Century: Spice Road Century: Golem Edition
Century: Spice Road is the first in a series of games that explores the history of each century with spice-trading as the theme for the first installment.
In Century: Spice Road, players are caravan leaders who travel the famed silk road to deliver spices to the far reaches of the continent for fame and glory.
Number of players: 2 - 5
Game duration: 16 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
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Play Century: Spice Road and 963 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Setup
The first player gets 3 turmeric, the second and third player get 4 turmeric, the fourth and fifth get 3 turmeric and a saffron.
Five cards from the purple point deck are placed in a line, with the deck to the right of the cards. Gold coins equal to twice the number of players are placed on the leftmost point card, and the same number of silver coins on the second point card.
Six cards from the orange merchant card deck are placed in a line below the point cards.
Each player gets a 'collect 2 turmeric' and an 'upgrade 2' card as starting hand.
Gameplay
On your turn, you can either play a card from your hand, acquire a merchant card, claim a point card or rest (pick up all cards you have played).
Playing cards from your hand
The first type of merchant card you can play from your hand are resource cards. These allow you to gain spices shown on the card.
The second type is upgrade cards, which allows you to upgrade spices twice, whether it be one spice upgraded twice or two upgraded once each. For the 'Upgrade 3' merchant card, you can upgrade three times. You can upgrade only once as well if you wish.
The last type is a trade card, which allows the player to exchange spices for other spices (usually stronger ones). The trade can be done multiple times if the player desires to do so. All merchant cards can only be played again if you rest.
Acquiring a merchant card
Merchant cards can be bought for an increasing price, the further to the right the card is. The first card on the left is free, but any cards further along require more spices. To buy a 'deeper' card, you must place a spice cube on each of the cards left of the card to buy. Any merchant cards will go straight into your hand after buying. If a card you buy has spice cubes on it, you gain them instantly.
Claiming a point card
To claim a point card, pay the spices indicated and take it. You will also receive one coin from the corresponding pile if there are any coins above the card you purchased. If the gold coins are ever depleted, the silver coins shift to the leftmost position. After a point card is purchased, immediately replace it and move any old cards to the left to fill the gap. The new card goes on the far right.
Resting
If you rest, take back all the merchant cards played by you. No other action can be taken after this on your turn.
Spices
You can only have at most 10 spices at the end of your turn, and must discard any excess. You can choose which spices you want to discard from your hand.
The spice ranks from low to high are:
| Turmeric | ➔ | Saffron | ➔ | Cardamom | ➔ | Cinnamon |
End of Game
When a player buys their 5th point card (or 6th in a 2 to 3 player game) the game will end at the end of that round.
Players score points on their point cards, 3 points for each gold coin, 1 point for each silver coin and 1 point for each spice higher than turmeric (yellow).
The player with the most points wins. If there is a tie, the tied player who took the most recent turn wins.
Variants
Golem Edition: Players can also play with the golem edition. In that case, the crystal ranks from low to high are:
| Yellow | ➔ | Green | ➔ | Blue | ➔ | Pink |
All card distributions are the same.
