review
Life is beautiful, beautiful with Jade!
Marco Polo II – im Auftrag des Khan
Dice-Rolling onwards-meandering
Travelling for years from Venice to Beijing despite experiencing only superficial contacts with any Tom, Dick, and Harry; and must everything on those trips really focus only on cash, money, and camels - this KHAN definitely not have been all, or KHAN it?
Right, because now there is also Jade! And with Jade we can not only explore completely new routes and cities (among them also the ones that we have encountered in other games, “Jaipur”, “Kashgar” and “Xanadu”), Jade is also extremely valuable in bartering and in meeting orders that are very rich in victory points.
In this new version, we may roll again before travelling and place or dice in turn on the various slots of the board, later joining a slot, if at all allowed, costs coins - already in 2015, „Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo“ established a new benchmark for „Dice-Placement“ (Deutscher Spielepreis, among others), and this central mechanism is also to be found in the sequel and in Part II.
If more or less static operations were possible in the predecessor game, and to be successful with only completing orders, simple staying at home can never be enough here. Hard core travel fiends will find that staying at home are barred from access to the orders that still have a particularly important role to play. Furthermore, you can garner quite a lot of extra points at the end of the game when you have a very visible presence in cities. This part of the game has been very much better implemented than with the former very restricted requirements which were in demand for reaching various cities; each of the 15 cities now shows one of nine crests, and the more of them you can occupy with one of your trade posts, the more points you score - and additional crests can also be acquired via other elements in the game.
Traveling costs can now be even higher, but on the other hand it is easier to acquire raw materials without impeding on the thrilling scarcity economy and the various decision dilemmas. “Guild” tokens are a new feature; they are, on the one hand, in demand for various travel routes, and, on the other hand - after their upgrade - also are available to provide extra income and victory points. A pleasant aspect in the acquisition of those “Guild “ tokens is that, with them, there is also a possibility that the one or the other Jade piece is available, which in turn serves as the “engine” for trading other raw materials. Also brilliantly and elegantly resolve is the variability in the general placement slots, in the market offer that partially changes with changing rounds as well as via two “city cards” which are directly available for all to make use of them to resolve special and exclusive actions in each round.
The Magnificent Seven?
The seven new characters - who, again, provide us with various special abilities - of course provide ample food for discussion if or who is (too) weak or strong; when in doubt, better play with all of them. And very pleasant for the „veterans“ among us - the „older“ characters are partially compatible with this version, and it is also mentioned that games with five players (using the first expansion „Die Gefährten des Marco Polo“) should be possible, albeit - due to the Venice board in there - rather idiosyncratic as regards to topic.
As the new board contains more information, it looks - at first glance - like a graphically somewhat overloaded „Spot ....“ image, but you get used to it rather quickly. The design of the wooden components is now more practical („bigger“ now is really „bigger“). The rules are, again, very well structured, even if there is already a FAQ file for some questions about the rules, the use of symbols is very intuitive and even solitaire travelers are provided on the publisher’s homepage with a solitaire version.
Harald Schatzl
Players: (1) 2-4
Age: 12+
Time: 90+
Designer: Daniele Tascini, Simone Luciani
Artist: Dennis Lohausen
Price: ca. 55 Euro
Publisher: Hans im Glück 2020
Genre: Dice placement, resources management
Users: For experts
Special: 1 player
Version: de
Rules: cn de en es it kr nl
In-game text: no
Comments:
Improved game components
Good new ideas
Very much recommended for “Marco Polo Newbies”
Game components from the previous edition can be partially used
Thematically less harmonious
Compares to:
Auf den Spuren von Marco Polo, Bora Bora, Coimbra, Rajas of the Ganges
Other editions:
999 Games (nl), Devir (es), Giochi Uniti (it), Korea Boardgames (kr), Swan Panasia (cn), Z-Man (en)
My rating: 6
Harald Schatzl:
„Marco Polo II“ is a varied, very tactical-strategic resources managment and travel / development game using dice placement as main mechanism, meant for experienced players. Again, very opulently equipped and exceedingly well designed is somewhat „rounder“ and less frustration prone to play than the previous version and therefore - due to a somewhat higher complexity - easier to access.
Chance (pink): 1
Tactic (turquoise): 3
Strategy (blue): 2
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 1
Interaction (brown): 1
Dexterity (green): 0
Action (dark green): 0