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At the end of the 17th century, Macao – the mysterious port city on the southern coast of China – is a Portuguese trading post in the Far East. The players take on the role of energetic and daring adventurers. Many exciting tasks and challenges await the players, whether they are a captain, governor, craftsman, or scholar. Those who chose the wisest course of action and have the best overall strategy will earn the most prestige at the end.
Macao lasts twelve rounds, and in each round players select one new card from a display specific to that round, two of which were revealed at the start of the game and others that were revealed only at the start of the round. The deck of 96 cards includes all sorts of special abilities, with the more powerful actions costing more resources to put into play.
One player rolls six different-colored dice, then each player selects two of those dice (possibly the same ones chosen by opponents), then places cubes equal to the number and color of the two dice on a personalized "ship's wheel." For example, if a player chooses the blue die that shows a 5, he places five blue cubes on the ship's wheel position five spots away from the current round. (A player can never claim more cubes than the number of remaining rounds).
Players rotate their ship's wheels each round, then use the cubes available to them in that round to perform various actions: activating cards selected in that round or earlier rounds, buying city quarters and collecting the goods located there, moving that player's ship around Europe to deliver those goods, acquiring gold coins, taking special actions with card previously activated, and advancing on a turn order track.
Players score points by delivering goods, paying gold coins, using the powers on their cards, and building in Macao. Whoever has the most points at the end of twelve rounds wins.
Macao is number 13 in the alea big box series, with an estimated difficulty on the alea scale of 6/10.
A One-Sided Blasphemous Act?!
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- casting spells — Players cast spells, such as 'blasphemous act'.
- Combat — Involves attacking and defending with creatures.
- Counters — Used to track game state, like creature power and toughness.
- Damage — Players take damage, with commander damage being a specific type.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Zabaz is now a 1515. That's a big bub.
- That was insane.
References (from this video)
- Enjoyable once learned
- Interesting tension from round end trigger
- Clever card design
- Dual tracks provide variety
- Difficult to learn initially
- Ocean and Jungle
- Great Western Trail
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Multiple tracks — There's a track where you're moving around the ocean on a boat. Um, and each stop will allow you to do different things. Um, and then there's an additional track at the bottom there with the uh jungle space looking stuff where you have your explorer moving as well.
- One-way track movement — that one is, I guess, more technically the one-way track that you were looking at because you can only go one way through that jungle.
- Round end trigger — There is a very specific round end and whoever starts to trigger that first, it gives it you can do one more move action and then the round is done.
- worker movement — It's a little bit like a worker placement game but it's worker movement in a specific direction.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- For me it's no longer eligible for my list since it is a game that we published took Tokaido Duo and soon this year Namiji.
- the track changes almost every round because all of your everybody's generally building buildings as you go through that track.
- This is kind of a masterpiece of of oneway action tracks.
- It uses this mechanism three times throughout the game in really three different ways. So, I guess three different one-way action selection tracks.
- My first thought when I think of one oneway track are all of the kids games of like um life and Monopoly and Shoots and Ladders and Candyland and stuff.