Merchants of Araby – Which One Will Be the Wealthiest?

Become the wealthiest merchant prince or princess in all of Araby by establishing an entourage of merchants and allies, teaching virtues, summoning djinni, making shrewd caravan investments and negotiating.

A lot of negotiating will be required in Merchants of Araby, where everything is negotiable. You can trade gold for camel placement, cards for products, actions for promised actions, camel placement for ally tasking, cards from entourage to entourage, cards from hand to hand, something for nothing! Whenever you get the chance to make a deal, just fell free to do so.

Caravans are the primary source of earning money and the main reason for negotiations. There are spaces on the caravans, each one for a camel carrying a particular product and with each caravan you can make a journey to an Araby city to sell those valuable products. Player participation, bandits and market fluctuations will affect each caravan’s payout and of course, you should not miss the chance to get your share of the profits.

You can add camels to caravans by tasking merchants, playing a djinn card or negotiating with other players to get products that you need or to add their camels to your caravan. In order for an opponent to add a camel to your caravan, your permission is needed. If you don’t manage to complete one full row or column on the caravan card, you will not be able to earn anything at all. When your turn ends, your caravan gets locked to you and you may not add any more of your camels to it, unless the active player allows you to do so through some negotiation. Your caravans depart when the next turn starts. However, beware of the bandits who always lurk around, going for the camels in the most lucrative caravans.

When four rounds have been completed, all players receive a final resolution card for their caravan and the wealthiest merchant of Araby wins the game.

Merchants of Araby has been on Kickstarter and is still running. It has been planned for release in 2017.