When reviewing anything – books, movies, TV shows, and, yes, board games – it\u2019s often too easy to describe something by comparing it to another more familiar title, or to say it\u2019s a combination of this title and that title. Come to think of it, that comes up quite often in baseball too – readers and especially TV\/radio hosts often ask me \u201cwho does this prospect remind you of?\u201d I generally don\u2019t like to answer those questions, because I find those comparisons too facile and often not very revealing – you lose a lot of nuance, and the comparison becomes an anchor point for whoever is listening or reading. If I tell you such-and-such a pitcher reminds me a lot of Roy Halladay, you\u2019re not going to think of anything but Roy Halladay – and any further elucidation comes in the form of a negative statement, like \u201che\u2019s Roy Halladay but not X.\u201d<\/p>\n
So now I\u2019m going to violate everything I just said earlier – Century Spice Road<\/a> is really a lot like Splendor, in a good way. It has one significant twist in the mechanics that make it a great game for people who like Splendor (and really, if you don\u2019t like Splendor<\/a>, I\u2019m not sure if we can be friends) but want something a little different. Splendor is a shade more elegant, and gets points for bringing this general mechanical framework to the table, but Century Spice Road is perfect if you\u2019ve decided you want something similar to Splendor but not exactly the same. <\/p>\n Century Spice Road is the first part of a game trilogy from Emerson Matsuuchi (Reef, Volt), the second part of which, Century Eastern Wonders<\/a>, was out at Gen Con last week, with part three due out in 2019. The first two games can apparently be combined into a single game called Sand & Sea, which I will try out when I get my copy of Eastern Wonders.<\/p>\n
![](\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B071DXCT5L&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=meadowpartyco-20&language=en_US\")
<\/a>Spice Road\u2019s theme is a familiar one in the tabletop world – I\u2019ve lost count of how many games involve merchants trading spices – while the rules are quite brief and simple. Players will collect spice cubes in four colors (turmeric, safran, cardamom, and cinnamon), and try to trade them in for bonus cards that can be worth 8 to 19 points depending on the cube costs. Players collect those cubes by playing cards that allow them to just take two or three cubes form the supply, and, more frequently, by playing upgrade cards that allow them to trade in some combination of cubes for another combination of cubes that is more valuable. (It\u2019s not a zero-sum game; you\u2019re trading with the market, which apparently is full of merchants who suck at math.) The cubes\u2019 values are ordered, with turmeric the least valuable and cinnamon the most. Those values are reflected on all of the upgrade cards and on the bonus cards, so cards that require more cinnamon and cardamom cubes will be worth more points.<\/p>\n