Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Spice Merchant comes across like a minimalistic Reiner Knizia design in which cards are both stocks in the value of goods and the goods being sold.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Betting and Bluffing
Risk resources on uncertain outcomes while disguising intentions or information.
Commodity Speculation
Buy or influence goods whose values change before they are sold or scored.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Secret Unit Deployment
Place or assign units secretly before their positions are revealed.
Read the full game description
Spice Merchant comes across like a minimalistic Reiner Knizia design in which cards are both stocks in the value of goods and the goods being sold. Each player starts the game with a hand of seven spice cards, with six types of spices in the game; each player secretly stashes 1-2 cards (depending on the round), and these secret investments will be scored at the end of the round. Six markets are available in the center of the table for players to create demand. On a turn, a player either lays one card face up in front of him – thereby openly showing a stock in a particular type of good – or plays 1-4 cards of the same spice onto a market. Once a market has a type of goods on it, only goods of the same type can be added to it. No market can have more than four cards on it, and the same good can by played into at most two markets. The player then refills his hand to seven cards. When all the markets have cards in them or two markets are full with four cards, the round ends. Each player reveals his secret stock; for each stock card that has a market devoted to it, the player scores 1-10 points, depending on the type of spice and the number of cards in the market. A player can score an identical spice card only if two markets carry this spice. Players clear the markets, then begin a new round. The player with the most points after four rounds wins! Souk features the same gameplay as Spice Merchant, but has a player count of 3-5 instead of 3-4, with a different number of cards in the game and different proportions for each spice.