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Having reviewed the multiplayer game and written the How to Play guide, the solo game of The Guild of Merchant Explorers had to be the final step in my TGOME journey of discovery. And do you know what? Don’t tell my husband, but it might actually be my favourite way to play!
Solo Circumnavigation
Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore playing this game with other people. And to be fair, at its core, it is a multiplayer solitaire style game. So it’s not like someone is going to steal your sheet and draw goblins on it (thanks Cartographers!), or steal the shape you wanted to lay down (ahem, Patchwork!). The Explore Deck and all the placement rules and construction opportunities work the same for everybody whether there is just you or a table full of other avid adventurers. Believe me, simultaneous head scratching commences upon every turn – it’s just the degree of elbow room that changes!
So what is it about the solo that I love so much? Well, it is a very simple tweak to the standard rules that gives the single player experience a dollop of super special sauce.
Solo Sauce
In the multiplayer game, there are scoring conditions that award bonus coins to the players who achieve them during the course of the game. First player gets more, but everybody has a chance to make choices that target these spatial goals. And coins = points = one step closer to victory.
But in the solo mode, the winning condition is precisely those extra scoring objectives. In order to beat the game, before even thinking about smashing your own score, you need to knock all three out of the…boat! And if you don’t, no matter how far you have sailed, nor how many coins you have collected, it will all be for nought. You’ll be walking the plank to Loserville. And I love that!
A Sea Of Strategy
Without an AI to operate, The Guild of Merchant Explorers solo is all about those scoring objectives. Whereas in the multiplayer game they are a nice bonus if you get them, here you absolutely need to achieve them. And that will shape your strategy on every turn you take. Having 3 simultaneous goals to achieve whilst also trying to explore and build to gain points in all the other ways, makes my mind work in the most marvellously melty of ways.
I want to make trade routes and find lost ruins for bonuses. I want to build villages and erect towers for mid Era coin collecting. But if they aren’t the goals I am working towards, then they have to take a back seat! And if the goals conflict or means I have spread myself across the board to be in with a chance of hitting them….well, that’s a saltiness that hits my sweet spot for sure! The deck of Scoring Objectives isn’t huge, but the various combinations to strive for and variability of play through the random Explore Deck draws means this game has huge replayability.
Final Thoughts
Given that I already play 99% of this game in my own head and couldn’t give a rum’s punch what the other players are doing, the solo was always going to be a success for me. The Guild of Merchant Explorers is a game that comes to the table quick, plays as fast as your own decision making allows, and has zero complicated single player rule tweaks. On that basis, it is well and truly within in my super solo sub-collection! It has the smooth play of a flip and write without the need to find a pen that works! And with 5 maps to choose from, it’s a game with solo sea-legs!
Having reflected on it even more whilst writing this review, I think I might actually be a little (okay a lot!) addicted to the solo mode in The Guild of Merchant Explorers. With that win condition to beat, the game sings to me in a special way that regular BYOS solo modes don’t. This game is a solo siren that I can’t ignore……and do you know what? I don’t want to!
