Limitations & Empowerment - Reviewing Marco Polo II: In The Service of the Khan 

Thanks! Do you use a fan solo variant? If so, I’d love to try it. I hope you enjoy multiplayer!

@@TheCardboardHerald Yes! It’s in the forums for MP1 and it’s just called “Marco Polo solo (Beat your own high-score)”. It’s super simple, but it helped me learn the game and I enjoyed trying to beat 100!

@@BoardGameDave cool, I’ll give it a try. I’ve been checking out fan solo variants lately, most recently with Fort & Brew.

@@TheCardboardHerald I love that there are solo variants for almost any game on BGG! So great for getting to know a game and challenging yourself!

Great insight and thrilled that you can give the context of your logged plays to back it up. What are your top 3 logged board games & how long have you been keeping track?

@@TheCardboardHerald Thanks Jack, well I like deep deep dives. Some would say to a ridiculous degree. Top plays: Carcassonne 863. For real. I used to play competitive tournaments and placed to a good but not great top level. Lords of Waterdeep, 425 plays. Obsessive family favourite since its publication. #3. Splendor, 187 plays. Again, family driven requests and so easy to get to the table. I've been keeping track since signing up on BGG where i just had my 9th anniversary there! Keep up the great work. I appreciate the journalistic approach and I mean that in the best way :)

Depends, I didn't like the first one, so I'm bias here. To me it's a no brainer that the second is hands-down better than the first. But if you loved the first, maybe you won't love the things they did to it? I've played with some people who were both more ambivalent or even really enjoyed the original, and all seemed to agree they liked this one more. If I were you, I'd seek out at least one more opinion from someone who loved the first just to make sure. But yeah, if you felt some of the things I did about the original, even if they didn't bother you as much, I think this new game preserves the best parts of Marco Polo I and is yet much better.

That depends on what you are going for. Brass is a much leaner and focussed thing. I enjoy this more than any Brass I've played, but I have a lot of respect for the elegance of Brass.

I'll chime in to say, for me these are two different economic Euros. Brass is much more of what I think of as an economic game, (taking loans - money feels like a stronger resource in that game). MP is more of the typical Euro resource management, which is not a bad thing. This might not make sense but I rate Brass higher as a multi player game (for the right group) but I probably prefer to play MP because it plays great at any player count (thought I prefer it at two) and it's easier for me to find willing player(s).

I love it at 2.

@@TheCardboardHerald thank you. 🔥 i have to try it then. 😂