Macao: Cubes and Punishment

It's time to get down to business.  First order of business: there will be no pandas this week.  I know that's disappointing, but the pandas need their rest too.

No, this time I am talking about a board game, which I promised this blog was about.  And I keep my promises.

Today's game is Macao. (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/55670/macao)  The box calls it "An exciting strategy game for clever captains and wise governors."  That's a very narrow audience for a game, but luckily I fit the bill.

The Captain Morgan pose is a nice touch. Clever, Captain!

The basic idea of the game is that you are in the port city of Macao, and you are trying to earn prestige (which is a fancy way of saying "points") by, well, doing stuff there.
This 'stuff' mostly involves building up the city, shipping goods in your little wooden boat meeples and giving away gold.

BOAT MEEPLES!!!!

The city, where you buy stuff and build stuff.

Over the course of the game, you get cards that you can activate by playing cubes of the same colors as those given on the card.  Once you do this, the cards can do cool stuff.  Like give you points or move your boat meeple, or get you more cubes.
Every turn you roll very very pretty colored wooden dice, and the numbers and colors of the dice you choose (you get to choose 2, good things come in pairs) tell you how many cubes you get of each color AND also how many turns away until you get to use them.  This means you can take less cubes and use them sooner or more cubes if you are willing to wait to use them.  It's a neat game mechanic, really.

The pretty colored wooden dice and a couple of cards.  Fine craftsmanship, indeed.

You keep track of which turn you can use your cubes by a sweet spinny wheel.  It's got an arrow that points to "use these this turn."  Which works well, until you get too excited and spin it too many times or too fast and fling your cubes everywhere.  It's unfortunate, because as a clever captain or wise governor, getting overexcited is part of the job description.

The spinny wheel has things neat and organized for the moment.

About Cubes:  Wooden cubes are a staple of a lot of board games.  They are a 3D object bounded by 6 square faces, a regular hexahedron, if you will. Usually quite small. They are high in fiber.

Sometimes the cubes have meaning within the game's theme. Sometimes they are just cubes that do stuff.  I don't know which is the case in this game, because I didn't read the rules.

Trying to get the number and colors of cubes you need all in the same place for a single turn to actually do stuff requires thinking several moves ahead, and some luck.  Sometimes you feel absolutely paralyzed on a turn when you can't do anything you want.  Then you look up from your miserable pile of paper and wood and everyone else has a look on their face that says they are in the exact same boat [meeple].  

The most terrifying part of this game comes when you do something bad.  Like have too many unplayed cards or have zero cubes to play on a turn.  Then you get punished.  
Seriously, this thing is called a 'punishment marker.' 

Consider yourself punished.

This thing is worth negative 3 points.  Look at that glaring red "-3." But the worst part is that the rules specifically call this a "punishment". That word makes me feel like a puppy who just did something bad.

This puppy:

"I so sowwy. Pwease let me out."

That is not my puppy.  I would never put a puppy in the Box of Shame.  I would forgive him, because of adorable-ness.
For more Corgi adorable-ness: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-25-cutest-corgi-puppies-currently-online 

You looked at the Corgi puppies?  You're back now?  No, go ahead, look at some more Corgi puppies!  Take your time.  I understand.

Welcome back!

So here's our game that we played the other day.  A Tuesday I believe.  As good a day as any.

The beginning:

The empty canvas.

I like to ship rice.  I shipped all 3 rice (rices?) and got lots of points.  I like rice.  The chop sticks always give me trouble though.

My OCD is bothered by that middle one being upside down...

End of game:

So much stuff!  Looks cool, right?

Games tend to look super busy and super awesome at the end.  I believe this one is no exception.  Look at all the stuff!

See that orange token ahead of everyone on the point track?  That would be mine :)

This is what it looks like when I win.

By the way, I'm told I over-exaggerate how often I lose.  Maybe so, but if I convince myself that I never win, it makes winning that much more exciting.

That's the game.  It plays pretty quick, only about an hour.  And even though it is REALLY hard to do what you want,  that keeps things interesting.  I like this game.  In part because I won.  But mostly because the dice are pretty.

So there you have it.  I talked about a board game, as promised.  Like I said, I keep my promises.

But I lied about the pandas...