When Henry VII sent John Cabot across the Atlantic in 1497, Tudor England was only at the very beginning of what would become centuries of exploration and colonization in the New World. By Elizabeth's reign, English voyages backed by figures like Walter Raleigh were reaching much further into the New World, encountering much more than just new regions to conquer. Their expeditions opened access to a vivid new world full of plants, animals, and resources entirely unknown to Europeans that would ultimately reshape their own world.

Potatoes, maize, tomatoes, cacao, tobacco, peppers, vanilla, turkeys, valuable timber, medicinal plants, dyes, and many other natural resources moved across the Atlantic and reshaped agriculture, trade, and population growth across Europe and beyond. Many of these were cultivated for centuries by Indigenous peoples, and it took Europeans generations to understand and adopt them. Potatoes, for example, took generations after their arrival in Europe to become a widespread dietary staple.

The exchange also ran the other way, and not so gently: diseases that devastated Indigenous populations, along with horses, cattle, sugar, and wheat, profoundly reshaped the Americas.

Yet in most historical strategy games, all of this is either reduced to generic resources or ignored entirely.

I'm considering making the Columbian Exchange a meaningful exploration mechanic in the game I'm making: Colonerra: Age of Exploration.

Sending expeditions to chart new lands could turn up a previously unknown crop, animal, or natural resource. Some finds might boost population growth, create valuable trade goods, or provide unique bonuses to your colonies. But acquiring them could also require engaging Indigenous nations through trade and diplomacy, and the timing of when you discover some of them might just change the course of history.

Rather than every colony producing the same resources, exploration itself could become a race to uncover the New World's unique natural wealth.

Would you be interested in seeing the Columbian Exchange represented as a game mechanic?

I'd especially love to hear from the Tudor history enthusiasts here:

• If you were playing as Tudor England, would you want Cabot's voyages and later expeditions to uncover specific New World discoveries — and have those discoveries actually matter to England?
• Should a discovery like the potato have a slow historical impact, taking decades to become important, or should games make its effects more immediate?
• Should Tudor England have to build relationships and trade networks with Indigenous peoples to gain access to New World crops and resources?
• And should there be a downside to the exchange as well — disease, ecological changes, dependence on particular crops, or other unintended consequences?

Still from Blackadder II, 'Potato' (BBC, 1986)

Ludolf Backhuysen, Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, 1667, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.

There’s something strangely fascinating about old paintings of ships caught in storms. Once the ocean turned against you, there wasn’t much you could do except hope the ship held together. Paintings like this make me wonder what it actually felt like to be on one of those ships, watching the storm close in while the ocean threw you around.

It’s one of the reasons I love the Age of Exploration, when every voyage meant facing the ocean without knowing what waited for you beyond the horizon.

A little glimpse at colony management done so far: assigning colonists to gathering, resources overview, and buildings.

Elizabeth I’s favourite.
A soldier, explorer, poet, and privateer.
Founder of a colony he never visited.
Secretly married one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting and ended up in the Tower for it.

He survived Elizabeth’s reign, only to be imprisoned and eventually executed for treason under James I.

And somehow, in between all that, he still found time to search for El Dorado.

Who else comes close?

Can you see the octopus hiding?

A quick look at the evolution of Spanish ships from the Caravel to the Great Galleon, 1492–1600.

How accurate do you think the size ranges are? Always interested in feedback from people who know historical shipbuilding better than I do.

Achievement unlocked: Created More Work for Yourself. Time to replace every colony position, native village, regenerate the fog of war, redesign map interactions, and rebuild the trade network. Not to mention a brand new trailer… Wish me luck! 😅

This is the full-size replica of John Cabot's caravel, the Matthew.

I knew the ship wasn't big, but seeing a full-size replica in Bristol Harbour completely changed my perspective.

In 1497, Cabot sailed this tiny vessel across the North Atlantic with a crew of 18 men, becoming the first European since the Vikings to reach North America. His voyage, under the patronage of Henry VII, established England's earliest claims in the region and helped launch an Age of Exploration that would, over the centuries, contribute to the rise of the British Empire.

Looking at it today, it's hard to imagine setting sail across the Atlantic in something so small. It gave me chills just thinking about the waves of the North Atlantic tossing it around like a toy.

Just a gentle reminder that history's greatest changes often begin with the smallest of beginnings.

The full-size replica of the Matthew, the ship John Cabot sailed to North America in 1497. At only 50 tons and carrying around 18 men, it's astonishingly small for an Atlantic crossing.

In 1497, John Cabot sailed into the unknown from Bristol aboard the tiny 50-ton Matthew, carrying just 18 men across the Atlantic under the patronage of King Henry VII.

This now largely forgotten voyage became England's first known expedition to North America, laying the foundations for England's Age of Exploration. It came just five years after Columbus reached the Americas and was the first known European voyage to North America since the Vikings.

Today, a full-size replica of the Matthew sails once again from Bristol, offering a glimpse into the extraordinary courage it took to cross an ocean in such a small vessel.

Would you have had the courage to make that journey?

Was the story of Marco Polo true, or elaborate fabrication?

Did you know that one of the most fascinating episodes of Spanish imperial exploration began with an accident?

