The New Science

In The New Science, you play the role of one of the great scientists from the scientific revolution in 17th century Europe. You are attempting to publish your remarkable scientific discoveries in order to gain prestige, be seen as the finest mind of your era, and consequently be appointed the first President of the Royal Society. You achieve this by first researching, then experimenting on, potential new discoveries. But you need to carefully decide what and when to publish: while the only way to win is by gaining prestige, once you publish your discovery all other scientists will share your advanced knowledge, costing you an advantage. Your efforts can be further impacted by critical happenings in the world around you.

You’ve precious little energy to put into the many groundbreaking scientific disciplines.

Discoveries:

The key to The New Science is publishing discoveries and gaining prestige. Discoveries are  represented on the board with rectangles  split into three parts: publish on top, experiment in the middle,  and research on the bottom. Consider Heliocentrism:

The publish area, indicated by the quill, lists the requirements to successfully publish, and the  prestige  award  for being  the person to do so. In this case,  it requires  3 energy to publish, 1  government influence, and 2 religion influence. The player who  publishes  will receive 4 prestige.

The experiment area, indicated by the test tube,  lists the target number  for successfully  experimenting,  in this case 4 for the first player and 3 for subsequent  players, after it was  successfully experimented on. The research area, indicated by the book, lists the energy required  to successfully research  this discovery.

 
The Science Tree:

Advancing up the science tree requires your  having  knowledge of every pre-requisite discovery.  In order to have knowledge, you must either have successfully experimented on a discovery or any player must have published it. Some discoveries are independent,  such as Astrological Science and Laws of Attraction, while  others, such as Heliocentrism and Planetary Motion, are grouped together. You only need to have  knowledge of one among a group of discoveries in order to meet the pre-requisite and advance up the  tree.

Continuing the example, you only need knowledge of Heliocentrism or Planetary Motion - not both - to advance higher up the tree.

The New Science is a fast playing worker placement Eurogame with a competitive angle for the entire family that can be played start to finish between 90 and 120 minutes.