The Mega Empires: The Far East campaign is now running on Kickstarter. Let’s take a look at the Part 2 of the designer diary penned by Flo de Haan, offering some interesting backstory on the project and insights into its development - continuing from Part 1.

Difficult decisions: some empires made the cut, others had to be left out. The magnetic compass and gunpowder are key features we wanted to include.

What became clear early on was that we wanted key innovations such as the pound lock, the Grand Canal, the magnetic compass, and gunpowder to be part of the gameplay. We also knew that piracy played a defining role in the southern islands, while, in the north, the Great Wall of China, a modern wonder of the world, was a major influence. All these elements had to be featured in The Far East to make it "feel right".

The piracy mechanic initially caused serious issues during testing, but after many intensive rounds of iteration and refinement, it started to work exactly the way we envisioned. We also relied on our community, both offline and online, for this process, leading to the perfect integration of pirate ships into calamities and advances, including the possibility of using them in The West / The East as an expansion.

A dedicated group of playtesters in Japan, focused on The Far East - North.

Rivers also became a defining feature, something we had wanted to incorporate for a long time. Aren’t there rivers on the existing maps already? The Nile, the Volga? Of course. But in those cases, they were "translated" into floodplains. We don’t have floodplains in The Far East - in terms of map features, that’s one of the key differences. Not only are floodplains removed, but rivers also allow for faster movement downstream. The Grand Canal was also included, together with related key Advances, including the Pound Lock, which enables river travel in both directions more easily.

A rough setup of areas in a first simulation. Rivers were a feature from the very start.

Another element from the existing games that we removed from The Far East are volcanoes. Not because they aren't any in Asia, quite the opposite! There are so many that selecting just a few would have been arbitrary and inconsistent. Instead, we decided to merge "volcanic eruptions" and "earthquakes" into the single concept of "seismic activity".

Now, speaking of calamities, we realized that we didn’t just want to introduce entirely new ones, we also had to carefully consider how they would connect with the existing games. It would feel pretty bad if you received a tradable calamity from one part of the system, but had no way to mitigate or prevent it in another. That’s why we decided to keep certain tradable calamities consistent across all games. Epidemic, for example, and Iconoclasm, now streamlined into a single word for future reprints as well. From a thematic perspective, too, we went through a lot of iterations.

The trade system and card division had to be fully redesigned. The Silk Road uses all-new cards and new mechanics, including new trade cards. It was a true puzzle that had to work for every player count.

Some players feel that the calamities in the game are too harsh. I often hear this complaint from newer players. After running multiple rounds of extensive surveys among existing players and testers of The Far East, a clear pattern emerged. Experienced players consistently say, “The calamities are exactly right,” while newer players can sometimes feel overwhelmed.

However, if things become too easy, and you’re simply buying cards over and over, you may still have a long game, but it quickly becomes a dull one. The current balance is very carefully calculated. Gerart has his own brilliant ways of keeping that in check, in quantified terms. That tension - pushing back against an apparently relentless wave of calamities - is exactly what gives the game its character.

At the same time, it is importan that the game features natural catch-up mechanisms for players who are falling behind. To this purpose, apparently "harsh" calamities like Civil War and Tyranny are essential. In The Far East, that idea has been expanded even further - not just through calamities, but also through Events, one of the new features we introduced during development.

Event markers on the A.S.T.

Events are particularly effective in games where experienced players are joined by one or two newcomers who might find themselves lagging behind. They deserve to have a great experience, too - they are the experienced players of the future! An Event - triggering when the turn marker on the A.S.T. reaches an event marker - may be beneficial to some players and detrimental to others. It can be seen as a calamity with a beneficiary, affecting all players at once.

We also developed several additional features that I won't talk about in too much detail here. One of them is Cultural Heritage, which helps the overall gameplay flow more smoothly. We also introduced Quests, secret objectives that can give you an extra push toward the finish line, while also disrupting your usual strategy in unexpected ways.

We wanted a smaller set of advances to choose from, and decided to remove multi-color advances. They added quite a bit of complexity when it came to discounts, and while they made thematic sense, we ultimately felt they weren’t strictly necessary. At the same time, we still wanted to maintain a balanced distribution of credits and total points, along with a healthy balance between a mono-color strategy and the credit tokens that such a strategy generates.

We made an endless number of adjustments to the Civilization advances.

