Exploration is Interactive Magic's take on the discovery and conquest of the New World. Games of this type aren't new to the computer - I remember playing Seven Cities Of Gold on my Commodore 64 many years ago. But what's strange is that, even after all this time, there haven't been any New World discovery games that I've played that can compete with the classic Seven Cities. Maybe it's just that whole nostalgia thing - kind of like no one can cook like Mom, and no one can make the same kind of great games you used to play when you first started gaming. So I was very interested in Exploration when it came to IE - I wanted a Seven Cities of Gold for the 90's and I was really pulling for this game to be good. After playing it, I found that it has some great features and some not-so-great features. Actually, it really wasn't what I expected it to be. I was expecting a simulation, kind of like a SimCity in the vein of Christopher Columbus' adventures. But what I found is a strategy board game, although there are some definite simulation attributes.
The object of the game is to discover and conquer land, found colonies and ports, build plantations and mines, and make lots of money. You begin the game by choosing the computer and human opponents from five historical explorers: Columbus, Da Gama, Le Maire, Cook and Bougainville. Any human player can assume any of these characters. You can substitute your own name if you wish, but the picture and home country of the original explorer remain the same. The choice of character determines the location of the home port. If you choose a Spanish or Portuguese character, you get a better ship to start with since those countries were historically more advanced in shipbuilding. You can also choose whether to play on a true map of the world or have the computer generate a random map. Once you decide on the map and number of computer / human characters, you begin the actual game at your home port with one ship and an allotment of money.
Exploration is a turn-based game where each turn represents one year. The game goes for 300 years until 1789 -the year of the French Revolution. A player can retire at any time before this point, but everyone is forced to retire in 1789. When the game is over the players are evaluated in 15 different categories like the amount of land discovered and conquered, the number of colonies founded and the total production. So there is no one single goal to strive for, but the player has to coordinate a number of efforts in order to win. Depending on the final evaluation, the player is given a rating of anywhere between pauper and royal adviser.
Every game revolves around ports where ships can dock and take care of business. The port screen is a nicely drawn picture of an old ship port which has little animations in it, like the drunken sailors in front of the pub, or men hauling crates between the trader and the ship. It's not the best-looking thing I've ever seen on the PC, but it's not bad at all. Each port has "hot spots," which are buildings where the player can accomplish various tasks. The office, shipyard, pub, banker, trader, church, politics, and historian can all be found in each port, regardless of country. This is a tried and true interface which works well with this style of game. One nice aspect of the port screen is that it is actually three screens wide and you have to scroll left and right to reach all of the buildings. Once inside a building, every transaction or decision, like transferring money, can be made very efficiently with the mouse. When large sums of money are being transferred, single-clicking moves one coin at a time, but holding down the mouse transfers the money at a rate which accelerates the longer the button is held.
Once your ship is outfitted with men, food and whatever else you want to take on your voyage, you set out to discover land and establish colonies. Each ship can sail a certain number of spaces during each turn, the number of spaces being determined by the type of ship it is. The map screen shows everywhere you've been, so at the start of the game you only see your home port on your map. You sail your ships out into the darkness until you happen upon a land mass. You'll find natives living there, with their towns being represented by tee-pees. Once you find these towns you launch a land expedition to contact these natives and negotiate with them. Negotiating consists of having enough trinkets on hand (which are bought at your home port) to make the chief happy. If you have enough trinkets, the chief is pleased and the native town becomes a colony for your country. If you don't have enough trinkets you can always attack the town, but that means the loss of life for both sides and the town won't be as productive.
One real problem is when you happen upon an Incan city, the really large native towns, you don't have the option to trade with them, you can only fight. The reasoning behind this is that, historically, the explorers always attacked these cities. Why not let us trade? We are, after all, the ones in charge here. Why can we trade with every other town except for these large cities? Give us a break I-Magic, if we want to trade with these guys, put an option in the game where we can trade and stop sticking to the history books so strictly. It kind of looks more like a political statement than a gaming choice.
Once you establish a colony you have a variety of choices to make regarding that town. You can build cotton, tobacco or sugar plantations, or you can establish mining operations for ore, silver and gold. These provide a steady income of income since all you have to do is pick up whatever is produced and sail it back to your home port, where you can sell it. But there are certain aspects of the geography and population that affect production. For example, mining operations work best in the mountains and need 250 colonists to be at full production, while tobacco plantations work best near rivers and need only 100 colonists to be most effective. There are other items, such as warehouses and churches, that can be built which will affect your game. The town itself can be upgraded to a fort or a port when there's enough people and money.
Basically the game just goes on turn after turn as the players sail around the world, establishing towns, building plantations and mines, then selling what's produced in order to buy more and better ships to start the whole thing over. Where it starts to get difficult is when the other players start to infringe on your territory. Wars inevitably break out, causing ships and other holdings to be lost or captured. Players can make peace with one another, which costs money, but such treaties are almost always a stall tactic used to gather forces in order to crush the other player, especially where the computer is concerned. Where Exploration can really get cooking is when multiple players go at it. The only problem is that since this is a turn-based game, having more than two players can take quite a bit of time. The computer can execute a turn with lightning speed, but a human player turn can take a while, since prices have to be checked, the map must be examined, etc.
The only real drawback of this game are the graphics. They aren't really all that bad, and since this is a strategy game they aren't really all that important, but there are instances where animations are used that simply hurt the game. For instance, when disease breaks out on board one of your ships, the same choppy and ugly animation pops up showing a dead body being thrown overboard. It wouldn't be so bad if there was some variety or if the animation was better done, and in all honesty it's not that big a deal, but these animations end up interrupting and detracting from the game.
Although it wasn't exactly what I expected, Exploration is a fun and involving game. It's very much like playing one of those old Avalon Hill games, but since this was designed for the PC it can get a lot more involved than something requiring pencil and paper. Once I thought about it, I realized that Exploration plays a lot like Master Of Orion, where you have to colonize, build and form an empire. Exploration may not be quite on the level of Master Of Orion, but if you like this time period in history or if you like a good, solid strategy game, Exploration is worth your time. The looks of it are something you'd expect from a game a couple of years ago and options are limited in certain areas (among other things, you're forced to quite at a certain year and Incan towns can't be traded with), but overall, Exploration will have you wanting to do "just one more turn."
