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

Get Ready

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

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

Place gold tokens

Place a pile of gold tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the leftmost point card

Place silver tokens

Place a pile of silver tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the second point card

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

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

Organize spice cubes

Separate cubes by color and place them into bowls in order: Yellow (Turmeric) → Red (Saffron) → Green (Cardamom) → Brown (Cinnamon)

Deal Caravan cards

Take one grey-backed Caravan card per player, including the first player symbol card, shuffle and deal one to each player

Determine first player

The player with the first player symbol on their Caravan card goes first

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.

Choose one action

On your turn, you must perform exactly one of four possible actions: Play, Acquire, Rest, or Claim

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

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

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

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

Rest action

Take all previously played cards from in front of you back into your hand

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

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

Note cube supply

The cube supply is unlimited; use substitute materials if a color runs out