In the end, this turned out to be one of the biggest design challenges we faced. For those familiar with Rummikub: there were moments when it felt like we were essentially playing Rummikub with advances and credit tokens, trying to find the right balance, both thematically and mathematically. It was a hassle, but eventually we managed to succeed. And on top of that, we had to ensure that logical combinations within the same color were neither too strong nor too weak. We made an incredible number of adjustments. Tweaking a point here, adding one there. Scrapping the entire effect of a card. Removing cards altogether, then bringing them back. Moving a card to a different color. It was a constant process of refinement until everything finally "clicked". We spent a few scuba-diving trips going over the system. That proved to be a great way to alternate between work and relaxation while still keeping the mind active. (Yes, Flo actually design games while going on scuba-diving trips - ed.).

Once we had about 90% of the advances in place, we were ready to move on to the artwork. Initially, we had hoped to work again with Franz Vohwinkel, but when he wasn’t immediately available, our plans shifted.

For the cover, we decided we wanted to work with Odysseus. We’re big fans of his previous work, particularly on Teotihuacan: City of Gods.

An extensive online session covering all details with the magnificent Odysseus.

For the rest of the game art, we realized it would be more interesting, and more fitting, to collaborate with a range of different illustrators, including artists connected to the regions where the game is set.

For full transparency - some AI-generated images were used to create briefs for the artists, but we decided to keep any usage of AI strictly limited to the concept stage. For me, it's important that the final result carries the "imperfections" of human craftsmanship. Yes, you read that right. That imperfection is not a weakness in my opinion; it’s what makes something resonate. Without it, it risks becoming just another image, almost like a photograph. Often boring. And just as importantly, I want to support and value the illustrators. You are appreciated, and you are compensated for your work. I support that, and I will always support it. The illustrators I work with for this and other games know that. All artwork in The Far East has been created by human artists, based on our briefings, never by simply modifying an AI-generated image, always from scratch.

I’d like to once again thank all the illustrators involved: Anselmi Hyytinen, Elena Bonamoneta, Federica Mele, James Hayball, Jhee Haejun, Riccardo Piovan, Ross Ciuppa, and Xenia Sepelevici. Different artists, all over the World, just as the game itself. A perfect fit.

Some sketches and work in progress on the various cards.

Painting the map board probably took the most time overall. That part of the artwork was something I picked up myself. I spent countless hours just painting, layer after layer. And no, it's not a screenshot from Google Maps. It's a heavily distorted and deformed interpretation of a part of the globe, but in 2D, built up from dozens upon dozens of layers. The project ended up consuming gigabytes of data. At one point, I stitched everything together into a single file. I'm fairly certain there aren't many Photoshop files out there this large or this complex. I made backups every few days and pushed my computer to its absolute limits, both in processing power and RAM. Honestly, ten years ago, this wouldn't have been possible at all. At least not at a reasonable price. The final results however are flattened files that don t even take so much room. Oh well... It's the road, not the destination. The Silk Road, in this case!

Before I wrap up this long read, I want to highlight two final aspects.

All tokens are designed by Ross Ciuppa - Flo worked with him before, for the card game “The Brain”.

The color combinations of all the tokens — that was quite a challenge. If we could have started from scratch, choosing 30 completely distinct colors that would never clash on the map, not side by side and not even when stacked across five different A.S.T. positions, I would have done it. But that simply isn’t realistic. That was out of the question. This turned into an enormous puzzle, and in the end, we’re really satisfied with the result, also from a thematic perspective, thanks to the symbols designed by Ross Ciuppa, with whom I worked before for the card game "The Brain".

And finally, the Age of Grandeur module. This is something I'm genuinely excited about. The idea had been on the table for years, but for various reasons, the Special Buildings kept ending up as the final piece of the puzzle. And that's why I want to finish my story with this topic, too.

One example of a building effect card of The Age of Grandeur.

This new module, now fully integrated into The Silk Road, introduces unique and powerful effects for players who control specific buildings. In that sense, it's almost an expansion on top of an expansion. It makes capturing other players' buildings more appealing, while at the same time, some of these effects are so specific that you won't want to give them up easily. In our playtests, it quickly became clear that these additional building cards were very well received. They add another layer of depth (and flavor) to a game that already offers a wide range of strategic options.

Flo and Gerart during the first 30 player game, in the Netherlands in February.

So here we are. We started at a crossroads, and we clearly chose a path — one I wouldn’t have wanted to miss. It was a fantastic journey. And let’s dedicate this to Michael! The Far East is here. Who would have thought? We set out looking to go smaller, and ended up going bigger than ever.

Visit Mega Empires: The Far East project on Kickstarter for more information and to pledge.

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