by greglios
Macao
Overview:
Macao is a resource management/development game for 2-4 players. Each player scores points by delivering goods to different ports, paying gold as a tribute, by activating cards and by claiming ownership of different quarters of the city. The player with the most points at the end is the winner. The game plays in approximately 2 hours.
Components:
The components of the game are of good quality, in line with all the other Alea big box games such as Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, etc. Each player has a tableau and a wind rose, as well as a wooden ship token, wooden scoring tokens and cardboard ownership tokens. There are also 6 coloured wooden dice, a bunch of cardboard goods and gold tokens, lots of wooden cubes in 6 colours, and two decks of cards. The cards are small but of good stock and more than adequate for the purposes of the game.
Rules:
As with previous Alea games the rulebook is well written, with a summary of each section alongside the main rules. The rules themselves are not too complex and can certainly be picked up within a round or two of playing. The cards themselves are not explained individually in the rulebook, however, and there seems to have been some problem with some of the translation from the original German. Some of the cards are not 100% clear on what they do and whether they can be used more than once per round, etc. I had to check Boardgamegeek to get rulings on some of them.
Gameplay:
The game is played over 12 rounds and this is easy to keep track of as there are cards placed along the side of the board and each round some of them are removed, indicating which round is being played.
At the start of the game each player chooses a card from a random selection of 6 and places it in their tableau. The tableaus all have space for five cards. Players also choose a cube to place next to the number one spot of their wind rose, and two cubes to place next to the number two spot. The 24 office cards are shuffled and two placed next to each of the twelve round spaces on the edge of the board. Turn order is determined randomly at the start of the game and afterwards is determined by the order of the players tokens on the ‘wall’ track.
Each round then proceeds as follows:
1) The two office cards for the current round are placed face up, along with four cards from the person/building deck. The totals are added from the bottom of the cards and the tribute table adjusted accordingly. Then in turn order the players must each choose one card and add it to their tableau. If a player already has five cards in their tableau they must discard either the new card or one already on the tableau and take a punishment marker (-3 victory points at game end).
2) The designated dice roller rolls all six dice and then arranges them into groups with the same number of pips. Each player then chooses two of the dice, takes the number of cubes equal to the pips on the dice they chose and in the colour of the dice they chose and places them next to the same number on their wind rose. For example, if I choose the black die and it shows a four then I take four black cubes and place them next to the four on my wind rose. Players may choose a die that another player has chosen.
3) Players then rotate their wind rose clockwise and take the cubes that the arrow now points to. If a player has no cubes they take a punishment marker.
4) In turn order each player then spends their cubes performing some or all of the actions described below.
Actions:
a) Once per round a player may take ownership of a city quarter. Each city quarter has a cost in cubes associated which the player must pay to the bank. Then the player takes whatever goods token is on the city quarter and places one of their ownership markers on instead.
b) Once per round a player may advance their turn order marker along the wall track. Moving one space costs any one cube, moving additional spaces costs any further two cubes per space. Thus moving three spaces would cost five cubes (1+2+2). If landing on the same space as another player the current player puts their marker on top. Turn order goes from the top down for markers on the same space.
c) Once per round a player may pay the appropriate amount of gold to earn the specified amount of victory points according to the tribute table.
d) As many times as they would like and can afford, a player may move their ship one space along the sea track by spending any cube. Ports count as a space but a player may deliver a goods token to the appropriate port (and gain the victory points immediately) without spending any cubes, if they are on the port space.
e) As many times as they would like and can afford, a player may activate a card in their tableau by paying the appropriate cost in cubes, as specified on the card. The player moves the card off the tableau and it is immediately ready to be used. Each card indicates when it can be used and how often. Players may use the abilities of their activated cards whenever it is appropriate.
Any cubes not spent during the action phase are lost and cannot be carried over to subsequent turns. Each round continues in the same way, with players following the four steps above. At the end of the 12th round player score bonus victory points for any cards that specify they give points at game end, as well as two points per city quarter in the player’s largest connected group of city quarters. Any inactivated cards on the player’s tableau at game end earns a punishment marker (-3 points). The player with the most points wins.
Review of game play:
The set up for the game is quite straightforward, as are items 1-3 above. Time and thought needs to go into the decisions of what card to take and what cubes to take but the actual implementation is easy. For the early rounds spending the cubes on taking actions is also fairly straightforward as you don’t usually have many cubes until some of the later rounds. Later on it can be a bit trickier to decide how best to spend the cubes. Do I take ownership of a particular city quarter now to make sure I get it, or do I advance on the turn order track to try to make sure I get the best choice of cards next round? Do I move my ship or cash in a cube for gold using a building in order to pay on the tribute table?
The different actions are all straightforward and so the time taken in this game is all about the thinking time of the best decision to make. Often these aren’t influenced by the other players but occasionally you have to change your plans due to a previous player taking the city quarter you were after or moving ahead on the turn order track, forcing you to try to keep up.
The fact that you can’t hold cubes over from turn to turn, have to take a card each turn, score negative points if you don’t activate cards throughout the game or don’t have cubes on any given round, all mean that you are forced to plan ahead and sometimes take cubes you otherwise wouldn’t have chosen. You need to think about the long term but cannot completely forget about the short term. Likewise if you only think about the short term then you are unlikely to do well in future rounds.
Overall:
This game has a good mix of strategy and luck. There is obviously a fair amount of luck in the card deck and also in the dice, but every player is in the same situation with the same options. It’s quite tough, to begin with, trying to plan so far ahead. The better cards in the game have a more difficult cost to pay, so a player has to make a choice between playing it safe or taking a few risks. A risk that pays off is often the key to victory as some of the cards can be quite powerful if you manage to get them out early enough, or get a good combination of cards out. There are ways to mitigate the luck by use of some of the cards or taking joker tokens from some of the city quarters, so to me it felt like the luck was just about the right amount. It offers variation in the game without dominating and making it into a random game where skill goes unrewarded.
My biggest gripe with the game is that some of the cards aren’t as clear as they could be, but overall I find this to be an interesting and intriguing game that offers some good strategic and tactical decisions.
Scores:
Components: 8/10
Rules: 9/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Fun: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
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