Up & Away Games











DESIGNER DIARY
by Rick Heli
I thought it might be fun to write something about my game design projects, something I've never tried before.

May 2, 2022
This time let's have another look at how the Han Dynasty expansion for Imperial Glory is going.

Emperors

The Han dynasty had an intriguing naming system for emperors. While they lived, they used their own names, and of course were absolute rulers, for the most part, anyway, if they had sufficient force of will, anyway. So they could have people dismissed, jailed, executed, whatever. There was just one little catch. After death, they would be given a posthumous name, and that would be the name they would be known by for the rest of time. The catch is, that name would be chosen by the people who worked for him, but only after he died. The only control an emperor had over his legacy, then, was the way he had treated his people during his life.

This worked out in some interesting ways. As with most dynasties, the early emperors were talented and virtuous. Consequently, they got good names. The first one, Guang Wu, was called Strong and Martial, The second, Brilliant, and the third, Diligent. But just as with Nero in Rome, quality, at least as history views it, began to decline. There arrived an emperor whose chief interest was decadence and chasing women of the imperial harem. There must have been a meeting to decide what he should be called. I like to imagine how that went ...

Chief Advisor: Well, we're charged today with a difficult task ...

Advisor 1: To choose the posthumous name of our late, lamented emperor.

Chief: This won't be an easy one. Any suggestions?

Advisor 2: "Horny"?

Chief: Please be serious.

Advisor 1: But it is in the right direction.

Advisor 3: How about "playful"?

Chief: Hmm, yes... but still not plausible enough.

Advisor 2: I've got it!

Chief: Yes?

Advisor 2: "Agile"!

Advisor 1: Those in the know will know what it means. Everyone else won't be bothered.

Chief: Sold!

And indeed, "Agile" is one possible interpretation of the name of the emperor called Lingdi.

The emperor cards have all been created. I decided to remove any emperor whose reign was less than two years because it's just too difficult to evaluate their reigns. They didn't really have enough time to leave any imprint. That left a few extra emperor cards, so you will get to see the stats of a few Roman emperors in this set already, even though their empire is not ready yet.

One amusement in the research was a book that stated the Empress Deng Sui had quite a stature. In fact, according to a serious book (Fire Over Luoyang, p. 200) on the subject, she was no less than seven feet and two inches tall! I'm thinking this must be a misprint, but it's fun to imagine. A possible ancestor for Yao Ming, I suppose.

Advisors

With the Kushans, the big problem is that there is far too little documentation. Apart from commercial records, religious writings and coins, there is very little left of their own writing. Chinese and Indian sources can help a little, but in many cases assumptions must be made.

The situation in China is just the opposite! For example, the game needs ten generals, all of whom should have actual names (and brief biographs in the rules booklet). But so far there are 79, and counting, to choose from! It's not even a matter of picking the ten best either, because of necessity some of the generals must be not very good. (If all generals were of the same quality, it would be very boring). Once the generals have been selected, there is the question of their special abilities or limitations, which I hope to tie into their real life performances.

After the generals there are, of course, six other types of advisors from diplomats to builders to administrators to scientists, artists and agents. All of these need names and special abilities as well. The task is immense, but well under way.

Army

Another interesting finding was the relative weakness of the Chinese army. Despite an immense population, they kept only around twenty thousand men in a standing army, often relying on allies and called up militia. The trouble with the militia was that they were very poorly trained and often poorly armed. As a consequence, mere rebellions could drag on for over a decade. To reflect this, the Han areas will probably have rather low recruitment rates. Han players will have big challenges in the military area, though they can make up for it somewhat with some excellent commanders.

Progress

Regarding the questions of last time, I completed a reasonable working of the map with all the connections and provincial details and created cards for the provinces. I also figured out enhanced rules for the trade system that should make it more interesting and challenging as now the empires will need to cooperate to make sure the trade routes stay open, or suffer the consequences.

Future

After the advisors, I plan to add additional Ares and Fate cards, which are pretty much already figured out, as well as a new type, currently termed Corruption cards. After that it's a matter of writing down the rules to go with the new features and testing can begin!

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