Jim Di Crocco III - 12:30pm Mar 24, 2000 PST (#3 of 11) Last Played: SIMCAN's "Assault on Tobruk" I just found a copy at a local store. It seems interesting. Can anyone make a comparison between the Discovery version of the rulesand the AH version, both of which are included in the AH box? Mike Lam - 04:02pm Apr 9, 2000 PST (#4 of 11) Current playing DIF in a continuous, pilot earns experience campaign. Overall, AH reduced the amount of dice rolling by having all that information contained on the event cards and added more "chrome" in the game by adding lake sizes, special discoveries, added 8 more disaster events, added in two more explorer specialties and included the names of tribes, animals & plants for bonus discoveries. The major differences: The main difference was in terrain generation; the Discovery version used dice for everything (Height of mountains/waterfalls, river flow directions) while AH used the cards. The AH map was mounted and contained table charts; the Discovery map was unmounted and had no charts except for the terrain key. The Discovery version had 48 cards with 46 disasters/events (the other two were "No disasters"). AH eliminated the two "No Disasters", added 8 new disasters and doubled the cards to 108 cards with 54 different events. The Discovery version had one "Free Passage" to all cities but Khartoum. AH included 1 "Free Passage To Khartoum" with 2 "free passage cards" to the other 12 cities. The Discovery version had two donations the AH version did not have: "Mrs. Purity Smoothbottle contributes $5 in hopes that you will find her husband, who has been missing in Africa for many years" and "The Nobel Order Of Cabalistic Mystics donates $77 to help you find the Temple of Nosh, believed to be at the Source of the Nile". AH included the Special Discoveries (Lost City, Dr. Livingston, etc.) that Discovery did not have. Discovery's explorer specialties were the Explorer, Evangelism (Missionary), Medicine (Doctor), Zoology and Geology. AH added the journalist and ethnologist specialties. Discovery gave points for the highest Waterfalls only if the waterfall was +400 feet. In the AH version, it was +40 feet to qualify for the highest, 2nd highest, etc. for that game. There was a minimum height of 15000 ft. in the Discovery version to qualify; AH took care of that on the cards as the smallest mountain that could be drawn was 15000 ft. AH gave points for the size of lakes; Discovery did not. AH added the names of tribes on the event cards for the ethnologist; Discovery did not have this specialty. AH used the GAME LOG sheet to keep track of your expedition numbers; Discovery used an EXPEDITION ORGANIZATION CHART where each player recoded his expedition numbers by placing the appropriate counters on the 3 numbered tracks. AH had 50 tribes that were used by all players; each player in Discovery's version had their own color coded numbered tribes from 1-to-10. AH had water weighing as 1 water=1 Portage point; Discovery's water was 1 water=4 portage points. AH specialized the terrain scoring per explorer specialty, while Discovery did not differentiate. AH specialized the bonus scoring per explorer specialty with names/ types of discoveries, while Discovery just called them specimens. Another side note, there was a magazine devoted to the SOTN game called Tributary. It was to contain articles on variants, game strategy, optional rules, etc. As far as I know, there was only 1 issue ever published. Also, in one of the early Dragon magazines (#24) contained an article on "what happens when you find the Lost City" variant. Anything from finding it haunted (and having an evil curse kill off your party one by one as you go back towards the coast) to being inhabited by the decedents of Atlantis (where the explorer will either be imprisoned or be the Guest of the City and not allowed to leave; in either case, escape attempts are made). Roy K. Bartoo - 04:44pm Apr 10, 2000 PST (#5 of 11) Wow, that's a thorough listing! Fun game, I finally pulled it off the shelf the other day. I hated the look of the crayons (and they didn't erase all that well) - but layed a 1-mil sheet of wrapping acetate over it, used dry-erase markers on that: worked fine, looked better than the crayon version. Now if my expeditions would just quit dying ... Roy.