Caravelas

About this board game

Caravelas is a 2–4 player board game that takes about 75 minutes, inviting players to navigate the world during the Portuguese Discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Each player begins in Lisbon with a ship piece, a card representing three ships, nine navigation discs, and space for six different types of merchandise. The world-map board features 32 destinations across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Indic Islands, as well as the real sea currents followed by Portuguese caravels.

Following a marked current lets a ship travel without using navigation discs, while moving against a current costs one disc. Players must manage this limited navigation ability as they sail between ports. The first player to reach a destination places a coloured marker there and records its victory points; at eight trade ports, the discoverer can also collect the corresponding merchandise.

• Event cells: choose from Storm, Dead Calm Sea, or Good Wind cards, each affecting navigation and offering positive effects to other players.
• Pirate cells: entering one immediately costs a navigation disc.
• Sinking cells: a 50/50 die roll can remove one of a player’s ships and its matching cargo space until the ship returns to Lisbon.

Back in Lisbon, merchandise can be exchanged for 5 victory points each. Pepper can instead be traded for a Jerónimos Monastery piece worth 10 points, while 15 points can buy a fourth ship, adding three navigation discs and two cargo spaces.

The game ends when the last monastery piece is bought. Objective Cards provide additional goals involving specific ports, rewarding the first player to reach each named destination with extra points at the end. In Caravelas, route planning, discovery, cargo management, and risk all shape the race for the highest score.