Terra Mystica - Merchants of the Seas - EN/FR

Sails appear on the horizon as the factions of Terra Mystica take to the rivers. Build shipyards, launch ships, and sail to distant lands to expand your territory and enjoy the benefits of commerce!

Merchants of the Seas expands on the hit terraforming gameplay of Terra Mystica. Develop your faction’s nautical strategy, stake a claim on distant lands, or focus on the benefits of trade. Plus, a double-sided board and over 30 tiles add countless new avenues to victory. Merchants of the Seas is available for preorder today from our website or your local retailer.

HOIST THE MAINSAIL

Enter a new era of trade and expansion in Terra Mystica with Merchants of the Seas. Each faction—including the Ice, Volcano, and Variable factions from the first expansion Fire & Ice—now has the option to build a Shipyard, as well as new Ships to embark on voyages toward valuable territory and lucrative trades.

Starting with only a Dock, you’ll have to upgrade a riverside Trading house to a Shipyard to get into the sailing business. The Shipyard extension to your faction board offers new rewards, income, and Special actions to take. For instance, once you build your Shipyard, you’ll receive one Ship as income each turn, but you’ll also have access to the Special action to build Ships for an additional cost.

When it comes to transforming and building on terrain, Ships can offer extra strategic flexibility. Once you have one or more Ships on the water, you can take a Special action to navigate them as many spaces as your current Shipping value. Move your Ships to the right spot, and you can transform and build on land spaces adjacent to them, and even spend the Ship to pay the cost of building.

Not only can Ships help you transform faraway spaces, but they will be key to your trade strategy as well. As your Ships navigate Terra Mystica and come into contact with other factions, engage in trade for valuable rewards!

A FAIR TRADE

While most factions pursue seafaring, the Fakirs and Dwarves prefer to stay on land. Instead of Shipyards and Ships, each can build a Market and send Merchants on profitable journeys. Like Ships, Merchants can be moved as an action and can help extend a faction’s reach to distant lands, as well as engage with other factions for commercial benefits.

As your Ships or Merchants navigate Terra Mystica, moving onto spaces with another faction’s structure initiates a trade automatically. The player controlling the Ship or Merchant receives a reward of Victory points, plus an additional benefit based on the type of structure they’ve encountered. For example, trading with a Dwelling will earn you a Victory point and a Worker, while a Stronghold will garner you two Victory points, two Coins, and a “Transform and Build” action with one free Spade. The owner of the structure has the opportunity to gain Power in the exchange, if they’re willing to spend a number of Victory points.

Trade involves short-term rewards, but can be a substantial part of a long-term strategy too. After every trade, the player controlling the Ship or Merchant places a trade marker under the structure they engaged with. Each structure can only be traded with once per player, and each player can make up to 15 trades total. Merchants of the Seas includes a new Final Scoring tile that awards points to the players who place the most trade markers throughout the game, so keep trade in mind to get ahead of your opponents.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

The factions of Terra Mystica exist in a delicate balance, but their relative strengths differ with the distribution of terrain. Merchants of the Seas includes a double-sided game board with two new maps—Lakes and Fjords—so your faction can really take advantage of the waterways, but it also includes new Starting Victory points tables for all five Terra Mystica maps. Factions will start with different Victory points to account for their advantages or disadvantages on a given board, so your games can be balanced no matter the lay of the land.

Preorder your copy of Merchants of the Seas to trade, sail, and transform your way through Terra Mystica! Merchants of the Seas will be $49.99 and release in fall 2019.