Expeditions – a solo review

We have not heard from Tarkovsky in months. The way he used to speak about this mysterious awoken power, ever since that meteorite hit, was at times closer akin to raving than speech. After the earthly horrors war have shown me, I’m not sure I can believe on something supernatural, and if I do, surely it can’t be as bad as what we humans are capable of. Still, I feel a desire to venture out, and I’m not entirely sure that desire is fueled by money alone.

Name: Expeditions (2023)
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Play type: hand management, action selection, variable player powers, grid movement

What the game is about

Can you explore the vast landscapes of Europa, uncovering the mysteries around the ominous fallen meteorites? In Expeditions, the spiritual successor to Scythe, you will venture out in your mech to gather a crew, upgrade your gear, complete quests, meld said meteorites, and boast about your accomplishments.

I was provided a review copy of this game by Stonemaier Games in return for an honest review. My thoughts remain my own.

How the game works

Expeditions is an action selection game. You are a mech, piloted by a hero and their pet – both represented by a card. Your mech is your means of moving across the map, visiting known locations and exploring new ones. Every turn, you move your action cube on your mech mat, resolving each action that is not covered by the cube – move your mech (and explore your new location if it’s face-down), gather from the tile you’re on, and/or play a card from your hand, possibly placing a worker on it and activating its effect. Just like in Scythe, you can’t leave your action marker where it was, but you can take your actions in any order. When you want to retrieve all your cards and workers, you take a rest turn; the turn after that, you can take all three actions.

The things you can do in Expeditions all evoke certain mechanisms of Scythe in their own way. You can explore new locations and gather map tokens; you can upgrade (items) and you can solve quests. You can boast to collect stars, which triggers the end game when one player has placed all of theirs (4 for a human, or 8 for the automa). Then, everyone has one more turn, so the player that triggered the end game has the final turn.

When you explore a new location, you collect its exploration token and flip the tile face-up. Then, you place corruption from a draw bag on it. You can remove these tokens from the map using a vanquish action, using power for the orange tiles and guile for teal. You track both power and guile on the left side of your mech mat.

Most of what you do with your cards is powered by workers of a certain colour. Every card grants you a simple gain of power and/or guile, and a better effect when you place the right meeple on it. Cards come in various forms: meteors you can meld, quests you can solve, and items you can upgrade. Once melded/solved/upgraded, you tuck those cards under your player board for a one-time bonus or a permanent effect. You start with two cards in your ‘hand’ (which is to the left of your mech mat): your hero and their pet. You can acquire cards through certain gather actions, or by card effects.

The automa has been simplified from the one in Scythe, which is much harder to operate. The automa in Expeditions controls two mechs that walk in circles around either the central or northern regions. They are blocking you (you can move through them but you can’t stop in an occupied hex) and they can collect map tokens and clear corruption just like you. They also have a mechanism to clear cards in the offering, mimicking another player at the table.

Theme, setting & narrative

The evocative world of Europa 1920+ at the hands of Jakub Rozalski is what drew me to Scythe – what was it, more than six years ago already? Every picture paints a story, and the artwork in Expeditions is no different. What I miss, though, is a tangible connection between mechanisms and art. Take, for example, Scythe‘s encounter cards. Not only did they paint a vibrant picture, but they also offered you a chance to interact with it – do I trade with the local farmers or threaten them to give me what I want? Expeditions really amps up the opportunities to showcase art – on cards and location tiles – but it’s almost as if they forgot to integrate it into the game, and I just wish the game did more with these gorgeous pieces of art. It almost feels like it does the art a disservice by neglecting it, and thereby a disservice to the game as well, because its thematic integration could’ve been felt so much more.

How does it play?

First, we need to talk about the elephant in the room – or rather, the big mech. Does Expeditions need Scythe? The game is clearly marketed as a related product (it says so right on the box), but I think this can lead a bit to false expectations. I have one friend who doesn’t like Scythe but would probably enjoy this one. There are enough similarities to Scythe, though: the action selection where you can’t (exactly) do what you did the turn before, exploring locations, and producing them. There’s even a bit of action upgrading by fulfilling quests, melding meteorites and upgrading items, making your future actions more powerful and efficient. Does Expeditions need Scythe? No, I don’t think so – although I can see why they decided to put it under the Scythe umbrella, because even with different art, this game would inevitably draw comparisons to the game that really exploded Stonemaier Games as a name to stay.

Another thing it has in common with Scythe is a pitfall of mine, which is that I like the exploration perhaps a bit too much – when in doubt, I have a high tendency to explore a new location, because I just can’t help myself but wonder what would be at the other side of that tile I’m adjacent to. That’s just a me-thing, mind you, but perhaps one that is exacerbated by my critique of the use of art in the previous section – there is so much beauty in this game, yet whenever you encounter it, there’s disappointingly little you do with it.

