Kings of Wa 2009

'Kings of Wa' is a two- or three-player civilization game set in ancient Japan (Joumon to Heian era; ca. -12000 to 1000 CE).

During an important part of the period in which the game is set, Japan (called 'Wa' by the Chinese’) was divided into a large number of tribal kingdoms, slowly decreasing in number. Players start as one of these tribal kingdoms anywhere on this map and compete with each other and with neutral kingdoms to unify Japan, or to build the strongest (winning) kingdom of Wa at least.

The game borrows some mechanics and ideas from Civilization / Advanced Civilization, but there are unrelated mechanics as well, and a lot has been adapted to the smaller spatial scale and to the two/three-player limit. Trade is different, development is different, movement is different, to mention just a few, but still it feels a somewhat similar to Tresham's games that inspired 'Kings of Wa'.

The game is still a prototype. The three-player expansion has not been tested much, and the characteristics of the civilization / advance cards may need further tweaking based on more playtesting.