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Century: Eastern Wonders is a game that many people have been anticipating since around June 2016. It is the second in a series of three games from designer Emerson Matsuuchi and publisher Plan B Games.
Century: Spice Road was the first in the series, which was a resource management card game about trading spices. Century: Eastern Wonders changes the setting to the seas and is a standalone game, but more intriguing is that it can be played with the original Century: Spice Road to create a third, different game.
The Gameplay
Until now we didn’t know much about gameplay, but The Dice Tower recently posted a full first impressions video which told us lot more about how Century: Eastern Wonders will play – for me it looks like a very interesting sequel.
The game has a board of hexagonal tiles which allow for a variable setup – tiles show port tiles, where victory point tiles are placed and market tiles where you can trade cubes. Each player has a boat to move around the tiles of the board and on each turn you either do a trade action to upgrade cubes, or if you are on a port you can cash in cubes for points. The game also has trading posts and placing these gets you upgrade tiles for points or special abilities.
I am very excited to try Century: Eastern Wonders because it adds some spatial and pick-up delivery aspects to the core concepts of Spice Road. I look forward to exploring different ways to plan a route and a cube engine on the variable board – something I will likely not be that great at, but it really adds a puzzle aspect that I enjoy.
Compatibility
The intriguing part about this three-game series is that all three games will be compatible. I wasn’t sure whether that would only be true when all three games had been released, but now it looks like the first two titles will be combined into one game too. A rule set is included in Century: Eastern Wonders that allows you to play a different game using the components of Eastern Wonders, as well as some of the cards from Spice Road.
The card play is very much like Spice Road, but the cards have a secondary function which allow you to move on the board. You can then use the board actions in the same way as in Eastern Wonders. It seems like a very simple way to combine the two games and I’m not sure that it’s quite as exciting as I had hoped.
I think the game will just feel like playing Eastern Wonders with added complexity. I’m more excited to play the core Eastern Wonders game, but I’m looking forward to trying both when the game releases.
Century: Eastern Wonders - Coming Soon
Century: Spice Road is a game we own, but don’t play as often any more. We’ve been holding on to it to explore the idea of combining it with the upcoming Century: Eastern Wonders.
Eastern Wonders definitely looks like a deeper game, with more to offer for seasoned gamers. However, if you and your friends are familiar with Spice Road, I think that Eastern Wonders looks like a great next step into more complex games and I’m definitely excited to give it a try when it releases at the end of June 2018 in the UK.
