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I know next to nothing about China in the 15th century. What I do know is that the combination of Surprised Stare Games, David J Mortimer and Alan Paull, tends to lead to historical-conflict-based-gaming-magic. Let’s see if this follow up to the exceptional The Cousins’ War does just that.
Home and Away
It turns out the Ming dynasty faced quite the conundrum. In The Ming Voyages, the Ming player is aiming to complete all 7 voyages with its famous junk treasure fleets. However, as well as looking abroad, sending voyages away to return with riches from distant shores, threats closer to home must also be considered.
The barbarian hordes are looking to break through from the north and the barbarian player is looking to get through the Great Wall and settle in the borderlands. There’s nothing like having difficult neighbours to put a pin in one’s grand voyaging plans.
The players look to achieve their goals through playing cards for command points, whilst trying to avoid providing their opponent with too powerful a counter action. This card play system is riffed on in several games in the series, namely The Cousins’ War, The War of the 3 Sanchos and here in The Ming Voyages.
The aspect unique to The Ming Voyages is that the Ming player decides which cards end up in the barbarian player’s hands. The Ming player is the only player to draw cards at the start of their turn and, after both players have taken their turn, they swap over their remaining cards.
As the Ming player, you need to always be mindful of what cards you are passing over. Do you play the 3 command point action yourself, believing you can manage the counter action of the barbarians? Or do you pass it over to them, knowing you’ve completed the voyage that will give you a strong counter, should the barbarian player use it?
Piling on the Pressure
The 2 players have differing pressures on their turns. The barbarian player has the easier time of it, as their goal is to attack the borderlands and establish settlements to make it harder for the Ming player to turf them out again. They will be using action points for building up their hordes, attacking and constructing settlements.
Meanwhile, the Ming player will be using action points to construct their junks, raise gold to fund the voyages and raise troops of their own to defend the borderlands. This latter part is essential to stop the barbarian player from winning, but does not advance the Ming player towards their victory condition of completing all 7 voyages.
The voyages themselves use a neat push-your-luck mechanism. The Ming player chooses how many junks to send (it will be all available - there’s no reason not to, as all extra junks are still available to use next time) and how much gold to spend. They then roll a die and need to get less than the total number of gold and junks on the voyage. If successful, one junk is placed on the voyage space and the rest returned. Spent gold is discarded.
This means that completing early voyages is relatively cheap and easy, provided the Ming player has constructed a number of junks. As the supply of junks runs low in the end game, more gold will need to be sent to ensure the success of latter voyages.
The Ming player needs to decide how cautious to play so mitigate the vagaries of the die roll. If they are spending actions building up a large gold supply to guarantee success, they may be providing the barbarians enough time to overrun the borderlands. Too little, and the voyage risks failure, thus wasting a turn.
Don’t forget that those powerful 3 command point cards, that allow swift building up of gold, or multiple voyage roll attempts, are also going to be giving the barbarian player counter actions when played too…
Voyages’ End
The Ming Voyages has a lot going for it. It’s a very unique, asymmetric 2 player game, that plays briskly and has a clever card play system. It’s the sort of game you can easily play twice back-to-back, swapping sides after the first game and deciding on the overall winner. Indeed, the rulebook suggests as such and I’m inclined to agree. The sides play differently enough and are both fun, that I want to try out the other side after playing.
The combat can be quite swingy, though this can be mitigated by reserving a card to allow for rerolls in combat, rather than playing it for command points. This is less fun than playing a card and the temptation to never reserve is high, especially amongst players new to the system. It’s important to not overlook it though, as the barbarian player needs to win combats for victory. Winning combats as the Ming player will buy more time in which to complete those crucial voyages.
The Ming Voyages is well produced, with screen printed junks and barbarian settlements. The card quality is good and the large size Surprised Stare Games uses, means they are nice and clear. What art is here fits in well with the game, the map on the main game board being the standout.
A nice addition is the presence of a well designed solo mode. This allows the player to play as the Ming side, with the bot taking control of the barbarians. A remarkable job has been done here and the result is it plays the same as the two player game. The only downside for solo gamers is that there is no option to play as the barbarians.
If you enjoy historically themed games, or dice combat, or crafty card play, then The Ming Voyages would be an excellent choice. The game is easy to grasp, plays fast and there are interesting decisions to be made each turn. The theme and mechanisms are different enough from typical two player conflict games to make The Ming Voyages really stand out in a crowded field. Luckily, you won’t need the vast coffers of the Ming Emperor to add this one to your collection either!
