CGE Czech Games EditionLost Ruins of Arnak

This game is wonderful. It combines a couple of my favorite mechanics, deck-building and worker-placement, into one game and the theme and artwork make it sing. It is strongly improved with the expansion that adds asymmetry to the explorers the character's play, I honestly wouldn't play it without the expansion at this point.I also own Dune Imperium Uprising, which also combines worker placement and deck building into one game. I love both and play both, though this one plays a lot better at 2 players, not having to rely on an AI "third player" to balance things. So if its just me and one other friend we will usually reach for this instead of Dune.The quality of this game is pretty good. The plastic tablets and arrowheads are nice, but then offset by standard cardboard gold and compass tokens. Those were upgraded quickly. The board, cards and everything else is good quality, so the value is definitely there for the cost. With two board options and different strategies to play the replay ability is pretty infinite. Adding in the expansions with additional boards and the new explorers kicks it up to 11 for me.I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is into the hobby.

As others have said, this is an excellent board game. The art is absolutely beautiful, and it is genuinely fun to explore the new sites with their corresponding guardians. The research track is sometimes said to be less fun, and it is more or less buying victory points. However, as an academic, I can really appreciate that thematic implementation of an expedition. The search and discovery it represents, with the magnifying glass going first followed by publishing research, is satisfying along with the research assistants it enables you to recruit along the way that come when you publish your research (i.e. move your journal token up the track). The art in the research track is fun as well, and I think it has Latin notes scribbled in small font along it as well, as the researchers get progressively more excited by their discoveries! I thought this was going to be a downside, but it surprised me in how much I enjoyed the track as a thematic game mechanic.Two other important notes:1) With new items and artifacts played out in each game, along with the new worker placement sites and guardians that are randomly laid out each game - the game is highly replayable with lots of variety.2) The game uses a lot of mechanics, part worker placement, part deck building (with thin decks), part resource management, and part exploration. However, in my mind, I like this a lot as it forces you to not focus too much on just perfecting one particular mechanic or part of your engine and forget what you are playing. By masterfully integrating a number of different mechanics, it allows those mechanics to fade into the background as you focus on thematically running an expedition.My only negative is that there are a lot of options to choose from, and towards the end game it can invite analysis paralysis that can delay the game. I hope that this goes away with more play throughs. In general, there are enough options and mechanics to choose from each turn that no matter what you do, it will net you points in a positive way with some fun combos to boot. There is just the right amount of randomization and luck to make you feel rewarded with an earned victory when a strategy pays off, and also not feel too bad about it when you don't win.I look forward to trying the Expedition Leaders expansion soon!

I am a big board game fan, and have hundreds of games. Even with all of those games, this is currently my favorite game. It's a great role playing game that is so fun for me that I don't mind when I lose! And it is even better with the expansions. The leader expansion is a must and is so well integrated that my friends are surprised it was an expansion. In fact, the expansion characters are on the main game box art.There are a lot of parts, and it can look overwhelming when setting up, but games play really smooth and I wouldn't change how it plays. Lots of replayability. Great for 2, 3, and 4 players.

Lo disfrutamos en familia

Combines deck building, worker placement and resource management into one great game!It's probably one of my new favorite Euro games which is pretty hard to do since I don't play that many. (Agricola and Suburbia are the only two that I like.)Pros:While it doesn't have any direct interaction you can counterplay your opponent with either taking a worker spot or buying a card from under them.The card you can buy are one of a kind. Each of them have similar effects but you will be the only one with that actual effect. Except the Artifacts have some unique things going on.Finding a new worker site is probably the best action you can do rather than going to an old one.NeutralResearch is just another track but at least you get something after each level even if half the time it's just exploration tokens.Sometimes the cards you want never show up in that game.BadResearch is super good. You will have to do some and you will want to get to the top before the end of the game just to even have enough points.OverallGreat Euro game! I want to get the expansion to get those individual player things but I can play the base game for at least another 20 plays. There's a 4 game solo campaign that looks fun and will play soon.

I actually forgot I had won this in a board game raffle. Ah well someone gets a great giftThis game is a blast. I'm not sure about the necessity of the expansions though.