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There is no game board though so there is no actual simulation of travel. The theme comes across in the art and the ‘caravans’ players use to store their spices. With those you will gain the ability to produce and transmute your spices in order to get the required quantity and combination that lets you purchase victory points. These spices will be traded for victory point cards and bonus tokens, or used to buy production or transformation cards from whatever back-alley black market you encounter in your travels. You play a spice merchant, travelling the eponymous spice road with a caravan filled with saffron, cardamom, turmeric and cinnamon. That tinkling noise is the sound of victory – it’s one of the few times he gets to hear it when we play.Ĭentury: Spice Road is a deck-building and engine-building game with a trading theme. They have a satisfying clink when you throw them on your pile of riches, or when you jiggle them in your hands to taunt Mr Meeple and demonstrate how well the game isn’t going for him. Not actual gold or silver unfortunately – my guess is that would make the cost of the game prohibitive – but the metal coins are a really nice touch that adds to the production value considerably. In Century: Spice Road the coins are real metal. In most games these would probably just be plastic or cardboard. Purchasing the second victory point card of the five available will get you a bonus in shiny silver. If you purchase the leftmost victory point card you get a gold token assuming they haven’t already all been taken. In Spice Road, they’re gold and silver coins which are used to make the first two victory points cards in the supply more attractive purchases. The cubes are pretty standard – there’s not much to be said about them but I was super excited by the inclusion of what are essentially bonus tokens. The cards are more generously sized than regular cards: they’re also thicker and shinier and presented with beautiful artwork. Open the box and you’ll find high quality components inside. You can almost smell the rich spices and the dry sands. Just look at this box art: it’s sumptuous. The first thing I want to say about Century: Spice Road is that it is tremendously aesthetically appealing. Was it a good purchase? Is there any chance it can topple Splendor? Let’s find out! We got to try it out in the much more relaxed environs of the hotel lounge on the Saturday. By the time we had an option to give it a go, Mr Meeple had already bought it sight unseen.

We tried our best to test it out at the Expo, but it was in such high demand we never got close enough to try it out on the first day. Since I love Splendor, I was pretty keen to try a game with similar but allegedly better game mechanics. I think that’s supposed to a good thing even if it sounds like the name of a spree murderer from the 80s. Indeed, it has been described by some as the “Splendor killer”. It looked gorgeous and the gameplay seemed similar to that of Splendor – that ticked all kinds of boxes in my head.

As soon as I saw it though I knew we had to get a copy. I had never heard of Century: Spice Road until the Press event at UKGE 2017. TL DR: It's excellent! You should make every possible effort to try it!