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Land vs Sea: Uncharted is an expansion for Land vs Sea that adds new tiles and a few optional scoring systems. It doesn’t change what the game is trying to do. You’re still building one shared map and trying to close areas at the right moment. The expansion just adds more scoring paths and more situations where both players suddenly care about the same spot.
In the box you get 24 new hex tiles, special tiles, large starting tiles, scoring tokens, and scoring aids. The important part is that it’s modular. You don’t have to use everything. Before the game starts, you pick which scoring layers to include. So you can keep it close to the base game, or stack systems until every tile affects three different things at once.
The three main additions are menhirs and ley lines, city scoring, and bandit and pirate trade route scoring. You can mix them with the base game modules however you want. The new large starting tiles also change the opening quite a bit. Scoring can start immediately instead of after a slow buildup, which I guess is the expansion saying “we’re not waiting around.”
👥 2-4 players, ages 10+
⌛ Playing time: 60 minutes
📝 Design & artwork: Jon-Paul Jacques
🏢 Publisher: Good Games Publishing (review copy provided)
The Base Game in Brief
In Land vs Sea, you place double-sided hex tiles with land and sea on them, matching land to land and sea to sea as the map grows. Each player is trying to complete areas that favor their side.
When an area closes, it scores one point per tile for the matching faction, no matter who placed the last tile. The player who actually closes it also takes all bonus icons inside that area. So timing matters, but ownership still matters too. You might build something for several turns and then watch someone else step in and take the extra points. It’s part of the game, even if it doesn’t feel fair in the moment.
Some tiles have action icons that let you play again or steal a tile. Optional systems in the base game add mountains, coral, trade routes, and waypoints for extra scoring angles. The game ends when the last tile is placed, and whoever has the most points wins.
Gameplay Overview of the Uncharted Expansion
With the expansion, the core loop stays the same. Place a tile, try to close something, try not to give away free points. What changes is how far scoring reaches.
Menhirs and ley lines
Menhirs add a long-distance scoring system. When two menhirs line up across a complete row of tiles, a ley line forms. The player who completed that row scores all bonus icons between them. It happens right away, which means a single tile can flip a row from harmless decoration into a pile of points.
Ley lines stop at the first menhir they hit. They don’t pass through. But you can align across more than one direction at once. In practice that means one placement can trigger several lines. Sometimes you see it coming. Sometimes you don’t notice until someone counts the icons out loud.
This system forces you to look up from your own little project. You’re constantly checking rows and gaps.
Turns take longer because there’s more to track.
Cities
City tiles increase the value of areas they overlap. Any land or sea area touching a city gets boosted. Bonus icons and waypoints in that area are worth double when it closes. Multiple cities don’t stack. One is enough.
Cities also affect end game trade routes. If a route connects to a city, each caravan or ship in that route scores two points instead of one. That changes priorities quickly. Certain areas start attracting everyone at once. You get more interaction, but also crowded sections where placement options shrink fast.
Bandits and pirates
Bandit and pirate scoring attaches to trade routes. When you add one to a route, bandits score one point per caravan icon already there, pirates score one per ship icon. They don’t count as icons themselves. They just score based on what’s already built. This adds risk to long routes. The bigger the network, the more someone else can take from it.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The expansion matches the base game perfectly in style. Same illustrated atlas look, same warm parchment colors, same bright oceans. By the end of a game the map looks like something pulled from a storybook.
The new tiles keep the dense illustration style. Menhirs are easy to spot. Cities read clearly at a glance. There’s a lot going on visually, but the icons stay readable, which matters more than decoration once scoring starts.
The scoring aids are oversized and full of diagrams. That helps a lot in early games. You don’t want to pass a rulebook around every time a ley line appears. Once mixed with the base game, the tiles blend in naturally. The large starting tiles make the board look developed from the first turn. They count as four tiles for scoring, which is easy to forget the first time and then never again.
Component quality is the same as the base box. Thick tiles, clean printing, nothing fragile.
Our Experience
The expansion makes the board active almost immediately. With the large starting tiles, scoring begins right away. There’s no quiet opening where everyone spreads out first. Menhirs change how people read the map. Everyone keeps scanning rows instead of focusing only on their own area. Turns often end with someone saying “wait, that scores too?”
Cities pull players into the same sections. Once one appears, it becomes shared territory. That increases interaction, but it can also leave very few safe placement spots. Some turns are less about planning and more about fitting into whatever space is left.
Trade routes with bandits and pirates create a push-your-luck feeling. Large routes are tempting, but fragile. Watching a route you’ve been feeding for half the game suddenly score for someone else is painful in a very specific way. It keeps leaders from running away, but it also makes long projects feel exposed.
The biggest change is density. With all modules active, a single tile can interact with several scoring systems. Nothing is individually complicated, but together they require attention. For experienced players, that extra load is welcome. For casual players, it can feel like the clean puzzle of the base game has been layered over itself.
The modular design helps a lot here. With fewer systems, the game stays readable. With everything included, it becomes a full-board puzzle where every placement has ripple effects. Different groups will settle on different mixes, and that flexibility is probably the expansion’s strongest feature.
For us, mountains and coral plus caravans and ships plus cities hits a comfortable middle ground. Menhirs alone are a good step up from the base game. All-in mode is fun, but I wouldn’t start there unless everyone already knows what they’re signing up for.
Our Thoughts
Uncharted is clearly aimed at players who already enjoy Land vs Sea and want more layers on top of it. It stretches scoring across the board and pushes players to think in networks instead of isolated shapes. That makes the game broader, but also busier. If you love the stripped-down feel of the base box, this expansion moves away from that on purpose.
The modular structure is the biggest advantage. You can add one system at a time and let the group adjust. Each layer changes priorities without rewriting the core rules. For groups that enjoy watching the whole board and reacting to each other’s plans, the expansion gives more to work with.
At the same time, it’s not automatic improvement. The extra scanning slows the pace. Some players will prefer the original version where closing an area is the main event. More systems don’t automatically mean a better session. It just depends on what your group wants from it.
Nothing feels pasted on. The tiles mix cleanly with the base set, the icons match, and the scoring aids cut down rule checking. Interaction stays indirect. You’re competing over space and timing rather than attacking directly, but the consequences of each placement are larger.
This expansion is for people who want the map to feel more interconnected and contested. You’re tracking several scoring paths at the same time instead of just closing areas. It’s still Land vs Sea underneath, just with more going on every turn.
Just don’t be surprised if your turns start taking longer than you admit.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Good Games Publishing.
