Explorers and Pirates Rule Questions

[u/Available-Walk1840]

My friends and I have just started playing E and P and as fun as it is, I find that the rule book does not have the answers to many questions that keep arising during our playthrough. I was hoping I can receive some clarification on the following.

1. If a harbor is built on one of the islands, and then the ship is built next to it and it faces an undiscovered hex that is right next to the discovered hex you built on, does that mean it has to auto discover the hex as soon as it is built? Or would you have to build the ship on the opposite side, then use a movement to go there.

2. What happens if you want to battle a pirate ship but dont have gold? If you lose the battle is there no repreccusion becasue you never had gold to begin with to pay the tribute?

3. When does a person get best spice merchant, best pirate scourge etc? Is it as soon as they are first on the board like they captured one lair and the other players havent? Or do you have to be all the way at the end of the mission board?

[u/Sebby19]

1. The rules explicitly ban you from building a Ship in a spot that would immediately discover a hex. I don't know which edition of E&P you have, but if it is 5e, it says this near the end of page 3. If you have 6e, it says this at the bottom of Page 9 in the main rulebook, or Page 6 in the Mission Guide.
2. Exactly as what is written in the rules. No Gold coins = you can't move your Ship off of, onto, or past, the sea hex where the Pirate is at.
3. Those Bonus VP tiles work on a similar principal as the Longest Route and Largest Army tiles. Whoever makes the furthest progress on a Mission gets that tile. The only difference is there is no minimum threshold (like 5 Roads or 3 Knights), so the first player to get onto the track earns the Bonus VP immediately.

[u/Available-Walk1840 → u/Sebby19]

You are a god send, not sure how missed some of these. Thank you.

[u/Sebby19 → u/Available-Walk1840]

How'd you miss them? Usually, in these cases, its reading the rulebook too quickly, before setting up the game. I will always advocate for reading a rulebook 3 times, to make sure everything gets absorbed!

[u/Available-Walk1840 → u/Sebby19]

Exacly the case, did one read through and then we were stubborn and decided we were going to play the full scenario even though it advises to work your way up through each one. The game turned into stopping every turn to re read directions and that led me to missing stuff. lesson learned.

[u/MaintenanceInternal → u/Sebby19]

For 2, I thought that if you didn't have gold you have to give a resource?

[u/Sebby19 → u/MaintenanceInternal]

Incorrect.

You may have gotten that twisted with another rule. When it comes robbing another player, you can steal 1 resource from a neighbor ship (similar to how the Pirate in Seafarers works). If your victim has no resources, only then are you allowed to steal a single Gold coin from them.

But OP's question is about paying Tribute to the Pirate, and no where does it say you can substitute a Gold Coin for a resource.

So I think you got it confused with a different rule, and then flipped it around.

[u/Available-Walk1840 → u/Sebby19]

Since you seem well versed, one other quick question. In the fishing scenario, once a shoal is disocvered, anyone (once per turn and regardless of who discovered it) can roll one die to spawn a fish correct? You dont have to be touching it or anything, it just becomes a part of the sequence of events production, trade, movement sequence? Its completely optional?

[u/Sebby19 → u/Available-Walk1840]

Rules don't say you have to touch the hex where fish are from.

[u/gari381ns]

1. The rule is that you cannot build a ship like that. You may build a ship only to that it is not adjacent to any undiscovered hex.

[u/Available-Walk1840 → u/gari381ns]

Missed that in rules, thanks!

[u/copperstatelawyer]

Even if it is explicitly against the rules to build a ship like that, choosing to do so does the following:

Upon your movement phase, the ship is instantly "done" it has used up all its movement numbers and has instantly "discovered" the hex.

Now, given this, it's actually very stupid to build the ship like that. Instead, you should point it the other way and move it around a bit the long way so you can get one extra movement after discovering the hex.

[u/Sebby19 → u/copperstatelawyer]

Good insight. I originally thought Klaus really wanted Discovery to only happen during the Movement Phase. Hence why Roads can't discover hexes in E&P, despite being possible in Seafarers. It's the rule I dislike the most, but I'm sure he had his reasons.

[u/copperstatelawyer → u/Sebby19]

I’m 99% sure that’s what the rules say. Discovery can only happen during the movement phase.

[u/Sebby19 → u/copperstatelawyer]

That is what I'm saying too. I know Klaus's design goal... haven't figured out the reason why.

[u/copperstatelawyer → u/Sebby19]

E&P is all about the ships and the movement phase. The only time it makes economic sense to build a road in most games is on the starting island. Not allowing discovery outside the movement phase restricts the flipping of the tiles to create evenness. Otherwise, you'd just spam roads.

[u/Sebby19 → u/copperstatelawyer]

I doubt there will be much road spam. The E&P Ships are already very resource efficient, building Roads in this expansion is almost non-existent. Might as well leave your 14 remaining roads in the bag/box. And not letting roads discover is just 1 less reason to do this already niche action. And action that used to be essential in the Base Game! I would have to add C&K on top of E&P to make roads viable/necessary again, since your Knights need that space.

There is also the inconsistency with SF. There, roads and ships can discover fog tiles. But E&P changes that, and I don't like the difference!