I need some safran... I will give you a stick of cinnamon
Century: Spice Road
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi
Artist: Chris Quilliams, David Richards, Fernanda Suarez
Published: 2017
Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 30-45 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.3
BGG Ranking: 352
Publisher: Plan B Games
Mechanisms: Action Retrieval, Deck Building, Hand Management, Open Drafting
Sleeves: 70x120mm
Game Description:
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.
Quick play overview:
Players take turns doing one of the 4 available actions until one player finished 5-6 Victory Point cards.
Possible actions:
- Take a card from the market place to your hand. First card in the row is free, but if you want to take a later card, you have to place a resource on each card that you skipped over.
- Play a card from your hand to collect, improve or exchange resources.
- Spend resources to collect one Victory Point card.
- REST: Pick up all your previously played cards back into your hand.
Final thoughts:
The game has an easy set of rules and simple game play… This is an extract of any trading/pick up and delivery game.
You will take a few turns to change the few resources into a lot of them and then score it.. and repeat this a few more times. It sounds boring, but for mathy players.. this game is fantastic.
The rule that you can do more than one of the same exchange if you have the resources, will push you into this frantic srearch for just one more resource, so that you can activate the next card one more time..
Players fighting for the same Victory cards, trying to race for the best ones or planing to wait that a player buys one, so your targeted card moves to the more profitable spot.. amazing.
FINAL SCORE:
Gameplay & How often I want to play it: 9/10
I love improving resources and trying to delay the REST for as long as I can. The racing for the best VP cards removes this game from a multiplayer solitaire genre. I plan to play this game for many years to come.
Art & Graphic Design:
The art is nice but I don't have time to check cards at all.. I can see only the icons and those are made very well.
Rules & Complexity:
Rules are simple to learn and in 5 minutes everyone can start playing this game.
The complexity comes from figuring out good combos of cards that save you a n action here and there, which is enough to bring you to the finish before your opponents.
Theme & Mechanism fit:
Theme is pasted on and mechnisms are fun but they don't make you think of trading spices in the market.
Fun & Replayability:
There is a ton of action cards and each game you will have different combos that will let you change resources in a different way. If you like the game at it's core, there should be almost unlimited replayability.