How to Play

Century: Spice Road

2-5 players 30-45 min 7.3 Board Game Geek Rating

Players are spice traders traveling ancient trade routes in this card-driven strategy game. Each turn, acquire trade route cards, play cards to harvest or exchange spices, fulfill orders for points, or retrieve played cards. Victory goes to whoever accumulates the most points after someone claims their fifth scoring card.

Published 2017

Century: Spice Road

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

1
Shuffle Point cards
Shuffle the orange-backed Point cards to form a deck, then draw 5 cards and place them face up in a row to the left of the deck
2
Place gold tokens
Place a pile of gold tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the leftmost point card
3
Place silver tokens
Place a pile of silver tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the second point card
4
Distribute starting cards
Each player receives one 'Create 2' and one 'Upgrade 2' card from the 10 purple-bordered starting cards to form their starting hand
5
Prepare Merchant deck
Shuffle the remaining purple-backed Merchant cards to form a deck, then draw 6 cards and place them face up in a row to the left of the deck
6
Organize spice cubes
Separate cubes by color and place them into bowls in order: Yellow (Turmeric) → Red (Saffron) → Green (Cardamom) → Brown (Cinnamon)
7
Deal Caravan cards
Take one grey-backed Caravan card per player, including the first player symbol card, shuffle and deal one to each player
8
Determine first player
The player with the first player symbol on their Caravan card goes first
9
Distribute starting spices
Place cubes on each player's Caravan card based on turn order:

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

1
Choose one action
On your turn, you must perform exactly one of four possible actions: Play, Acquire, Rest, or Claim
2
Play a Spice card
Place the card face up in front of you and take the number and color of cubes shown from the bowls onto your caravan
3
Play an Upgrade card
Upgrade cubes on your caravan up the color hierarchy (Yellow → Red → Green → Brown); the 'Upgrade 2' card lets you upgrade twice but upgrading is not mandatory
4
Play a Trade card
Return the cubes shown above the arrow from your caravan to the bowls, then take the cubes shown below the arrow; this trade may be repeated any number of times if you have sufficient cubes
5
Acquire a Merchant card
Pay by placing one cube from your caravan on each Merchant card to the left of the desired card, then take that card into your hand
6
Rest action
Take all previously played cards from in front of you back into your hand
7
Claim a Point card
Return cubes matching those shown on a Point card from your caravan to the bowls, then take that card face down
8
Observe caravan limit
At the end of your turn, if you have more than 10 cubes on your caravan, return cubes of your choice to the bowls until you have 10
9
Note cube supply
The cube supply is unlimited; use substitute materials if a color runs out

Winning

How to claim victory.

1
Trigger game end
Once any player takes their fifth Point card (or sixth in a 2-3 player game), finish the current round so all players have equal turns
2
Calculate point card score
Count the point values from all collected Point cards
3
Score gold tokens
Each gold token is worth 3 points
4
Score silver tokens
Each silver token is worth 1 point
5
Score remaining cubes
Each non-yellow cube remaining on your caravan is worth 1 point
6
Determine the winner
The player with the most total points wins
7
Break ties
If there is a tie, the player who took their turn last in the final round wins

watch & Learn

Let the pros teach you with these top videos.

Century la ruta de las especias | TUTORIAL FÁCIL

Century la ruta de las especias | TUTORIAL FÁCIL

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Century Spice Road- How to play

Century Spice Road- How to play

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FULL rules

Looking for the full details? Grab the complete rulebook as a downloadable PDF.

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