Mega Empires: The Far East - North is an empire-building strategy board game for 3 to 5 players, set in East Asia. In this game, players lead their historic empire as they gain victory points by expanding their population, building cities, trading and developing their knowledge and culture. Notwithstanding its large scope, the game's core mechanics are straightforward and easy to learn. A key element in the game is player interaction as they position themselves on the map board and search for valuable commodities during interactive trading sessions.
Gameplay
Each player starts the game with a single population token on the board. As the game progresses, population will expand, spread over the board, fight some border conflicts and build cities. Cities bring resources and wealth, expressed in trade cards. The more cities players manage to build on the board, the more trade cards they receive. Trade cards are mainly valuable commodities, but sometimes turn out to be disastrous calamities.
Trade
Trading is the heart of the game, a social experience where all players interact with each other to optimize the value of their sets of commodities. In addition to the desired commodities, calamities are secretly traded as well, adding an additional layer to the trading dynamics. Once the trading phase has ended, players that end up with a calamity in their hand will suffer its effects.
Develop Civilization Advances
When the smoke of trading and resolving calamities has settled, players can decide how to spend the wealth gathered through trading. The game includes 45 different advances that can be developed, each of which provides benefits in the game to its holder. For example, Horsemanship enhances movement over land, Urban Planning facilitates city building, and Spiritual Guidance reduces the impact of calamities.
The 45 Civilization advances are divided into the categories Arts, Crafts, Science, Civics and Religion, each of which has specific powers. Each advance acquired by a player provides discounts to other advances that can be purchased later in the game, thereby creating a path of strategic decisions. The ultimate advance in the game, The Pinnacle Temple, is only in reach for players who manage both their trading and purchasing strategy very well.
Winning the Game
The players who have best developed their position on the board whilst avoiding making enemies and defended their empire against natural or civic calamities and stand the test of time, will eventually gather the most victory points and compete for wining the game.
New Components and Game Mechanics
The Far East introduces new components and game mechanics compared to The West (2019), The East (2021):
Rivers are printed features on the map that facilitate movement of tokens along them.
Pirate ships are placed on the board at the start of the game. They block ship movement unless tribute is paid, but they can also serve as mercenaries for attack or defense, creating interesting new dynamics on the board.
Walls can be placed on the board when acquiring The Great Wall, which prevent opponents from crossing boundaries between areas separated by a wall and thus provide excellent defense to your empire.
Events are new effects triggered when moving the turn marker on the A.S.T. They generally apply to all players and introduce various balancing effects.
The Zodiac Events module can be added for increasing the number of events in the game.
Combining with The Far East - South
The Far East - North can be combined with its counterpart The Far East - South (2027) to scale up the game to as many as 10 players! Where North has a strong focus on the land masses of East Asia, South combines the continent, islands and abundant waters in South East Asia, which stimulates movement by ship. Both games were designed as balanced counterparts, albeit with unique characteristics.
Expansions
The Far East - The Special Buildings (2027) is an expansion set that provides additional flavor to the game through 12 miniatures of ancient buildings historically associated with the empires included in The Far East - North, The Far East - South and Mega Empires: The Silk Road. These buildings can be built on the map board and provide additional benefits in play and victory points to their controller.
The Silk Road (2027) is a versatile expansion set for all Mega Empires games. It includes additional maps that create geographical connections between The Far East - North, 'The Far East - South, and The East. It also adds components for 2 more empires, along with rules and components for various alternative game setups. This even allows for the combination of all basic games for up to 30 players! The Silk Road also includes The Age of Grandeur Module, which is an upgrade to The Special Buildings expansion(s). It adds unique effects to the special buildings of each of the 30 empires in all Mega Empires products, indicated on large cards that players receive when constructing a special building. Whoever controls the building can use its unique effect to their advantage.
The Quests Expansion (2027) is a small expansion set for all Mega Empires games. At the start of the game, each player receives a Quest card indicating a specific Civilization Advance. Players who successfully purchase the Advance shown on their Quest card during the game receive bonus Victory Points at the end of the game and may draw a new Quest card while they are available.
Accessories
The The Far East - North – Deluxe Game Mat (2027) is a neoprene game mat at 125% scale of the original cardboard map that offers an enlarged playing area and high-quality design for easier and more immersive gameplay.
—description from the designers
Ancient, Bluffing, City Building, Civilization, Economic, Memory, Mythology, Nautical, Negotiation, Pirates, Political, Real-time, Territory Building, Wargame · Advantage Token, Area Majority / Influence, Betting and Bluffing, Bribery, Hand Management, Memory, Negotiation, Real-Time, Set Collection, Tech Trees / Tech Tracks, Trading, Variable Player Powers
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