Encyclopedia - Just Played Pros & Cons 

What I love most is the setup is essentially replacing the round tokens and shuffling two decks of cards when you reset to play again. I actually found the theme coming through in that you are focusing your study on animals that are similar (for the sake of set colleciton) but have different feeding or climate requirements. The more animals you can study before you publish, the more thorough your work will be (and thus worth more points).

Very nice video. Now I'm in the hunt for this game....

I played this in Essen last year and really enjoyed the mechanics and theme. After Holy Grail Games announced their bankruptcy I rushed out to get my hands on their last copies. Too bad that this team of creative designers is no more. Their games always had some fantastic inventions for board games and a very high quality.

This is one of my new favorites.

Love this game. You had me at dice placement. I loved the concept of "put dice out attractive enough for other people". I've never heard of a strategy so interesting to gain bonuses. I'll be honest, if I didn't watch your video I never would have thought of this game. The title scared me away because I've done enough learning in High School. But this game has a bit of wingspan had a baby with Ark Nova. If they come out with an expansion I hope they make it to where you will want to collect similar types of animals for more end of game scoring. Thanks for this amazing video team! I'm ordering it right now.

I've got this and played it a few times at 2 players and solo. I really like it, but I agree about the theme. The animals could be frankly anything. The mechanics are good but the theme is lacking a bit. Looks lovely though. I think if you like Wingspan you'd probably like this

I agree with most of the said, but when adding the Magna Itinera expansion and tweaking the way the events (new in Magna Itinera) work especially making the next event visible one round ahead, you can spice the game up a notch. However the game is by all means a nice Kenner-level entry, surely not expert level and mainly more tactical than strategic.... but that being said, the game makes for some very interesting decisions, like for example when to get the endgame points experts (which taken to early clog your tableau of experts for intermediate powers), or when to advance on the reputation track to get the right bonus at the right time or have it at the right place for an endgame scoring expert gives brings a lot of thinking which you do not consider in your first game. Sure it is not perfect, sure there could be more different mechanics in the cards (which you get with the included Sepultus Cretura expansion and the Magna Itinera expansion), but for what it is it does it well - and looks just fantastic, really (if you are able to put the crazy huge game board on the table).

Good game but it became too much on rails for me. Maybe because I only explored one strategy. Spent most of the game doing resource and set collection, mid-late game to explore a few times, then end game to publish once or twice (you can ignore the bottom half of the game board most of the time and do pretty well). The dice allocation mechanic is neat but it mostly becomes, "I scratch your back, then you probably will have to scratch mine." I like how the "dice-stealing" is handled in Troyes more; leads to more dynamic player-interaction with greater impact. Probably because I didn't like Wingspan so this didn't stay in my collection either.

Sorry if I missed this or you don't remember but did you mention playtime for your 2 player run-through?

8:30 it is a hedgehog

Are there any cons for this one ? Can not think of one 😀😅

The dice mechanic seems overrated. There is no incentive to even choose your worn dice. You should be picking others dice so they will also pick yours and you get a bonus.