Century: Spice Road
Century: Spice Road Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Setup
To set up a game of Century, follow these steps in order:
- Shuffle the Point cards (orange back) to form a deck, then draw 5 cards and place them face up in a row to the left of that deck.
- Place a pile of gold tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the first (leftmost) point card. Then place a pile of silver tokens equal to the number of players x2 above the second Point card.
- Among the Merchant cards (purple back), there are 10 cards with a purple border on the face up side. These are the starting cards. Among them, each player gets one ‘Create 2’ and one ‘Upgrade 2’ card to form their starting hand, as shown here. Any remaining starting cards are returned to the box.
- Shuffle the remaining Merchant cards to form a deck. Draw 6 cards and place them face up in a row to the left of that deck.
- Spices are represented by cubes. Separate them by color and place them into the bowls. Note: Make sure the order of the colored cubes matches the order shown above: Yellow (Turmeric) > Red (Saffron) > Green (Cardamom) > Brown (Cinnamon).
- Take a Caravan card (grey back) for each player in the game, being sure to include the card with the first player symbol on it, shuffle them and deal each player one card in front of them. The player with the first player symbol on his Caravan card is the first player.
- Place yellow and red cubes according to the table below on each player’s Caravan card.
- 1st player gets 3 yellow cubes
- 2nd player gets 4 yellow cubes
- 3rd player gets 4 yellow cubes
- 4th player gets 3 yellow and 1 red cube
- 5th player gets 3 yellow and 1 red cube
Taking a Turn
Century is played over a series of rounds. Each player will take one turn each round (starting with the first player and going clockwise).
On a player’s turn, he must perform 1 of the following actions:
- Play: Play a card from your hand
- Acquire: Acquire a Merchant card
- Rest: Take all previously played cards back to your hand
- Claim: Claim a Point card
Play
To play a card from your hand, place the card face up in front of you and execute the card’s effect. There are 3 types of Merchant cards that can be played in this way:
Spice Cards
When playing a Spice card, take the number and color of cube(s) shown on the card from the bowls and place them on your caravan. In this example, a player would place 1 red cube and 1 yellow cube on his caravan.
Upgrade Cards
When playing a ‘Upgrade 2’ card, you MAY upgrade a cube on your caravan 1 level and then upgrade a cube 1 level again. It is not mandatory to upgrade all cubes from an upgrade card. For example, you may upgrade a yellow cube to a red cube and then upgrade another yellow cube to a red cube, or you can upgrade a yellow cube to a red cube and then upgrade that red cube to a green cube.
Trade Cards
When playing a Trade card, return the number and color of cube(s) shown above the arrow from your caravan to the bowls, then take the number and color of cube(s) shown below the arrow from the supply and add them to your caravan. A trade can be done any number of times in a row as long as you have the appropriate cubes available.
Acquire
To acquire a Merchant card, first pay for it by placing ANY cube from your caravan on each Merchant card to the left of the card you are acquiring and then take that Merchant card into your hand. Note: When acquiring the leftmost Merchant card, no cubes are placed. The card is free.
Claim
To claim a Point card, you must have all of the cubes shown on the point card in your caravan. Return those cubes to the bowls. Take the Point card and place it face down in front of you. After claiming a Point card, fill the empty slot by sliding the cards to the left, creating an empty slot just to the left of the point deck; then draw a card from the deck to fill that empty slot. If you claim the leftmost or second leftmost Point card, take one gold or silver token from above that card. If you take the last gold token, slide the pile of silver tokens so it is now above the leftmost Point card.
Caravan Limit
At the end of a player’s turn, if that player has more cubes on his caravan than it can hold, he must return cubes of his choice to the bowls until he is at his limit. A player’s caravan can hold up to 10 cubes.
Cube Limit
The cube supply is not limited. If a supply is exhausted, use a substitute material (e.g. players run out of yellow cubes and use candy to track additional yellow cubes).
Game End
Once a player has taken his fifth Point card (or sixth in a 2-3 player game), the game will end after players finish out the current round of play. At that point, each player counts all his points on his Point cards, his gold/silver tokens, and the remaining cubes on his caravan. Each gold token is worth 3 points. Each silver token is worth 1 point. Each non-yellow cube is worth 1 point.
The player with the most points wins. If there is a tie, the last player to take a turn wins the tie.