The Guild of Merchant Explorers FAQ
80 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
Components and Setup
Exploring Your Map and Eras
Explore Cards
Investigate Cards
- Does the investigate card for a continuous path of up to 5 grassland or sea spaces allow a T-shaped path or re-use of explored spaces?
- On a continuous path investigate card, must each explorer be placed next to the previous one?
- Can the investigate card that explores connected grassland, desert and mountain spaces in a straight line mix terrain types, and does sea count?
- Can a straight-line investigate card that explores any number of connected spaces extend in both directions from the starting village or explorer?
- On the investigate card that explores one land space and then up to three connected spaces in a line, or extends from a village, can the line run on both sides of the starting space?
- On the investigate card that explores one sea space and then up to three connected in a straight line, must the sea space sit at one end of the line?
- How does the investigate card that explores up to three spaces in a straight line adjacent to two different villages work?
- Does the investigate card that explores three spaces next to two cities use cities or villages?
- If you have no villages, can an investigate card that explores from two villages use your capital as a village?
- How does the explore-up-to-four-sea-spaces investigate card's ruin treasure bonus work, and does it grow on reuse?
- Does a cube placed by a treasure card on an unexplored ruin count toward the explore-four-sea treasure bonus?
- Can an extra explore gained from a ruin be used to explore an adjacent city on the explore-four-sea-then-cities investigate card?
- Does an investigate card that doubles or triples coins also multiply village, crystal or region coins?
- What happens to the investigate cards you did not choose?
- In Era IV, do you use one investigate card or all of them when an I/II/III era card is revealed?
About the Maps
- What does 'wild' mean on a terrain space or card?
- On Cnidaria, how many coins does exploring a crystal space earn when other crystal spaces were already explored?
- What counts as a 'land' for goals such as discovering villages in three different lands?
- On Avenia, do sea ruin spaces separate lands?
- How do you recognize a ruin space on the sea?
- How do you classify a space whose art shows two terrain types, such as a mountain with water around it?
Map Features & Villages
- Can a discovery space be explored with any explore card, including ones that name a terrain or send explorers over sea?
- Are ruin spaces part of a region?
- Do city spaces count as part of the region they sit in?
- Can you place a village on a sea space or a sea region?
- Can a village be built on a city space?
- When you complete a region, does the village replace every explorer in it, including a city cube on a trade route?
- Does a fully explored region with no cities still get a village?
- Does a region need all its spaces explored within one era to earn a village?
- Can you start exploring from a trading post or a discovery tower?
- Can a trade route use your capital, and does a route have to end there?
- When a trade route is completed, is a trading post placed on one city or both?
- Can you still explore or connect through a city that already has a trading post?
- If one explorer connects three cities at once, how many trade routes score, and which pair do you pick?
- Is a city or ruin still linked in a trade route or goal chain after its explorer is removed?
- Is a settlement the same as a village?
- Do you score the value in the score area of your map when you discover a village or place a discovery tower?
- When do you remove your explorer from a discovery tower space?
- After a discovery tower is placed on a space, can you explore that space again in a later era?
- Can an explore action keep going through a discovery space that you explore in that same action?
Treasure Cards
- What does the equals sign on a Treasure card mean?
- Which explorers or villages must a treasure card's extra explorer be placed next to?
- If you gain a 'place a cube' treasure card in the middle of a line placement, can its cube extend the line?
- If you hold two treasure cards that each pay per village of one terrain, do both score at the end of the game?
- How many points do the Vase treasure cards score?
- Does the treasure card worth coins per settlement count discovery towers as well as villages?
- When the explore-four-sea card gives extra treasure cards, are they resolved before the rest of the explore?
Completing Goals
- When several players complete the same goal, who earns the higher reward?
- Can a goal be completed using explores made in different eras?
- For the goals that require three ruins of the same or different shapes, do they have to be explored in the same era?
- Do the two villages for the discover 2 villages adjacent to crystal spaces goal have to be next to different crystal spaces?
- On Kazan, does a village next to any ruin space satisfy the village-next-to-a-ruin goal?
- For the Aghon goal 'discover a village adjacent to a discovery tower', does the order of placing them matter?
- On Kazan, does the goal to connect two cities and two ruins need one unbroken chain or separate chains?
- How does the Aghon goal of trading posts on grassland, desert and mountain cities work?
Solo Mode
- In solo mode, must you complete the goal cards from left to right?
- In solo mode, can you choose the starting order of the three goal cards?
- In solo mode, do the era tokens move to the next free goal slot if their goal is already completed?
- In solo mode, can you claim both coin spaces on one goal, or score the same goal more than once?
- In solo mode, which goal coin spaces do the era tokens cover in each era?
- In solo mode, can you still complete a goal whose coin space the era token covers?
- In solo mode, do you place the blocking token before or after resolving your action when an era card appears?
The Guild of Merchant Explorers: The Queen's Special OrdersExpansion
- How is an ice space explored on North Proylia?
- Can the explore-three-sea-spaces card use its first two placements on an ice space on North Proylia?
- Can the investigate card that explores up to five sea spaces use two of its placements on an ice space on North Proylia?
- Can an investigate line of grassland, desert and mountain spaces cross an ice space on North Proylia?
- Can a treasure card's 'place a cube' effect put that cube on an ice space on North Proylia?
- Can the investigate card that explores four spaces in a single region explore ice, and how many ice spaces can it take?
- Can a village be discovered on an ice space, or in an ice region?
- Does the island token from The Queen's Special Orders stop an island's coin or city space from scoring?
- Is island scoring on Xawskil cumulative, or only the final number of islands explored?
- For the North Proylia goal to discover 2 villages adjacent to trading posts, does the order of placing the villages and trading posts matter?