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and an African explorer named Estevanico spent years traveling across what is now the American Southwest after surviving a shipwreck on the Gulf Coast. Once they returned, they told stories of wealthy lands to the north that later sparked a series of Spanish expeditions into the unknown.

According to the legends they heard, the Seven Cities of Cíbola lay somewhere to the north, their streets supposedly paved with gold. In 1539, Estevanico and Fray Marcos de Niza set out to find them. Estevanico was killed during the expedition, but Fray Marcos returned convinced the cities were real.

The following year (1540), Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led one of the largest Spanish expeditions ever launched into North America. With around 300 Spaniards, hundreds of Native allies, and thousands of animals, the expedition crossed present-day New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas over the course of two years.

His men endured hunger, harsh deserts, rugged mountains, and repeated attacks throughout the journey. During the expedition, Captain García López de Cárdenas led a detachment that became the first Europeans to gaze upon the Grand Canyon in September 1540. When they finally reached Cíbola, instead of golden cities, Coronado found only Zuni pueblos.

After his expedition, Coronado wrote that Fray Marcos "had not told the truth in a single thing," describing the legendary Seven Cities as nothing more than small villages. With no treasure to be found and rich silver deposits discovered in Mexico, Spanish interest in exploring the northern frontier gradually waned.

Had Spain continued investing heavily in the exploration and settlement of its northern territories, just how different do you think the history of North America would have been?

"The longest voyage of discovery, the boldest adventure in the records of our race, had begun." — Stefan Zweig, Conqueror of the Seas

On 20 September 1519, five ships departed Seville with about 270 men. Their objective was simple to describe but nearly impossible to achieve: reach the Spice Islands by sailing west.

As Stefan Zweig wrote, "In the beginning were the spices." The expedition was driven not by the desire to prove the Earth was round, but by the search for a western route to the immensely valuable spice trade.

The voyage was fraught with danger and quickly turned into a test of endurance, faith, and sheer will. Mutiny... Disease... Storms... Freezing winters in Patagonia... Fear of the unknown... Every mile they sailed west brought another challenge they had to overcome.

Laurence Bergreen captures the determination of the fleet:

"...the armada set sail once again, heading west, always west."

After finally entering an ocean so calm that Magellan named it the Pacific, the fleet endured more than three months without making landfall. The crossing was so brutal that many sailors survived by eating rats, strips of leather, and even sawdust.

When the expedition reached the Philippines in 1521, Magellan made the decision that would cost him his life.

Believing European weapons would quickly overpower local resistance, he chose to support one local ruler against another. On 27 April 1521, at the Battle of Mactan, Magellan landed with only a few dozen men to confront the warriors of Lapu-Lapu.

The plan failed disastrously.

Outnumbered and unable to bring the ships' cannons into effective range because of the shallow water, Magellan fought while covering the retreat of his men. Struck repeatedly by spears and blades, he died on the beach—thousands of miles from both Spain and Portugal.

Ironically, the man whose name became synonymous with the first voyage around the world never completed it.

Only one ship, the Victoria, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano, returned to Spain on 6 September 1522 with just 18 survivors.

As Bergreen writes of the expedition's legacy, they had "...fulfilled an ambition as old as the human imagination, the first circumnavigation of the globe."

Magellan did not live to witness history.

But history would never forget him.
- - - - -
As a child, I first encountered this story through a comic book. I still remember its cover showing Magellan making his final stand on the shores of Mactan.

Until then, every adventure story I'd read ended with the hero returning home. I couldn't believe that the protagonist could die before the journey was over. That ending stayed with me for decades and sparked a lifelong fascination with the Age of Exploration.

Was there a historical event or person that captured your imagination as a child and stayed with you into adulthood?

A ship I visited diving in Rose, Montenegro.

I grew up in the former Yugoslavia reading a series called "Otkriće sveta u stripu" ("Discovery of the World in Comics"). These editions were published by Dnevnik in Novi Sad (now Serbia), and appear to have been produced in collaboration with Larousse during the 1980s.

They covered explorers and historical figures such as Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan, Hernán Cortés, Captain James Cook, and many others. I absolutely loved them as a kid, and they sparked my lifelong interest in the Age of Exploration.

I've always been curious about the original French publications. Were these part of a single French comic series, or were they collected from different publishers and artists?

If anyone recognizes them or knows their original French titles, I'd love to learn more.

Oil on canvas by Keith Rocco.

In this historic re-creation, members of the Nottoway Tribe enter the English settlement at Jamestown in 1691 to present the tribe's annual tribute to the royal governor of Virginia. A young English colonist, at left, reaches out as if to touch one of the entering tribesmen. These men, swathed in animal skins or blankets, were tribal leaders; the silver badges around their necks indicate their status. By 1661, the English had issued such badges to those they deemed to be the "Chief Men of the Nottoway," who were then required to wear them when entering an English settlement. The National Park Service in conjunction with Historic Jamestowne commissioned this oil painting titled, Jamestown in the 1690’s - Changing Times, in the twenty-first century. 

Say hello to Pero, a friendly octopus we found on a beach in Montenegro. Or at least I think his name is Pero. 😄 As a side note, looking on this subreddit, I cannot believe how much octopus from all around the world look alike!