Century: The Spice Route

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Century: The Spice Route
Game data
author Emerson Matsuuchi
graphic Fernanda Suarez
publishing company Plan B Games
Publishing year 2017
Art Card game
Teammates 2 to 5
Duration 30 to 45 minutes
Age from 8 years

Awards

Century: The Spice Road (English original title: Century: Spice Road ) is a card game by game designer Emerson Matsuuchi for up to five people from 2017. The game was released internationally as the first game of the newly founded Canadian publisher Plan B Games as the first part of a trilogy from Century games.

In 2017 it was awarded the Austrian Game Prize for Games in the category “Games Hit with Friends”. In German-speaking countries, the game was distributed via Abacusspiele , but in the meantime the distribution has gone to Pegasus Spiele . Internationally there are numerous other versions, each with their own sales partners.

Theme and equipment

The game is a card game in which the other players try to harvest spices using the best possible combination of cards, which is set up as part of a deck building , to trade against other spices and finally to sell them for the highest possible profit.

Spices from the game Century: The Spice Route

In addition to the instructions, the game material consists of:

  • five caravan cards, each with ten storage spaces for spices,
  • two starting cards each for five players (10 starting cards),
  • a set of 43 dealer cards,
  • a set of 36 point cards,
  • 20 metal gold and silver coins,
  • four spice bowls and
  • 105 wooden cubes (spices) in four colors for turmeric , saffron , cardamom and cinnamon .

Style of play

At the beginning of the game, the spice bowls are filled with the various spices and placed in ascending order from turmeric (yellow) to saffron (red) and cardamom (green) to cinnamon (brown). The dealer cards and the point cards are shuffled and placed in the middle of the table. The first six cards in a row of the dealer cards are revealed, the first five cards of the point cards. The silver coins are placed above the second point card, the gold coins are placed above the first point card. Both stacks of cards are placed as a draw pile behind the last revealed card. Each player receives a caravan card and two starting cards, depending on the order in which the game is played, all players also receive a starting stock of spices.

Alternatives per turn
  • Play card from hand
  • Purchase a dealer card
  • Rest
  • Collect points card

In the game, the players take turns playing clockwise, starting with a starting player who is shown on the caravan card. The players can alternatively perform one of the following actions per turn:

  • play a card from your hand and perform the action shown on it,
  • purchase a dealer card,
  • rest or suspend to take back all cards that have already been played,
  • take a points card by redeeming spices.

The hand cards are made up of the two start cards and additionally purchased dealer cards. These enable various actions, which are indicated by symbols on the cards. Spice cards, on each of which spices are depicted in one or more colors, can be taken according to the specified dice and placed on the caravan card. Conversion cards, recognizable by the colorless dice and the upward pointing arrow, allow you to upgrade a given number of spices. Spices can be exchanged according to the specifications using exchange cards on which colored cubes are depicted with an arrow in between.

In order to get a dealer card from the open display, it must be bought. Their position in the display is important: the player must place one of his spices on each card in front of the desired card. A player who wants to take the first card does not pay anything and can take any spices on it. The gap created by the purchase is closed by sliding the following cards open and at the end a new card is revealed from the draw pile.

Coins from the game Century: The Spice Route

Point cards can be acquired when a player pays the number of spices indicated on the card. He can then take the card and, if it is one of the first two cards, also one of the coins above. When the stack of gold coins on the first card is used up, the silver coins are pushed on there. The resulting gap is closed by sliding the following cards and at the end a new card is revealed from the draw pile.

The game ends after the round in which a player has taken his fifth point card or, in the case of two or three players, his sixth point card. Then each player adds up his points from the point cards and adds one point for each silver coin and for each spice still on the caravan with the exception of turmeric and three points for each gold coin. The player with the most points wins; in the event of a tie, the player among the highest placed who was last to move wins.

