Maps of Misterra

• Designers: Mathieu Bossu, Timothee Decroix,Thomas Cariate
• Publisher: Sit Down!
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45-60 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by Flat River Group (distributor)
• Amazon Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3vPJSKh

In Maps of Misterra, you play as explorers have discovered a mystical and unknown island. Your goal: Explore the island and complete your personal and hidden objectives while proposing a correct cartography of the island to earn maximum points.

To set up, place a central board representing the island on the table, and give each player a personal map they will use to transcribe their discoveries. Each turn, players choose two actions among these:

• Move their explorer pawn on the central board.
• Discover new terrains close to your explorer pawn, choosing from four randomly drawn tiles.
• Claim control of areas.

A type of terrain on the central island must be explored twice before being validated. Thus, the unvalidated terrain types can change — “You thought you saw grass? You were mistaken.” — and then your personal map will no longer match the central board. You have to find the ideal balance between your personal objectives, and a correct cartography of the island.

To start the game, the island board is placed on the table and a few spaces are confirmed as jungle terrain (see rules). Terrain tiles are arranged near the board with the uncertain/hazy side up.  Each player gets 4 Presumption cards, chooses two to keep secretly.  The Sketch card deck is shuffled and 5 cards are flipped up to form a display.  Each player then gets their own Parchment board, making sure to orient it the same way as the main board, a character card, a meeple and some claim tokens.

The game will be played over a number of rounds. In each round, players will take their turn, doing both halves of a day of exploring, and then the next person will take their turn.  There are three parts of each half day.

Move – you may move your meeple one space orthogonally.  On the first turn, you must place your meeple somewhere on the beach. Afterwards, movement is optional.  If you move onto a Steppe terrain, you can immediately move again.

Choose a Sketch Card – choose a Sketch card from the display.  If your meeple is standing on a Lagoon space, you can discard one card from the display and replace it with a new one from the top of the deck.

Map or Claim.  Two options here.  Unless you’re standing on a Jungle space, in which case you cannot choose to Map, so you must Claim.

If you choose to map, play your Sketch card onto your board. One half must be on a space you can see (the space you are on or any of the four orthogonally adjacent spaces). You can cover previously played cards.  If your meeple is on a mountain card, you can place your card one space further than normal.  Now update the island board for each of the corresponding two spaces that your card covers.  If that space was empty or had a different terrain, place the matching terrain from the card on that space, hazy side up.  If that space on the main board already had a matching hazy terrain tile, flip that tile over to the confirmed side.  It cannot be changed for the duration of the game.

If you choose to claim, discard your Sketch card. Your meeple must be on a Confirmed terrain space. Place your claim marker on that space. You only have 3 Claim markers, and each must be placed on a different type of terrain.  If you cannot meet these criteria, you will just have to pass on this phase.

Now repeat the three phases again, though this time there will only be 4 cards available in the display when you choose cards.  After the second half of the day is complete, replenish the display of Sketch cards so the next player starts with a full complement of 5 cards. 

The game continues until the end of a round when one of three things happens: a parchment board is completely full, the deck of Sketch cards is exhausted or every space on the main board is confirmed.  To get ready for scoring, you must remove all Hazy terrain tiles from the main board. Also look at the regions on the board, and any claim markers that share a region with another marker are removed – no one will score for these disputed regions.

Points are scored as followed

• 2 VP for each space that matches the terrain central board. (empty spaces do not count)
• -1VP for each empty space on your Parchment board
• VP if your Parchment board meets the criteria on your Presumption cards; these cards only care about what is on your Parchment board.
• 2VP for each tile in your claimed region(s)
• 3VP per full line or column that matches the main board (only used in the advanced variant)

The player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player whose board is most like the central map.

My thoughts on the game

This is a game that I’ve seen at a few successive Spiel fairs, and it finally made it to my game table this winter.  It’s an interesting game of exploration; though I have to continually remind my brain that my journal map does NOT have to match reality!  While you will definitely score points by matching “reality”, the Patron cards can also have nice rewards if you end up going that route instead.

The whole process of exploring the map is interesting, and I like the way that the special abilities provided by the different terrains change things up constantly.  You’ll always have to look at the map as it develops to see if you can make an unexpectedly great play (such as moving across a few steppes to a faraway proposed mountain to then throw your card to the opposite side of the board from where you started!)

In my first few games, I essentially avoided the presumption cards as I didn’t feel that they scored enough to replace the 2VP I could get per space from simply matching reality.  However, further plays have shown that it is definitely possible to reap high scores from the right presumptions, and you have the advantage that no one can affect your journal map – so you’re more in control of what you might score.

However, if you play the advanced Master Cartographer variant, I’d again recommend playing to match the board as a full row or column match will score a total of 13VPs, and I haven’t yet found a Presumption card that would outscore that.  Of course, the game situation may make it impossible to do something, so it’s nice to have options to make the best of what the game (and opponents) let you have.

The game definitely plays differently at different player counts.  As you add more players in, the map has many more changes made to it between your turns.  As a result you end up playing more reactively and everyone’s results are much in doubt.  With lower player counts, your turns are more frequent, and you have the capability (assuming the market favors you) to plan on molding the real map as you like.  For me, neither situation is “better”, but it’s definitely something to consider as you plan your strategy.  

You’ll end up approaching each game differently based on the presumption cards you get, the player count, and the actions of the players.  It definitely keeps the games interesting, and you’ll likely end up wanting to explore Misterra over and over again.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Dan B. (1 play): It’s interesting, but when playing on BoardgameArena I found it hard to track everything – you have to track how your personal board relates to the actual board and a bunch of different goals. Possibly it would be easier in person? I would certainly be willing to play again, but preferably with just two players (which is how I played the first time) since with more I suspect the chaos will be too much.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor