Isabella of Castile

Ability
You produce an extra resource and gains two extra Blue tokens.

During colonization, you may pay 1, 3, or 6 resource to gain +1, +2, +3 colonization point.

Isabella in History
This Queen of Spain, called Isabella, has had no equal on this Earth for 500 years." These great words describe none other than Isabella of Castille. But did you know that she wasn't even supposed to be a queen?

Being third in line for the throne, Isabella strategically waited for her time to come, and cunningly battled her way through intrigues and succession disputes, until she finally became the Queen of Spain in 1474. During her reign, she managed to unify the then fractured Spain, and she imposed various successful reforms that helped to bring down the crime rates to a minimum and stopped inflation.

Spain started to prosper, and with the money she decided to back up Christoper Columbus' expedition in 1492, which happened to be the mission to start the golden age of Spanish exploration and colonization and making Spain one of the main powers of the world.

Designer's note
As you can see, the abilities of the card pretty much copy Isabella‘s real life achievements. The extra rock represents economical prosperity, and the extra blue tokens the crime reduction – generally, the abilities to multiply and protect the Spain wealth. And, of course, then there is an option to invest that wealth to the exploration. Well, she can’t employ Columbus to do that, as he is independent in our game, but there will be sure other brave sailors in your nation to take up the challenge.

(I hesitated a bit to have both Columbus and Isabella in the game, but well, after reading more about this incredible woman, I just had to give her credit by including her as an Age I leader. Plus, her set of abilities is interesting and pleasant to play with.)