Century: Golem Edition

With the Century: Golem Edition , Plan B released a thematically revised version of Century: The Spice Route , which deals with the trading of crystals in a fantasy world called Caravania. In this version, the players play traders who travel the golems' trade routes and harvest crystals that they bring into trade. The game mechanism corresponds to that of Century: The Spice Road , the game material is however adapted to the fantasy world and instead of the wooden cubes crystals are traded. The graphic design for this version was done by Justin Chan and Chris Quilliams .

Bonus cards

Also in 2017, Plan B released a set of three bonus dealer cards, with the help of which the player can take individual cards back into his hand.

Development and reception

The game Century: The Spice Road was developed by Emerson Matsuuchi , the managing director of Nazca Games under the title Spice Road and should appear at Nazca Games. In 2014 Matsuuchi showed the completed prototype to the manager of Plaid Hat, Colby Dauch, and agreed with him to publish it as a caravan together with both logos . Colby came up with the idea of ​​publishing the game under two themes with the same game mechanics and leaving the players with which theme they want to play. Shortly afterwards, Plaid Hat was taken over by Z-man Games (F2Z entertainment) and Caravan was adapted to the design of Z-Man, but kept the two versions. Caravan was due to appear for the 2016 International Match Days in Essen, but shortly before that Z-Man was bought by Asmodee . Sophie Gravel, head of F2Z entertainment, contradicted some points in the takeover agreement in order to be able to set up her own company. She also retained the rights to Caravan and founded Plan B Games in Canada. The idea of ​​the two versions of Caravan was abandoned for the time being, instead the game was launched under the name Century: Spice Road as the first part of a planned three-part series of independent games in different language versions that could be combined with the other games in the series. The illustrator for the game is the Chilean artist Fernanda Suárez , who did the design for Caravan at Plaid Hat and who also designed the games Winter of the Dead and Ashes: Rise of the Phoenix Magicians .

The game appeared as the first game of the newly founded publisher in separate editions in English, German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Polish and Spanish / Portuguese and is distributed by various sales partners in the respective countries. In Germany, the game was released for the Nuremberg Toy Fair 2017 and was distributed in German-speaking countries via Abacusspiele , while the Austrian publisher Piatnik distributes the game in Hungary. In the meantime, however, sales in Germany went to Pegasus Spiele . Further distribution partners are Devir for the bilingual Spanish and Portuguese versions, Asmodee for the Dutch / French and Italian versions, Arclight for Japan, Cube Factory of Ideas for Poland, Broadway Toys LTD for China and Mandoo Games for Korea.

In the Year of the game was Century: The spice route together with the games fable juice and MicroWorld with the Austrian Game Prize Game of the Year Award in the category "Games Hit with friends" as well as the International Gamers Award nominated.

At GenCon in August 2017, Plan B also brought out the fantasy edition Century: Golem Edition with illustrations by Justin Chan and Chris Quilliams. Additionally, a set of bonus cards for Century: Spice Road was released as promotional material.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Game instructions Century: Die Gewürzstraße
  2. ↑ a b Century: Golem Edition in the BoardGameGeek game database (English); accessed on September 18, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Century: Spice Road - Bonus Cards in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on September 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ Martyn Poole: Emerson Matsuuchi - Century: Spice Road Q & A. Interview with Emerson Matsuuchi , August 9, 2017; accessed on September 20, 2017.
  5. ^ Century: Spice Road on the website of the illustrator Fernanda Suárez; accessed on September 20, 2017.
  6. ^ New in the distribution of Abacusspiele: Century: Die Gewürzstraße. Press release from January 24, 2017; accessed on September 18, 2017.
  7. ↑ Versions of Century: Die Gewürzstraße in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on September 18, 2017.
  8. ↑ The award-winning games 2017 at the Austrian Game Prize Game of Games ; accessed on September 19, 2017.
  9. ↑ 2017 nominees for the International Gamers Award ; accessed on September 19, 2017.
  10. ↑ We Heard You! Century: Golem edition releasing at GenCon 2017! Press release from Plan B Games; accessed on September 19, 2017.
  11. ^ Century: Golem Edition in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on September 21, 2017.

Web links