Zheng He: Admiral of the Ming Voyages is a solitaire game that recreates the voyages of the Ming treasure fleets in the early 1400s. In the game you take the role of Zheng He, commanding the fleet as it sails the Indian Ocean, earning glory for the emperor, and keeping favor with the ministers of the court so the voyages can continue.

Your fleet is represented by a deck of 20 cards at the start of the campaign. Each card represents a specific type of ship that historically constituted the fleet: Equine, Patrol, Supply, Treasure, and Troop. Throughout the course of your campaign, you will have the opportunity to upgrade your ships, thus increasing the fleet’s capabilities to take on greater challenges. 

Each Fleet card has several sections:

TOP: Type of ship

CENTER: One or more Action Ratings. This shows what the ship contributes towards a particular type of Action when discarded. 

BOTTOM LEFT: Circles indicating the Minister Point cost of the card. You begin your first voyage with cards with gray circles and can upgrade to more powerful cards with yellow circles later in the campaign. 

BOTTOM RIGHT: Some cards have icons indicating they give you Tribute, Exploration, or Supply points. The total number of these icons in your deck is determined at the start of the voyage, and impacts certain actions.

Managing your hand of Fleet Cards is the heart of the game in Zheng He. At the beginning of a voyage you shuffle your deck and draw seven cards to form your starting hand. Each turn you can use as many or as few cards in your hand as you like to help accomplish a range of actions. But at the end of your turn you only draw one new card into your hand, so managing your hand of Fleet Cards is critical. There are two ways in the game to gain additional Fleet Cards. One option is to choose not to take any action at all on your turn, which allows you to draw one extra card, but this option is inefficient and usually only used when your fleet is in dire straits. The other option is to take a Resupply action that we’ll cover in more detail below. 

Your Fleet Cards are used to take the following actions:

SAIL (Any Ship): The Sail action allows you to move to a new port. You may move to any port that is within a total of four distance from your current port. If you are traveling along multiple Sea Lanes, you do not interact in any way with the ports you skip over. 

REPAIR (Equine Ship): Certain events and actions may add Damage cards to your Fleet Deck. Damage cards have no actions on them, and thus make your fleet much less efficient and effective. The Repair action allows you to remove Damage cards from your Fleet deck. If you succeed, you may remove a number of Damage cards from your deck equal to your Supply rating. The Repair action can be augmented by bases constructed through the Build action. 

SCOUT (Patrol Ship): The Scout action allows you to see what is in unvisited ports. You use the Scout action in combination with your Exploration value to gain Exploration points, which you can then spend to learn what is in ports that you have not yet visited. 

RESUPPLY (Supply Ship): The Resupply action allows you to draw cards equal to your Supply rating. This is the main way in the game to gain a large number of fleet cards efficiently. The Resupply action can be augmented by bases constructed through the Build action. 

NEGOTIATE (Treasure Ship): The Negotiate action allows you to improve your relations in the port where the fleet is located. You can use Tribute tokens to augment your negotiations. 

TRADE (Treasure Ship): The Trade action allows you to exchange Tribute tokens for Goods tokens. Good tokens are worth Minister Points at the end of a voyage, which allows you to continue the campaign and upgrade your fleet. 

BUILD (Equine Ship): The Build action allows you to construct a base. Bases help the Resupply and Repair actions and may be two levels – Level 1 or Level 2. If you Resupply where you have a Level 1 Base, you draw an extra two cards. If you have a Level 2 Base, you draw an extra three cards. Similarly, if you Repair in a port with a base, you can remove an additional 2 or 3 Damage cards.

DEPOSE (Troop Ship): The Depose action allows you to replace the leader of a port and quickly improve relations in the port as well as the surrounding region. 

This chart provides a quick reference of the Fleet card actions used in the game:

As you can see, the Fleet cards really are the heart of Zheng He. They represent all the capabilities and resources available to you. Success or failure in a voyage will depend on how well you manage your Fleet deck. Fortunately, at the end of each voyage you have the opportunity to spend any Minister Points you earned on upgrading ships in the fleet, making them more powerful and unlocking the ability to sail further and take on new challenges. In our next article we will provide a sample of play that demonstrates exactly how the Fleet cards are used in the game.

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