Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 8 out of 10

   Allein

   After the first game, the emotions were in the spirit of "well, sort of nothing." After the second - “to hell with it, I won’t play it again in my life”, after the fifth - “I want more and more!”. The coolest feature of the game is those unbalanced characters that make you want to spit at the same time and try to find the perfect winning strategy against the "imba" in the hands of your opponent. What’s also cool here is the abundance of various actions, and the choice between them is the choice between good and very good, and at the same time there are never enough worker dice for everything at once.

2. 8.5 out of 10

   ajie426

   2的思考量明显大增 1适合推新，因为每一轮要走到固定的点上还是比较容易规划的 2就不行，因为要考虑的维度更多了，熟悉成本比较高 但是一样很好玩，各有各的乐趣，依然高分好评

3. 8.5 out of 10

   4Corners

   If you have played the Voyages of Marco Polo, you have played this game. Right up front, this should be an expansion, don't give me the excuse that it's "too big"; the Venice expansion had more components! Ridiculous to have to rebuy all of the components. That said...this is probably a better variation of the original game. 5 rounds, you start with a "broken" unique player power (less characters to choose from, but hopefully/likely expansions will follow), and you're trying to score the most points by: a) completing contracts- this is harder in this game, but more logical, as you have to actually visit cities before getting access to contracts, 2) establishing your presence in cities (you have a card similar to the 2 route cards from the original, and you are incentivized to visit as many unique symbol cities as possible for end game points), 3) getting all of your houses out on the map (same as the original), 4) some small cities and some large cities may provide points each round (same as original game). On your turn, you roll your dice, and use them each turn as "workers". Some spaces need certain values, and if another player has placed ahead of you, you have to pay to use the space (and money can be tight). You can also do optional actions, using camels (buy a wild black die, reroll a die, modify a die, and a new one, upgrade a travelling pass, which are useful for shortcuts on the map, they pay out an income each round, and they may be a criteria for your end game point scoring card). In addition to money and camels from the original game, there is a new resource, jade, which is used for paying some travel tolls, and also for getting better resources at the market. And about the market, it changes/improves each round. The components are essentially the same as the original (good quality), the gameplay is very much the same, but there are some subtle tweaks which make a difference. Travelling is much more important/central to this game, and they have modified the travel action somewhat, for the better. Contracts are harder to access, which is good. There is a new action space which is 2 random city cards each round, which adds to the variability significantly for such a small change. There are some special cities that you want to reach as they have excellent permanent action spaces, but they often pull you away from being efficient with your travel. All in all, a great game, but really should've been an expansion. Hopefully this at least gets more support going forward. Own the [boardgame=322454]Caravans[/boardgame] mini expansion.