The Guild of Merchant Explorers

Yes — discovered villages immediately act as starting spaces and you may explore from a village you discovered as part of the same explore action (see pages 5–7, and the investigate example on page 6).

Remove all of your explorers at the end of each era and return them to your supply; villages, trading posts, treasure tokens, and discovery towers remain where they are (page 5).

You cannot place explorers onto the capital space, but the capital always functions as a starting point like a village for explore actions and it does not count as a village for goals (pages 4–5).

You immediately complete and score a trade route when you connect two cities with an unbroken chain (multiply the city values and take the coins), then place a trading post on one city; a city with a trading post can never be used to score another trade route, and if one placement connects three cities resolve the trade routes one at a time (page 7).

The first time an era card is revealed each player draws 2 investigate cards, chooses 1 to place in that era's slot and takes its action (discard the other); in later reveals you use the investigate card you placed for that era, and in Era IV you may use any of your investigate cards (page 6).

When you first explore a ruin place a treasure token and draw a treasure card: resolve any immediate effects right away; treasure cards without immediate effects are kept face-down and scored at game end, and revisiting a ruin with a token does not draw another card (pages 7 and 10).