“Travel to cities along the silk road, trading silk, spice, gold & jade along the way.”
Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/283948/marco-polo-ii-in-the-service-of-the-khan
Playing Time: 60-120 Minutes
Weight: Medium
Genre: Dice activation & Manipulation
Designer: Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini
Players: 2-4
As an explorer and merchant in ancient China, you will travel the countryside, join guilds, trade for goods, complete contracts and building trading posts. Dice activation is the watchword here – you can take one of 7 actions by placing one (or more) of your five dice on that location. In many cases, the strength of the die determines the power of the action you’re trying to accomplish, so the game also has a fairly liberal dose of dice manipulation as well.
But what the game is REALLY known for is being the ‘ludicrously overpowered player power game’. Each player chooses a character at the start of the game, and in most cases you read the description of what they can do and say ‘wow, that sounds really broken.’ One gets free gold, one gets effortless travel, one gets to copy any outpost tiles anyone else acquires. They ARE all bonkers, and yet, somehow, the game balances itself flawlessly.
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