginning most Qualifications were excepted, but the acceptance decreased during the game.

As one player tried two or three outright silly things, we brought in everything to stop him. And I must say that education attempt worked out quite well.

The rule that an Exploiting player receives additional dice, if the Exploition is not Qualified didn't came into action once. I guess stopping an exploition is enough motivation by itself.

The only rule problem we had, came up in the end, as we couldn't really decide what makes up a found species for the Naturalist.

OK, a short overview:

- I started with the arrival and found a vast plain perfect for a colony. That was qualified with a ruins and a duck-headed statue and predatory birds, that somehow resembled ducks.

- The game went on an the Missionary found caves were duck-headed people enslaved ordinary humans. The colony attacked lead by the Missionary, enslaved the duck people, and converted the humans.

- We did some exploration of the surroundings and the property of the feathers of the duck people until the Missonary found just another layer of caves, with reptile-headed people. I qualified that they were friendly, and later exploited the reptiles in the form of a trade agreement.

- The only "long" travel away from the plain headed to the glowing of the horizon, were the Naturalist found cats with human heads, that turned into humans during rain. (This was part of the silly stuff. We weren't able to disqualify everything. ;)) - I set up another trade agreement.

The Naturalist somehow forgot to return home, and in the end I won. The reason proably was that I knew the rules before the game.

Thanks for playtesting, Stephan!

First, a short clarification: the Naturalist gathers samples by exploiting a Discovery, simple as that, subject to all the Qualifications and everything else as normal.

May I ask how many Discoveries and Exploitations you made through the course of the game?

Did the Discoveries hang together and create a story, or did you just have a list of discoveries on a timeline, with little to no connections between them?

Lastly -- was it any fun? ;)

It's Stefan. ;)

Yes, it was fun indeed. Another friend of mine arrived late (we were almost finished) and he even enjoyed listening to the game.

I think there were several shorter story lines. For example on the way to the glowing crystals we made two discoveries. So the player did not simple jump there, but just stated an intention to get there and instead explored something on the way.

I guess there were about 12 Explorations and 5 Exploitations.

Urk!  Sorry, Stefan!

Sounds great, and thanks for posting some AP feedback! :)