As a merchant of the silk road at the center of the world, your goal is to buy and sell specialty goods while moving from one bustling city to the next in order to become a wealthy merchant. In this game, players must create trade routes connecting two cities by lining up tiles containing images of roads on top of the board while using a rough map for hints. After creating trade routes, you must compare them with more precise maps. If there are specialty goods on the routes you create, you can collect points. However, there are certain goods which can deduct points as well, so you must be careful when constructing routes. In addition, you only have two minutes to create the routes. Within the limited time frame, think of the best possible routes and aim to trade well and efficiently.
The game is played in rounds. After first using the trade cards to decide the destination city and value of the local goods, the hourglass is then set, and trading begins. You then refer to your personal specialty goods map while you quickly place route tiles to connect cities together. The fastest merchants, and the merchants that have traveled the most routes will be award with bonuses. At the end, answer keys are placed on top, the goods obtained are confirmed, and points are received. After repeating this four times, the traders that have gotten the most points are the winner.