📰 Embers of Empire — Release Notes

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The game has a name

The Lite Edition is now EMBERS OF EMPIRE — a Corrupted Chronicles game. ("Project Noodleman" was the working codename; a small 🍜 in the hub footer remembers it.) All tools, the rulebook, and card backs carry the new name.

Gameplay changes

1. Rounds are now ERAS, and every card belongs to one

Rounds are called Eras. Every Civ Card belongs to an Era, shown as a large Roman numeral on its BACK, and each Era deals its cards from that Era's own stack — (2 × players) + 1 cards face up per Era. The card pool is 84 cards: 72 era-stacked Civ Cards (12 per Era) plus 12 Embers.

The game now has a historical arc — Bronze-Age cards come out early, Cathedrals late — and stacks sort by the numeral on the back. The deal size means that with the 2-Discovery cap, even the Era's last acquisition always has a real choice.

2. Corruption is renamed INFLUENCE — and it cuts both ways

The marker placed from the boards' 5th-slot spaces (and by card effects) is now Influence. An Influence marker on a face-up card makes that card's Costs 1 lower for its owner and 1 higher for everyone else. Max one marker per card.

Playtest ruling. Pure-penalty Corruption felt flat; an asymmetric marker turns the same component into a positional fight over the display — you stake a claim, others pay a premium to jump it.

3. The Super Plague is retired — enter the Era 3 Reckoning

At the end of Era 3, every player adds a Calamity from their supply to their bag. Starting bags hold 20 tokens (16 Resources + 4 Calamities), becoming 5 Calamities from Era 4 on.

The playtest found the Super Plague fiddly — "did I Gain a Token this Era?" was easy to forget. The flat Reckoning does the same job (offsetting bag dilution as gained tokens accumulate), is impossible to misplay, and hits everyone equally.

4. Calamities are now identical — just "Calamity"

The individual names (Invasion, Heresy, Famine, Plague) and their aspect colors are retired. All Calamities are one design: black chip, neutral ring, white "CALAMITY". Each player's spare-Plague supply is now simply a 2-Calamity supply (the Reckoning's source).

The names weren't earning their keep — every Calamity places identically on the track, so per-type identity was pure component overhead. It also dissolves an open rules question (which Calamity does the Reckoning add? any — they're identical). Two cards that named specific Calamities (Legions, Medicine) are queued for rewrites.

5. HOPE markers — an out against the death spiral

Each player starts with 3 Hope. Spend one at any time on your turn to return a Calamity from your track to your bag. Unspent Hope is worth 1 VP each at game end; extra Hope sits in the supply for card effects.

Gives players real agency against a filling Calamity track — and the spend-it-or-score-it tension means using one is a genuine cost. In sim, Hope plus the 4-Calamity bag pulls Collapse rates way down from the playtest build (re-tuning is ongoing).

6. Collapsing now pays consolation — EMBER cards

Embers are a separate consolation stack: lost knowledge like Pagan Rituals, worth 1 VP + a minor effect. Collapse before your first Discovery of the Era and you draw 2; after it, 1 (counts still to be confirmed).

Collapse used to be purely punitive — a busted Era was a dead Era. Embers keep collapsed players in the game and give push-your-luck a floor without removing the sting (a Dark Age marker still costs VP).

7. Scoring is end-game counting — the VP track is retired

No score track during play. At game end you count: cards in front of you, unspent Hope, minus Dark Ages. Cards that granted instant VP are being rewritten — typically one-shot VP becomes gain a Hope, and scaling snapshots become end-game counting like the wonders.

Mid-game VP-track upkeep was bookkeeping with no decisions attached. Counting once at the end is faster and eliminates "did I move the marker?" disputes.

Components & visual identity

The tools (how you make changes)

Everything lives at geekmatter.com/cc-lite/. Sign in once at the hub — top-right — with your designer account and every tool unlocks. Your edits are attributed to you.

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