our review
all across Asia
Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo
Always one camel length ahead
In the year 1260 young Marco Polo is taken on a journey by his Uncle Matteo and his Father Niccolo Polo, both Venetian gem merchants by profession, they want to sell their wares in the Far East. The Polo trio travels to Constantinople and continues their journey to Bejing, and from there return back to Venice. In 1271 the three of them set out again and will take 24 years until Marco Polo sets eyes on Venice again.
In this game players embody one of the characters involved in those journeys, for instance Marco or Matteo Polo, Berke Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan), Wilhelm von Rubruk or Johannes Carprini (both travelled to Mongolia approx. twenty years before Marco Polo and documented their travels in reports). You start the journey in Venice and can win victory points by traveling to cities from there and by completing orders.
The game is played over five rounds. After the selecting of character cards which have different strength and abilities and also force players into different strategies for the game, each player is given two target cards which list various locations on the board where he is supposed to set up trade posts to score additional points at the end of the game.
At the start of each round, bonuses are paid out that have been unlocked by towns already reached or which are provided by character cards. Then players roll their five dice which are then placed like workers on the game board to implement actions. In turn, players resolve one of six action options that are available, by placing dice on the respective areas, plus some optional additional actions before or after the main action. The round ends, when all players are out of dice.
Those six basis actions are: „Take five units of money“ – regardless of the dice result used; „Go to the Bazaar“ – in relation to the the value of the die you can acquire different amounts of goods or camels. Camels are necessary for travelling and to complete orders, goods, that is, Pepper, Silk and Gold, are necessary to complete orders. To be able to acquire the more valuable Silk, you need to use two dice, and for Gold you must use three dice. “Seek the Khan’s Favor” – at this action each player can place only one dice maximum. The value of the die you want to place must be equal to or higher than the value of the dice already placed, you receive one ware of your choice and two camels. “Take new orders” – you place one die and can take up to two orders from the display, so you can choose from 1-6 cards in relation to the die result. Remember, you have only two spots for active orders. If you take a third one, you must discard another one. “Travel” – two dice must be placed to move a marker across Asia. The lower value determines how for you can travel: Two pips give you two steps which cost seven money units; tree steps cost twelve money units, five steps 18. Additional costs stated on the route you traveled along – camels or money – must also be paid instantly. In the city in which you end your travel movement you may set up a trade post. In small cities players receive a bonus which is paid out instantly and later on at the start of each new round. In big cities the action case on the city card is from now on available to the player. Furthermore, the first player who sets up a trade post in a big city receives a once-only trade post bonus, for instance five money units, or two Gold, or another order, or two camels, and so on. “The City Cards” – When a player has set up a trade post in a big city, the city action for this city is available to him. Those city actions are, as well as the trade post bonuses, assigned to cities randomly at the start of the game and usually enable players to do trade exchanges, for instance money for wares, camels for victory points, and so on.
What do you do when a case is already occupied? No problem at all! Dice are simply stacked on top of each other, but additional costs accrue in relation to your own die of lowest value: If you are the second player who wants to acquire Gold and use three dice with pip numbers of 3, 4 and 5, you must pay three money units of additional cost. There is only one exception: The actions on the city cards can only be used by one player and for the action “The Khan’s Favor” exactly four slots are available, you cannot stack dice for this action.
In addition to the main action a player can, before and/or after his main action, use one or several of five options for supplementary actions: „Complete one order“ – all wares and camels necessary to complete an order are discarded and the player receives the reward stated on the right side of the order. Orders always demand wares and camels for completion and reward the completion with victory points, wares, new orders, additional steps for traveling, money or black bonus dice for use in one round. “Take three money units“ – you place one die on the money bag depicted on the board; this action always gives you three units of money, can be selected several times by the same player, regardless of the value of the die you place. “Re-roll one Die“ – at the cost of one camel. „Change value of one dice by one“ – you discard two camels to lower or raise one dice value by one. „Buy one black die“ – for three camels you can acquire one black die, which is rolled instantly and added to your dice available for action. You must discard this die at the end of the round. If all five black dice have already been acquired by players, the action is no longer available.
When all players have used all their dice, the round ends. New orders are displayed, bonuses awarded and whoever was the last one to travel is new starting player.
After five rounds a final scoring is done: The target cards, dealt at the start of the game, are scored, 10 units of money are worth one victory point, there are victory points for trade posts in Beijing and one victory point for two goods each (only if you have a trade post in Beijing) as well as seven points for the majority in completed orders. If you did build eight of your trade posts, you score five victory points, if you managed a ninth trade post it gives you an extra ten victory points. The winner is whoever scored most victory points, ties are resolved in relation to remaining camels.
Opinions are divided on Marco Polo. A short poll done during one of our games evenings resulted in options from “endless variations” and “ we want an expansion” to „the game is already decided when characters are chosen“ and „if you roll higher values you have an advantage”. In my opinion, it is absolutely correct that the selection of character has a decisive influence on the choice of your strategy for the game. If you choose Wilhelm von Rubruk for your character and do not concentrate on traveling, you will in all probability not win the game, as Wilhelm can also place trade posts in city that he passes through and not only where he ends his move.
Higher dice values give you potentially more goods, more steps, more choice when acquiring orders, but are more expensive, if you do not use an action as the first player to do so. To even this out, each player who does not achieve a result of 15 in total at the start of a round receives the difference to 15 in camels and/or money. As the travel routes feature only a few crossroads you must also determine at the start of the game which route you are going to use. Often you have made a wonderful plan which then breaks down because you do the action as the second player, must pay additional money for the die placement and in the end lack one money unit to pay for your ingenious move. This is where the frustration sets in, at least for me. Turning back is deadly, as you take the same route a second time, pay the stage costs again – valuable camels – and receive no new bonuses.
Out of a total of 31 city cards in the game only nine are used in any game. This results in a certain variability for the game, but the differences in the city cards are only very minimal and, for me, do not provide any replay value, as the city cards are rather monotonous, as are the orders. Each and every single one of the 44 orders says: Discard x camels and x wares and receive x victory points and bonus x.
The components are of high quality and I like the design of the game. What I find a bit irritating is that a big camel (wooden piece) is equal to three small camels (a wooden piece only a little bit smaller) and very similar in size, so that mistakes can happen very easily. The same goes for the wares – Gold, Pepper and Silk.
The rules are very extensive and might be a bit too much at the start. In the booklet of 16 pages plus four pages of supplement to explain the symbols there are various references to other pages or the supplement which results in hectic leafing through the pages (I have not used the revised 2nd edition of the rules, sorry!)
All in all, Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo is definitely a game for strategists and frequent players only, which can be lots of fun if you immerse yourself in it and do not throw in your towel after the first play.
Carina Katinger
Players: 2-4
Age: 12+
Time: 100+
Designer: Daniele Tascini, Simone Luciani
Artist: Dennis Lohausen
Price: ca. 40 Euro
Publisher: Hans im Glück 2015
Web: www.hans-im-glueck.de
Genre: Development, worker placement
Users: For experts
Version: de
Rules: de en fr jp nl pl pt
In-game text: no
Comments:
Asymmetric player abilities from characters
Permanent lack of resources
Complex rules
For experienced players
Compares to:
Kingsport Festival
Other editions:
Z-Man (en), Filosofia (fr), 999 Games (nl), Albi (pl), Arclight (jp), Devir (pt)
My rating: 3
Carina Katinger:
Not an easy game, but a game for strategists and experts which needs a few training games to be fun.
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 3
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 3
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0