Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Merkator is about the rise of Hamburg after the Thirty Years' War. You visit cities to collect goods or fulfill orders.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Contracts
Complete specific requirements to earn rewards, income, or victory points.
Pick Up and Deliver
Collect goods at one location and transport them to another for rewards.
Set Collection
Gather related items that become more valuable when scored together.
End Game Bonuses
Earn additional points for meeting conditions evaluated when the game ends.
Follow
Choose whether to perform a reduced version of another player’s selected action.
Resource to Move
Spend resources to determine or increase movement.
Read the full game description
Merkator is about the rise of Hamburg after the Thirty Years' War. You visit cities to collect goods or fulfill orders. The collected goods are added to the cities when a player visits a neighboring city. Fulfilling an order provides you with another better, but more complex order additional to the fulfilled order which you keep and can fulfill again, although the number of orders you can own is limited. Each order itself is worth a certain amount of points at the end of the game. Also you can exchange these points for special cards which provide additional goods in certain cities or more victory points if you fulfill certain conditions at game end. Depending on the city you want to enter you either receive a resource called "time" or you have to spend it. By paying a certain time-fee you are allowed to accompany another player on his trip to a town to fulfill your orders in this town (but not to collect goods). The game ends when a player receives the order with the highest value by fulfilling the order one level below. UPC 4015566030602