What Is Endeavor

Endeavor has been a huge, worldwide success for New Zealand creators Carl de Visser and Jarratt Gray. Their board game, released by Z-Man games, has conquered the world ... not unlike the very game situation they have set up.

In the game, you live in the time of Empire: maps are still blank and need some colour and shape. As a great power, you need to send ships to new countries, negotiate new deals, and conquer when politics fail. There's great wealth and power to be found around the world, but they need to be discovered and exploited ... Do you have the tactics and strength to create -- and control -- your Empire?

Your Empire is glorious (and full of evil imperialists), and your endeavor is to create shipping lanes through the seas and make the most of the resources you find at the other end. In order to gain these resources you'll have to negotiate, to fight, to connive your way forward and contend with other powers as they try to wrest the new lands from you. Strategy is of the uptmost importance as you keep spending and earning in check, and balance your aggressiveness with your political suavity. Endeavor is a game of many strategies, and each route to victory is carefully balanced against the others.

A game of world exploration and empire building. You represent a European empire colonizing the Mediterranean and shipping to all parts of the world to increase the empire's glory and status in Industry, Culture, Finance and Politics. When a region opens up (i.e. the shipping lanes are full) a player can colonize, attack or retrieve resources from that region. The game plays easily as each turn a player builds a building giving him a special action or increasing one of his main statistics, and gets a number of people with which to activate buildings for special actions (Ship, Occupy, Attack, Draw or Pay). Increased skill in Politics allow the player to hold cards that help increase his status and glory.

So why has Endeavor been topping the charts? If you don't know by now, it's just time to get out there and play a copy.