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The clever thing about these three games is that as well as being excellent gateway games in their own right, any two of the three can amalgamate, providing a new bumper-game, entirely. However, in this tutorial we’re only focusing on how to play the one that set the ball rolling – Century: Spice Road. So clamber onto your camel, join the caravan and let’s trade some spices… Century: Spice Road – Set-Up Century: Spice Road has quality components and the artwork is great. The only bad points I can see to this game is that the theme is a bit on the bland side (pun intended) and at no point do you feel like a spice trader (Splendor has the same problem) and the game does feel like a solitaire experience as no real player interaction is involved. Therefore getting spices and, more importantly, the orange Points cards is kind of a big dill (groan) to winning. But how do you accomplish that, we hear you ask? Rules Breakdown Place golden coins above the Point cards – specifically, the first (left-most) card in this row. Put as many gold coins here as the number of players, multiplied by two (eight, for example, in a four-player game). Place the same number of silver coins above the second card.
The simple setup and playtime helps keep her interested and even though the theme is not one that really shines through, the game has enough fun and depth to keep all levels of gamers invested throughout the play time.At some point during your first match – and a few turns into every game afterwards – the juggling of cubes and cards turns from a cautious step-by-step experiment into a fully confident spice-trading ballet as you lay down patterns of acquisition, upgrade and exchange cards to work towards the next rainbow of condiments required to score big. The game-end triggers once any player completes five Points cards (in a four- or five-player game; six Points cards in a two- or three-player game). Play resumes, however, until the end of the round – so each player has the same number of turns. Now the value of each player’s Points cards are added up. Additionally, gold coins earned are worth three points each; silver coins are one point each; and any non-turmeric cubes left in player’s Caravans are one point each, too. Most points wins! Sage Advise There’s a wonderful moment in Century: Spice Road when everything comes together. You’ve spent the first few turns slowly filling your caravan with the dinky coloured cubes that represent the four spices – turmeric, saffron, cardamom and cinnamon – being traded, exchanging them for more valuable seasonings using upgrade cards and filling out your hand of dealers, who allow you to swap one combination of cubes for another. You may have even cashed in a handful of your spices for one or two of the scoring cards, perhaps claiming a gold or silver coin from the two leftmost slots for bonus points. You do not have to execute all conversions that are possible according to the card. In the illustrated example, you were allowed to turn a yellow turmeric into a red saffron and do the same again, or convert the converted saffron into a green cardamom.
Overall, I am very pleased to add this to my collection and always have a great time when it hits the table. I will be looking forward to the next installment of the Century trilogy and it will be great to see how they all work together. The other card everyone starts with – two grey cubes with an upwards-facing arrow – is an Upgrade card. When played, this allows you to upgrade any two spices in your caravan into the next-most valuable spice, or to upgrade one spice cube twice. Return spices from your caravan to the bowl and claim the upgraded version of it. To play a hand card, place it face-up in front of you and trigger its effect. There are three types of trader cards that you can play: Spice Card At the end of your turn, if you have more spices on your caravan than you can transport, you must return spices of your choice into the bowls until your upper limit is reached.
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If you play a conversion card, you may convert spices on your caravan into the next most valuable spice (i.e. yellow (turmeric), red (saffron), green (cardamom) , brown (cinnamon)) the number of times depicted on the card. Century: Spice Road is played using the actions above, players will collect spices buy market cards and trade for point cards. The game ends when the first player gets their fifth point card. Turns are fast and even our first play only lasted 45 minutes. Final Thoughts
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