Century: The New World

6th August 2019

We have arrived at Tuesday evening and thus come to gaming at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking.

Century: The New World is the 3rd and final instalment in the 'Century trilogy'.
You can read my post on Century: Spice Road here.
You can read my post on Century: Eastern Wonder here.
Century: The New World can be combined with the other 2 games to create one massive game, or in other combinations to create a total of 7 games.

Century: The New World differentiates itself from the other 2 games by being a worker placement game. I guess the game board represents plantations or farms and trading posts of the early settlers of the new world.

Whats in a game?
If you've played either of the 2 previous games, you'll be on somewhat familiar ground here and recognise some of the components:

• 4 bowls of wooden cubes: They come in yellow, red, green and brown (See what I mean!). They represent 4 different commodities that can be traded.
• Personal game boards: These boards have spaces for up to 10 trade goods (Yes really!). There is a difference though! These boards have 3 spaces for 'bonus tiles', these are explained later.

New Components:

• Game boards: There are 6 of these, 3 are used in every game and 1 of the remaining 3 are used as the 4th and final board in the game. The boards are placed next to each other in a 2x2 grid to form the main playing area
• Oversized cards: These may look a bit like some of the cards from Century: Spice Road, but differ a ittle. These cards are bought with commodities and give you victory points and also unlock other abilities or bonuses. They also have symbols that can be used to score points
• Bonus tiles. Used to score bonus points.
• Exploration tiles: These are placed on the game boards (More will be explained in set up.).
• Meeples: Lots and lots of tiny meeples. These are the workers of the game. Strictly speaking, they are 'settlers'.

How's it play?
First there is of course set up.

• The 4 game boards are set up as described above.
• 4 cards are randomly dealt and placed face-up along the top edge of the board.
• The bonus tiles are shuffled and also placed face-up along the top of the board, in little stacks just below the cards.
• The exploration tiles are shuffled and randomly placed face-down on the allotted spaces on the main game board. When a exploration tile is turned face-up, it become a new option to place workers on to.
• A personal game board, some commodities and meeples are given to each player. Each player starts with 6 meeples, these can go up to 12.

Play commences.
Taking turns, the active player can perform 1 of 2 actions.

• Place workers: A player can place workers on to any available space (Face-down exploration tiles are not available until turned face-up). The amount of workers that need to be placed varies according to the space. If another player has already placed workers on a space, then the active player must use 1 extra meeple on that space to displace the workers already on it. Finally a player cannot displace their own workers on a space.
• Rest: This allows the active player to take all of their workers of off the board.

OK, the 2 different actions have been explained, but what really needs explaining are what the different spaces do when workers are placed on them.

• Trading/producing commodities: These spaces allow players to upgrade or gain cubes, such as turning 2 yellow cubes into 2 red ones etc.
• Buying cards: Placing workers in these spaces allow the player to buy the card above it. The player must also pay the card's cost in cubes. When the play buys a card, they may also take the bonus tile as well.

So that's what placing workers does, now we need to explain what the cards and bonus tiles do.

• Cards: Cards earn victory points. Cards may also grant other bonuses such as extra meeples or unlocking an exploration tile or discounts to placing meeples etc. Each card also has a symbol on it.
• When buying a card, the active player may also take a bonus tile and put it on to their personal board. A player may have up to 3 bonus tiles. Bonus tiles earn bonus points. These can be for accumulating meeples or having sets of cards with particular symbols (Thus introducing an element of set collecting to the game.) etc.

That's the gist of the rules.

Endgame
The endgame is triggered when a player acquires their 8th card. In which case play progresses until the round is over. Upon which scores are totted up.
Points are earned from:

• Cards.
• Bonus tiles.
• Remaining commodities (Other than yellow.).

Highest score wins.

Overall
​The game's core mechanic of trading cubes until enough are accumulated to buy cards that earn victory points is fundamentally unchanged from the first 2 games (Which is to be expected.). So if you like this, I imagine you may find Century: The New World appealing.

What this game adds is a fairly average implementation of worker placement rules. It's nothing to write home about, but it functions well enough.

However the cards and bonus tiles add an extra layer of depth to the game. When buying a card, you now need to consider factors other than just points value. Acquiring extra workers and spaces can be very useful (Although the latter is potentially useful to all players.).
Acquiring bonus tiles is also an important strategy to earning points. But taking tiles is an important decision, you get to have 3 and making a poor choice early on can hinder the potential to earn points. you have to try and think ahead.

The game gives to meaningful decisions to make and find the optimal method to accumulating commodities is key to doing well I think.

Century: The New World is not my favourite 'Century' game (That goes to Century: Eastern Wonder.) but I would have no reservation in playing this again.