A Discovery is a special Gaia unit in Age of Empires that can only found in the Scenario Editor and campaign mode of the game, such as the eponymous Discoveries scenario in the Tutorial Campaign: Ascent of Egypt. Discoveries are in the shape of a white horse and can be controlled by multiple civilizations.
To "capture" the discovery, a unit must walk through or right next to it. Once the unit is in contact with the discovery, a flag rises spontaneously above it. The color of the flag corresponds to the color of the unit that captures the discovery.
In the Age of Empires game mode in Return of Rome, a Gaia unit named Discovery is available in the Scenario Editor, but it is apparently unfinished. It has the icon of the Ruins and the sprite of the eye candy object Rugs. No flag will appear when a unit walks through it, but it is possible that a unit staying at a certain spot near the rug becomes invisible, and will remain so until it leaves that spot.
The Return of Rome version of the Discoveries scenario is named Exploration and uses Ruins in place of Discoveries.
Trivia[]
- Discoveries look like the Uffington White Horse, a chalked figure found in Oxfordshire, England, which is proposed to be several thousands of years old.
- In alpha version 00.05.01.0204, an alternate version of the Discovery can be found in the Scenario Editor. It was eventually cut, but its sprite and icon remain in the files of the released game. As these graphics are not used by any unit, they can only be enabled through modding.