30-60
minutes
€20
cost
2-4
players
What's new?
In the El Dorado expansion Heroes & Hexes you once again go in search of El Dorado but this time with the help of heroes. But watch out, there are also dangerous demons lurking.
The game actually plays largely the same. The only difference is a bunch of new cards, heroes and demon tiles. Heroes can be unlocked by moving to the hero tile that is usually at the beginning of the map. These heroes are strong cards. You'll need this because this time there are also demons lurking. When you step on a demon field you must take a demon token. This often has negative effects such as not being able to play gold until you have paid gold to discard the token. Demon fields do not cost any resources to move over. So sometimes it is definitely good to take this risk!
The player who reaches El Dorado first wins the game, just like in the base game!
Our thoughts
The Quest for El Dorado is a popular, accessible, but super fun deckbuilding game. At our house, El Dorado is regularly on the table. Despite being a simple game, El Dorado still didn't bore us after dozens of games. Still, we were very curious about the expansion Heroes and Hexes, because a little variation for this fun game can't hurt!
The expansion doesn't add that much, but it certainly has a few new and fun components. First, the new game boards are of course very welcome. This immediately provides more replayability and variety in the game. The same goes for the new cards you can buy. But, the expansion Heroes and Hexes also adds 2 other things. You guessed it, the heroes and hexes!
The hexes in the expansion will not be to everyone's liking. Indeed, in a happy and positive game, the demons bring quite a bit of negative interaction and effects. If you don't like this negative interaction or to be punished by the game, then you will not like this part as much. Personally, we find the expansion reasonably balanced by the heroes. These cards give you advantages. We don't feel that the game lasts much longer or has a too negative atmosphere when you play with the expansion.
If we are playing with new players, then we will probably leave out the expansion. But outside of that, we'll usually just add the expansion to the base game. The expansion gives the game just that little bit more depth and variety. The game gets some extra surprise elements and is a bit more expansive. Something we can certainly appreciate after dozens of games of El Dorado!
Pros and cons
+ Extra replayability
+ More variation
+ Surprising elements
- Negative interaction
