The Voyages of Marco Polo is a 2015 game, so it's no longer a new game. I had come across many positive comments, but had never looked into it. Now that the Malaysian authorities are imposing stricter movement controls again due to the COVID-19 situation, Allen, Han and I arranged to play some games online. We picked this game. It's a rather typical Eurogame, in which you collect resources then try to convert them to points as efficiently as possible. I was predisposed to like it due to the positive comments. Now that I have played it, I find that I do enjoy it immensely. It is not ground-breaking, but it does player competition, long-term planning, conflicting priorities and scarcity well.
In this game you play Marco Polo's business partners. You start your business trip from Venice. There are many paths to choose from, and usually you will try to visit Beijing at the other end of the map (because you get points for doing so). It is not mandatory though. Each time you stop at a city or town, you leave behind a trading post, and these trading posts give you benefits. During the game you will collect goods and use them to fulfil contracts, which give you points. There are a few different ways to score points, and the two main categories are contracts and traveling. The benefits you gain from cities and towns are mostly related to collecting goods or converting them to points. The game is played over five rounds. Every player gets five dice. You place your dice onto the board to perform actions, using a worker placement mechanism. A round ends when everyone runs out of dice.
The starting location Venice is at the top left corner, while Beijing is at the top right. The cities give a bonus to the first player who stops by. They also give visitors an additional spot to place a die. This is equivalent to giving players a new ability. The towns usually give visitors some resources. These are awarded on the first visit and at the start of every round thereafter.
On the game board there are many different spots you can place your dice to perform actions. Some spots only allow one player, i.e. the traditional worker placement mechanism. Some spots allow more than one player, but those who are not first to come must pay a fee. Some spots require just one die, while some require two or three to activate. How powerful your action is often depends on the die value. In the case of spots requiring two or three dice, you look at the die with the lowest value. Higher valued dice are usually better, e.g. they let you collect more resources, or travel further. However if you place a high valued die at a spot which has been used by another player, the fee you have to pay will be high. Some spots don't always need high-valued dice, e.g. if you only intend to travel a short distance, the value-1 or -2 dice are sufficient.
Sometime you gain black or white dice. These are dice in non-player colours. You can use them as how you use dice in your colour. More dice is always good, because it means you get to do more stuff. What's particularly important about black or white dice is sometimes they allow to perform an action more than once per round. Actions spots which allow multiple players normally only let each player place dice once per round. However black and white are not player colours, and are thus exempt from this restriction.
At the start of the game everyone gets two secret missions. Each mission specifies two cities, and the bonus points if you visit them both. Of the four secret mission cities, each one you visit also gives you points. The more you visit, the higher the total they score for you.
You always have two spaces to carry contracts. Contracts are how you convert goods into victory points. You always start the game with one contract. During the game you may claim contracts from the board. Whoever fulfils the most contracts by game end earns a bonus.
Every player gets a character card at the start of the game. These characters are powerful and break some rules in a significant way. They cause differentiation between players and affect their strategies. This above, Matteo Polo, was the character I drew. He gave me an extra white die and a free contract every round. The extra die was certainly handy, and I saved some effort collecting contracts from the board. However the free contract was a random one, so I had to adjust my play to follow it, as opposed to picking a contract of my choice based on my situation.
Allen drew this character, Raschid ad-Din Sinan. He did not have to roll his dice. He could set them to any value he wanted. This was crazy powerful! However we later found out that there were ways to mitigate this seemingly unfair advantage. If Han and I quickly claimed spots which Allen needed, even if he could easily set his dice to 6, it would be expensive for him to place these 6's on already occupied spots.
Han's character was Berke Khan. This was the cost-saving guy. When Han placed dice on already occupied spots, he didn't need to pay any fee. This saved him much headache when picking spots.
This is one of the city special powers. These powers are randomly set up every game, so there is some variability. This particular power allows players (who have placed a trading post) to place a die to get gold. If you place a 6, you get 3 gold! Gold is the most precious type of trade goods in the game.
This is a town special power. When you arrive you collect one camel and three coins. You do this again at the start of each round thereafter.
The Play
All three of us were new to the game, but it felt smooth and brisk. The character powers were all strong and impactful, and I enjoyed that. The mission cards more or less dictated our travel plans. Perhaps it was because I couldn't tell which city and town powers were particularly good, so I decided on my route purely based on my mission cards. I would try to make use of the city and town powers as best I could.
I played green. The four cities on my mission cards were marked with the gold markers on the board. At this point I had visited two of them, Moscow and Karakorum. Whenever you stop your movement in a city or town, you automatically drop a trading post. If you are just passing through, you don't get to drop a trading post. At this point I had three trading posts (green) on the board. Han (blue) had travelled in another direction. He went south from Venice. Allen (red) was still loitering in Venice.
Black dice can be purchased by players at 3 camels a piece. Both Han and Allen were aggressive in buying them, and they were snapped up quickly. I was often short on camels and rarely bought extra dice. Maybe it was because I already had one free white die every round, so extra dice felt less urgent to me. I was often late in player order, and Allen who came before me usually took the camels action first. I could still use the camel space, but if I wanted to place a high valued die, it would be expensive. So sometimes I had to be content with placing a not-so-high die to collect some camels.
Allen (red) caught up and overtook me to arrive in Beijing first. In fact, he smugly overshot and paid Xian a quick visit before heading back to Beijing. Since he was first to arrive, he claimed the 10 Victory Points spot and I had to settle with the 7VP spot. Han had gone to Egypt, the Middle East and India. In the end he didn't go to Beijing. Third place was worth 4VP, which might not be so attractive to him anymore.
Dice placement spots in the screenshot above with dice stacked on top of others are those which allow multiple players. On the right, that section requiring two dice is for traveling. The last player to place dice here becomes the start player for the next round. Turn order is important. Often players will intentionally delay traveling in order to fight for the start player privilege in the next round.
The Thoughts
When I break down The Voyages of Marco Polo, it is just another typical Eurogame of collecting resources and converting them to victory points as efficiently as possible. The two main ways of scoring points are related to (a) fulfilling contracts, i.e. collecting goods then cashing them in, and (b) travelling, which requires spending money and camels. However, I enjoyed it a lot, and it took me some thought to articulate why.
The game manages scarcity very well. There are many things you want to do and feel like you can achieve, but you are often just that little bit short of hitting the perfect outcome you want. In the game we played, I had hoped to visit all four cities on my secret missions. I started planning this end game from Round 4. Eventually I was just a few coins short of being able to complete my grand project. So frustrating, and so tantalising.
I enjoy how powerful the character abilities are. The rule differences are simple, but they have tremendous impact on how the players play and interact with one another.
The game has some engine-building, which is something I like. You feel you are progressing and building towards something. The new abilities you gain from visiting cities and towns are your engine.
The Voyages of Marco Polo is not revolutionary, but it is well crafted and well balanced.
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