Working on an exploration board game. Would like some ideas on encounter cards, both land and sea.

Ok, here's some better info about this game. It took me a while to get it done because I'm not a native English speaker, but I think you all will understand what I'm trying to do.

The game is about finding good spots in islands and develop them by building villages/cities and establishing military presence in the newfound islands, in order to expand their king's realm.

Players should be able to explore placing tiles à la Carcassonne and then moving their ships to the tile they just placed. Tiles will depict open seas (water on all edges), shores (at least one land edge) and continent (land on all edges, which must be discovered by armies or explorers). As they discover new tiles, they will often be required to draw a "discovery card" and check for events that could happen to their crew/army (this is a point I definitely need a bit of help). Players will be able to keep some tiles (2, maybe 3) in their hands so they can better plan what to do next.

The gameplay will be divided in turns, which will be divided in phases (Planning, Producing, Action, Conflict).

The planning phase consists in obtaining "action tokens" by placing dice in an "action" section of the board (Alien Frontiers, Kingsburg). One of the phases (Production) is obligatory, as all players will receive at least one resource to be determined by rolling production dice. The resources should be used to establish new settlements, military buildings, units, etc in order to expand your king's realm. As players raise buildings and units I expect them to engage in battles to obtain supremacy on the various islands (I haven't developed a good combat system as of now, but I understand combat is a definite need in a game like this). Players should be interested in usurping other playing buildings, so they can get more points at the end of the scoring rounds, so a simple but effective combat system is a must.

Endgame happens by the occurrence of two or more triggers, much like the endgame is triggered in The Gallerist. Lack of tiles to be drawn, a complete map in which there are no place for more tiles, number of buildings held by a single players, etc should probably become some of the triggers.

So, all in all, what I'm trying to do it put together an exploration/civilization game with dice placement, tile laying/puzzle and area control mechanisms. Tile laying is a major part of the game and I want it to be really fun, so I think adding random (but flavorful) events should spice it a lot. Players will need to explore, but I don't want it to be just a puzzle. I want them to think twice before venturing into a new tile. Like "oh,what a niiiiice place to build. But wait, there's this "explore" icon, should I really do it? Or should I place this common tile and just make my island a little larger?"

I expect the game to last approximately 120 minutes, so I came up with a fairly small board, so players should encounter each other at the very first rounds of the game, and more importantly, discover they were colonizing the very same island, so battles must take place (granting 0 points for a disputed island should get the job done).

OK, there's a lot more information. I'm developing this idea for almost a year now, so it seems to me a good part of it is already in place (no one's better than your wife be critic about your game, eh?). Hence my concern in improving its flavor. I already think it works (can still get way better tho), but I don't want it to be "just another exploration game".

Thank you all in advance!

/r/tabletopgamedesign Thread