Roads of Jade guide
How to play Roads of Jade: rules, setup and scoring
Learn Roads of Jade through the decisions in your first game, from choosing destinations and buying goods to scoring routes and timing the finish.
Roads of Jade is a two-to-five-player network game. You collect matching goods, spend them to secure roads between cities, and connect the endpoints on your hidden destination tickets. Every turn is one decision: improve your hand, put a route on the map, or accept more destinations. The highest final score wins.
Begin with three things to manage
The game prepares the board and deals everything automatically. Before anyone acts, each merchant has:
- 45 caravan pieces, which limit how many road segments they can occupy.
- Four trade cards, kept hidden from the other merchants.
- Three possible destination tickets, of which at least two must be kept.
Five trade cards are visible in a shared market. Scores begin at zero. Once everyone resolves their ticket choice, the interface shows which merchant has the opening turn.
Your hand, caravan supply, and destinations pull in different directions. Cards determine what you can build now. Caravan pieces determine how much network you can build overall. Tickets determine where that network needs to go.
Your first decision: choose destinations that can share roads
Each destination ticket names two cities and a value. Keep at least two of the three offered at the start.
Do not evaluate only the printed points. Look at the shape the tickets create together:
- Find the endpoint cities on the map.
- Trace a plausible connection for each ticket.
- Look for a central corridor that could serve both.
- Notice narrow roads where an opponent could force a large detour.
- Reject the ticket that adds the most isolated work, unless its value justifies that risk.
Tickets remain private until the game is over. A completed ticket adds its value; an unfinished ticket subtracts the same amount. Keeping an ambitious third ticket can raise your ceiling, but it also creates a second way to lose those points.
Read the turn as a decision, not a checklist
On every turn, choose one complete action. The action ends before the next merchant acts.
| Action | What changes | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Draw trade cards | Add up to two cards to your hand | You are preparing a specific claim or preserving options |
| Claim one route | Spend a matching set and place caravans | A useful connection is affordable or in danger |
| Draw destinations | See up to three tickets and keep at least one | Your network can absorb more objectives |
You cannot draw one card and then build. You cannot claim two short roads instead of one long road. New destinations consume the turn even if you keep only one.
Build a hand for one road and one fallback
Ordinary trade cards represent Silk, Spice, Jade, Lapis, Ceramics, Iron, Gold, and Ivory. A standard draw lets you take two cards from the market, the hidden deck, or one from each.
When you remove a market card, the game fills that position immediately. The replacement is available for your remaining draw if it is otherwise legal.
Plan for a target road and a fallback. Collecting without either can leave you with a large hand that does not answer the map.
Merchant cards are flexible but slower to take openly
A Merchant can replace any ordinary good in a route payment.
- Taking a visible Merchant consumes the entire action.
- Drawing a hidden Merchant from the deck counts as a normal single draw.
- A visible Merchant cannot be your second card after an ordinary first draw.
- If at least three Merchants appear in the market, the game replaces all five visible cards.
The market refresh prevents wild cards from crowding out ordinary goods. If both the deck and its discard pile are empty, card drawing is unavailable until spent cards return to the discard pile.
Put a route on the map when waiting becomes dangerous
Select an unclaimed route and pay one card per segment. A length-four jade road requires four cards in total: Jade cards, Merchants, or a combination of those two types. You must pay the exact cost and occupy the whole road in one action.
A neutral route accepts any one ordinary good. Choose the good for that payment, then use Merchants if needed. Three Silk cards can buy a neutral length-three route; Silk, Iron, and Jade together cannot.
Your new claim may be disconnected from everything you already own. The game checks network continuity later, when destinations and the longest path are scored.
Small routes can matter more than large ones
Route points reward length:
| Segments | Immediate points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 |
| 4 | 7 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 15 |
A long road is efficient, but a short road may be the only useful passage between two parts of your plan. Score is recorded as soon as a route is claimed.
Parallel roads change with the size of the table
One merchant can never own both roads in the same parallel pair.
With two or three players, the first claim closes the other road for everyone. With four or five players, a different merchant may still take the second road. A visually doubled connection is therefore one opportunity at a small table and two opportunities at a larger one.
Take another destination only when your map can support it
The destination action shows up to three tickets. Keep at least one and return the others to the bottom of the deck. If fewer than three remain, choose from the number available.
A ticket is complete when your claimed roads create an uninterrupted connection between its cities. The path can bend through other cities, and the same road can help complete several tickets. There is no reward for taking the geographically shortest path unless it also saves pieces, turns, or risk.
Drawing late is dangerous because the action itself does not improve the board. Before drawing, ask whether your current network already reaches several regions and whether enough turns remain to repair a poor result.
Watch the caravan supply to predict the finish
The endgame countdown begins when a merchant finishes a turn with no more than two caravan pieces. The game immediately enters its final round. Every merchant, including the trigger, receives exactly one final turn.
This means you should count actions near the end. If your last destination needs a card draw and two separate claims, one final turn cannot rescue it. A merchant with a small supply may also end the game before a rival can convert a large hand into points.
Resolve the final score as a network audit
The final result combines four values:
- Route points already earned during play.
- Added values from completed destinations.
- Subtracted values from incomplete destinations.
- A 10-point longest-path bonus.
For longest path, trace the greatest continuous chain of your claimed roads. You may revisit a city and include loops, but you cannot count the same route segment twice. If several merchants share the maximum length, each receives the bonus.
If final scores tie, the merchant with more completed destinations ranks higher. If that is also tied, longest-path bonus ownership is the next comparison.
A sample first-game rhythm
There is no mandatory opening, but this sequence gives a new merchant a useful frame:
- Keep destinations with a plausible shared corridor.
- Identify the most fragile connection in that corridor.
- Draw toward that road while retaining one fallback color.
- Claim the fragile road before collecting for safer, longer routes.
- Join the endpoints into one network.
- Reassess the caravan supply before accepting more destinations.
- Convert the final turns into claims rather than ending with an oversized hand.
This is a learning pattern, not an official rule or guaranteed strategy. Opponents and market cards will force adjustments.
Quick answers for disputed moments
Can I take a visible Merchant after another card?
No. A visible Merchant must be the only card taken during that action.
Can ordinary goods be mixed on a neutral road?
No. Pick one ordinary good for the payment. Merchant cards may supplement it.
Must every new road touch my network?
No. You can claim an isolated road if you can pay for it and it remains available.
Does the game stop as soon as someone has two pieces?
No. Reaching the threshold starts one final turn for every merchant.
Can one network complete multiple destinations?
Yes. Every ticket is checked against your complete claimed network.
Continue from rules to decisions
Use the route-planning strategy guide to study bottlenecks, overlapping objectives, and endgame tempo. If you are comparing platforms first, browse online route-building games.
You can learn against bots or start playing. When you are ready to invite someone, create a lobby and share its generated URL.