The Voyages of Marco Polo

Name: The Voyages of Marco Polo
Brand: Simone Luciani and Daniele Tascini
Rating: 3.8 (26331 reviews)

You roll the dice, then you spend the whole game outsmarting them.

3.8/5

Players2-4

Play time40-100 min

WeightMedium-Heavy

Ages12+

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The verdict

One of the smartest dice games ever built, where bad rolls become puzzles instead of punishments. If you can live with light player interaction, this earns a permanent shelf spot.

Best for: Euro fans who want dice without the helplessness

The full review

What it is

Here's the trick that makes this one sing. You roll your dice at the start of each round, then place them like workers on the board to grab goods, travel, take contracts, or pull money out of thin air. Designers Simone Luciani and Daniele Tascini built it so a space gives you its action at the value of your lowest die. So a fistful of ones isn't a disaster. It's a different plan. That's the whole appeal in one sentence.

The catch

Now the honest part. This is a low-conflict Euro, so if you crave knife-fight interaction you'll find this a touch lonely. Players mostly run in parallel, bumping each other off shared spaces for a small gold fine and little else. Reviewers also keep flagging the components: the chunky tokens that stand for three resources look almost identical to the single ones, and they get confused across the table all game. And the asymmetric characters, while balanced, mean your first play can wobble before it clicks.

Who it's for

But that complaint list is short, and the love is loud. The asymmetric powers are the headline. One player rerolls freely, another picks any die face at will, and they look broken until you watch them all win. It's medium-heavy, ages 12 and up, two to four players, and it wraps in roughly 90 minutes. It won the 2015 Deutscher Spiele Preis for good reason. If you want a dice game that respects your brain, get this one.

What other players say

This write-up is grounded in real reviews and player discussion, not just one opinion. A few worth reading: