9-card Empire

Empire is a a 9-9-9 solitaire nano-game (9 cards, 9 cubes, 9 dice) in which you are trying to make profit as the owner of a factory empire. It will launch on Kickstarter on November 2, alongside two other 9-9-9 nano-games (City Planner and Railways).

Your goal in Empire is to build factories, sell goods and become rich within 30 years (15 game rounds). To set up the game, you place the 6 factory cards in a row in front of you. The 7th card is the Market card, the 8th card is the years and profit tracker, and the 9th card is your central factory. You will place cubes on the central factory card to mark your starting capital, materials, commodities and goods. You also start with six workers in your factory represented by a die.

At the beginning of each round, you roll the market die to determine the market situation. Depending on your result, the market index will tell you if it is a good time to sell materials, commodities and goods or not. Then, you may take up to 4 actions, once each, and in set order: Sell resources and/or capital for profit, Hire and/or move workers, Build a building/execute an event, or Produce resources and/or capital. Your first action is free, the second costs 1 capital unit, the third 2 capital units, and the fourth costs 4 capital units.

Each of the buildings available to build requires a different set of resources. Upon building it, you receive one die as a worker. When placing a newly-built building, you have to make sure the railway tracks that connect the buildings to the central factory line up. After a building has been built, you will reference the text on the card adjacent to it, to see if an Event takes place. At the end of the 15nth round you calculate your profit, and see if you have beaten your best score.

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