Once you have proven your exploration prowess by playing a few games, try the caves variant.

Object of the Game

Your goal is still to be the first expedition to reach El Dorado, but additionally you have the option to explore caves on the way. Within those caves you find tokens that give you an additional advantage.

Setup

During setup, shuffle all 36 cave tokens. Create face-down piles of 4 tokens each, and place one pile on every mountain space that shows a cave.

Game Play

If your playing piece comes to a stop next to a cave, explore it. (Your piece must stop there, you can't explore while passing a cave).

To explore the cave, take the top cave token from the pile and put it face up in front of you. You can own as many cave tokens as you like and play them during your turn.

Note: To explore the same cave again, you first need to move away from the cave, stopping on a space that is not adjacent to the cave. Then you can move your piece to a space next to the cave again. You can't move "alongside" a cave to get multiple tokens!

Once you have collected a cave token, you can play it any time during your current turn, or during any of your later turns.

Played cave tiles are removed from the game. Return them to the box after use.

Example: Julian plays a Scientist and moves his piece onto the jungle space next to the cave.

He takes the top cave token and places it face up in front of him. Julian immediately uses the cave token to move to the next space.

That space is also next to the cave, but since he moved from one adjacent space to the next, he won't get another cave token. Optionally, Julian could have saved his cave token for a later movement or to purchase a card.

The game contains the following cave tokens:

Play machete, coin, or paddle tokens to move onto same-colored spaces.

Alternatively, you can use coin tokens to buy a card.

These tokens allow you to draw an additional card from your draw pile. Just like the Cartographer, this 4x token allows you to play that card in the same turn you drew it.

Play these tokens to remove any card in your hand from the game.

These tokens allow you to replace the cards in your hand. When you play the token, play up to 4 cards 3x from your hand above your expedition board, then draw that many cards from your draw pile.

Play this token immediately after using an item card. Instead of removing that item from the game, put it on your discard pile during phase 2 or your turn.

After playing this token, you are allowed to move onto or past an occupied space for the rest of your turn. Mountains are still off-limits.

This token works just like the Native. Use this token to move onto any adjacent space, ignoring 2x its requirements. You can't use this token to move onto an occupied space or a mountain.

Play this token to change the symbol of the next card you play. For example, you can use a Trailblazer (machete 3) as a coin 3 or paddle 3.

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