Welcome to Encyclopedia! The year is 1739 and as aspiring naturalists and adventurers, you have been hired by the Comte de Buffon - Darwin's predecessor - to help him create the first encyclopedia of natural history. To do this, conduct research, organize ambitious expeditions, and publish studies of the world's most fascinating creatures!

Encyclopedia is a dice-based worker placement game. At the start of each round, you draw dice, roll them and place them on your player board. These dice can then be used to perform an action each turn, depending on their color and value.

Your action can be to prepare your expeditions by going to the embassy, ​​visiting the bank to raise funds or hiring your research team at the university. When you're ready to go, choose the animal maps you want to study and organize expeditions to observe them in their natural habitat.

When your research is complete, you can publish your findings in an effort to contribute to Buffon's Encyclopedia. With each publication you make you earn victory points and at the end of the game you score points based on collections of animals and research collected during play. The naturalist with the most points wins!

Encyclopedia was designed by Olivier Melison and Eric Dubus, the authors of Dominations: Road to Civilization and Museum. This expert worker-placement game brings some fascinating new twists to the genre and offers multiple paths to victory.

The game also offers a variety of ways to counteract the random element of your dice rolls. Not only can players spend different tokens to change the value or color of a die, but they have more than just their own dice to choose from, as other players' dice can be used too! Taking a die from another player's board costs nothing, but the target player gets a bonus.

The game's theme - with beautifully illustrated animal cards - ties in closely with the mechanics, making the rules easy to understand so you can start devising the perfect strategy straight away.