But hey, you didn’t come here to hear me rant about minor misgivings, because I think this game is great – greater, in fact, than its namesake original. Yes, I dare say this: Expeditions beats Scythe for solo play. I also think that Expeditions works best as a solo game too, but I’ll get to that shortly. Let’s start by talking about things that make Expeditions great and have me itching to get it back to the table soon.

Expeditions is a card-based tableau builder where you are both playing cards and using cards to upgrade your actions by tucking the cards under your player mat:

• you solve quests to tuck at the top, providing bonus guile and/or strength for this and every subsequent solved quests;
• you upgrade items by tucking them to the right, giving you a passive bonus that doesn’t require a worker to activate;
• you meld meteorites by tucking them sideways at the bottom, giving you (like quests) a one-time bonus and a bonus for every subsequent melded card.

While your mat – and therefore your actions – improve as you tuck, you can gleam from the summary above that the game invites you to do the action you’ve been doing to get the most points. While this is obviously true for quests since they are tied to end-game scoring, it’s also true for melding and to a lesser extent for upgrading too; if you upgrade an item that says you can vanquish after you explore, it naturally incentivizes you to explore more. While you think this might get stale, I’m happy to report it’s not.

I think this is in large part due to how you play the game in cycles, waiting for the right time to trigger a rest turn and get back all your cards and workers. Workers are scarce, so you can’t keep chaining actions until the end of the game – you need to rest. Like I said, timing is key; rest too soon and you’ve wasted actions – rest too late (because I still have cards to play and workers to place) and the final pre-rest turns are inconsequential as a result. It’s like an engine you build up and tear down over and over again, improving its workings with each iteration – by adding new cards, additional workers, and the effects of tucked cards. Not to mention the fact that often parts leave your engine because they got tucked somewhere. Except for item cards, tucking quest and meteorite cards removes their effect from your hand. I did find that tucking cards was a little unwieldy, even with the included raiser stickers.

Another thing of note is that Expeditions is a game that lacks standard actions. What I mean by that is that all the major actions you do are either printed on your mech mat (move, produce, play) or on your cards. This both reduces your cognitive load (you only need to know what cards in your play area or the board offering do) as well as gives you more guidance on what to do next, and what to go for. Want to start melding? Get a card that does so. Does the card that allows you to meld require a red worker? Better get that one as well. There are no hidden rules, and no standard actions; every card that does an action (move, play, or produce; meld, quest, boast, upgrade, or vanquish) has that specific keyword that’s only relevant when you draw it, and what each action does is explained in the rulebook and on the player aides.

In the solo game you’re going up against an automa, but not one on the same level as in Scythe – and I mean that in a good way. The automa is easy to manage, gets in your way, and goes for things that you can get to as well – corruption tokens and map tokens. I do wish there was more it did, though, but I guess this is a case where we can’t have our cake and eat it too – the more the automa mimicks, the harder it gets to manage it. I think the automa in Scythe went too far, but the one in Expeditions is perfeclty serviocabele – it does what you want it to do, doesn’t tax your brain with decision trees, and lets you focus on your own game plan. The only thing that’s missing is a predictability of their moves, but hey, it does what it’s supposed to do. What more can you want?

I think Expeditions works great as a solo game – in fact, with the spectre of analysis paralysis looming over it, solo play might just be the most optimal way to enjoy this game. Other potential issues like unbalanced mech mats and player scaling (or lack thereof) are hardly an issue when it’s just you.

What you might like

• The game is comparable to Scythe, but (dis)liking one doesn’t necessarily mean (dis)liking the other
• There are no basic actions to take – every action is keyworded and can only be triggered through card effects
• The way you build up and tear down your engine between rest actions works marvellous, inviting you to hone its workings every iteration
• Keywords make actions easier to grasp and give players guidance in what to go for
• Expeditions is best suited as a solo game, with an easy-to-manage automa, no downtime, and no balance issues

What you might not like

• The art is gorgeous and evocative, but it doesn’t actually evoke anything – it’s just there to make the cards look cooler
• Some mechs are more powerful than other, which is less of an issue in solo play, but still worth mentioning

Conclusion

Expeditions in many ways shows its relation to Scythe, but never does it give the impression it is coasting on its fathers success. Rather than replicate and reiterate, Expeditions feels like a new game that happens to take place in a known setting. While there are the obvious nods and easter eggs, Expeditions stands firm in what it is – an engaging hybrid of an engine builder and a tableau builder, reinforced by subtle touches of hand and resource management. It looks great, it feels great, it plays great – Expeditions is a game with a solo experience to look out for.

Rating: ★★★★☆

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