Game Preview: Middle Kingdom

By Tom Lehmann
October 6, 2008

Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designer: Tom Lehmann
Players: 2-5
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Release Date: October 2008
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I don’t like most games in which “blind bidding” is the central mechanism, especially if you are bidding for resources to fuel your growth. All too often, it seems like an early wrong guess just puts you out of the running. My goal, when I set out to design Middle Kingdom, a card game for two to five players from Z-Man Games, was to design a blind bidding game which I would enjoy playing.

In Middle Kingdom, players are vying for control of China during one of its “warlord” periods, following the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Each player’s personal influence is represented by a set of seven bid cards (numbered 1-7), plus a “reset” card. Players bid for dynasty cards, which represent the various sources of power in traditional Chinese society: farmers, merchants, bureaucrats, warriors, and nobles.

To reduce a problem common to many auction games, namely the difficulty of evaluating what a particular card is worth, cards of each type are identical, except for nobles, which vary from 2-4 victory points, and one special bureacrat, the Philospher.

Being the first to obtain two cards of one type gives that player its corresponding goal card: the Harvest, Market, Palace, Emperor, and Heir. Each goal card provides a power and is held Settlers-style, that is, until another player obtains more dynasty cards of that type and takes it from you.

The number of dynasty cards up for bid each round is one less than the number of players (with somewhat different rules for two-player games), so the player who bids lowest (if there are no ties) gets nothing that round. Each player’s bid cards are set aside once used, until a given player decides to spend a round playing a reset card to recover them.

Beyond Basic Bidding

So far, this is pretty standard stuff. The first twist is that while ties “bounce” – with those players receiving nothing that round – their bids don’t go away but stay on the table, adding their value to next round’s bids.

So, if you and I are unlucky enough to both play our 7s on the same round, we don’t get anything that round, but we’re going to be first in line next round, even if we both play low cards, including possibly our reset card (which adds 0 in this case). Of course, we may still care about beating each other if the “best” dynasty card next round looks a lot nicer than the second best one (assuming we’re even interested in the same cards). Further, ties never persist past one round, so even if we match again, we’re not going to be falling way behind.

The next twist is how some of the goal cards’ powers interact with the bidding and claiming. The Palace lets you see other player’s bids before choosing your own. If you see that a tie is going to occur, then playing low will still get you a card instead of nothing. The Heir also loves ties, for a tie means that a dynasty card will go unclaimed and the Heir gets to take one unclaimed dynasty card each round (if there are any), before they are discarded. When the Heir and the Palace are controlled by the same player, look out!

At the other extreme, the Emperor adds .5 to all your bids, breaking ties and ensuring that your 7 will claim first (if there are no ties from the previous round). The Harvest gives you a free reset once five of your bid cards are used. The Market lets you add a merchant you claim to a different pile (such as your nobles), where it will count as two cards, often enabling you to overtake the leader in that type and claim its goal card.

But what if you’re still constantly tying different players, claiming cards only every other round? Aren’t you falling behind on dynasty cards and losing control of goal cards? Enter the Dragon. Once four of the five goal cards are claimed, the Celestial Dragon is awarded each round to the player with the fewest (or no) goals.

After bids, but before dynasty cards are claimed, the Celestial Dragon is swapped by its owner for one of the cards being claimed. The Dragon can then be picked but grants just a 2-point token and flies off to be awarded again. Two points is nice, but first pick might be a 3- or 4-point noble, or a card type you’re missing (a concern since each missing type costs you 3 points at the end of the game), or one of a pair, where your bid that round might claim the other, so you can overtake the leader in a category.

The Celestial Dragon is very powerful and certainly the strongest catch-up mechanism I’ve ever put in a game. You almost want to fall behind to get it…

The New Emperor Is...

The final twist lies in the scoring. The game ends when the dynasty deck is exhausted. The weak puppet Emperor dies and is worthless, but the warlord leader grabs the Heir from the noble leader and scores it for 5. Nobles are worth 2-4 points apiece, but the noble leader (who had the Heir during the game) doesn’t receive an end game bonus. Warlords score 1 each. The Palace and Market score 4 and 3 points, but the merchants score nothing and the bureaucrats are worthless, unless you have the Philosopher, a special bureaucrat (immune to the Dragon), who scores 1 point for each bureaucrat you have.

The Harvest scores 0, missing types score -3, and then the player with the fewest Farmers (maybe none) discards all of them, with the other players discarding the same number before scoring 2-20 points for those that remain; while one remaining farmer is worth only 2 points, five or more remaining farmers are worth 20 points!

Not only does this relative scoring scale nicely with different numbers of players, but it captures a hard truth about traditional China: on one hand, peasants are the backbone of Chinese society, but if all contending factions control roughly equal numbers of farmers, then they don’t mean anything. If one player, on the other hand, controls a lot more farmers than anyone else, that faction is likely to control China.

Similarly, the other scoring rules both balance the various goal powers and capture other aspects of Chinese society. Nobles were granted lip service (their individual points) during periods of strife, but real control often lay with the greatest warlord. The merchant class traditionally had very low status, but a lot of behind the scenes influence (represented by the Market’s power to place merchants in other piles, where they count as two cards during the game). Entrance into the powerful, but mostly faceless, Imperial bureaucracy was by civil exam, based on calligraphy and knowledge of classical Chinese philosophy.

Finally, two recurring Chinese characters are the Celestial Dragon, representing the heavens and inscrutable fate, and the Philosopher bureaucrat, whose individual wisdom is so great that he can challenge the often stultifying and rigid traditions of the past, reinvigorating the Imperial bureaucracy.

There are several approaches to integrating theme with mechanics. One is the special rule approach, with lots of chrome, simulation, and extra rules. Another is deep integration, where the theme is captured by the game’s underlying structure and scoring systems. This latter approach is the one that Reiner Knizia often does so well. While I don’t pretend to his skill, I was quite happy with the amount of theme I was able to put in Middle Kingdom, despite using identical dynasty cards (except for the nobles), just six powers, and only one piece of chrome (the Philosopher).

Of course, the danger with this approach is when a player doesn’t “get” the various abstractions being used and misses the theme completely because there are no special rules, no detailed simulation. One person’s deep abstraction is another player’s pasted-on theme, I guess!

I am personally quite satisfied with how Middle Kingdom works and greatly enjoyed the opportunity to design such a game in between designing two Race for the Galaxy expansions. It was both a challenge and a refreshing change of pace.

I hope players will be as pleased with Middle Kingdom as I am. Enjoy.

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