Books

Books cards represent the print culture of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and England between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century.

Between January-October 2016, the books cards included 2 books per country per century to make a total of 72 regular books cards, each of which was selected first for its financial and then for its cultural value.

In March 2016, Chen added auction books to Codex Conquest to simulate when books come on the market due to external events, such as a manor house closing. Auction books were created in sets of 4 originally; 24 auction books were added to the game in total. Each auction book set then was tied to a national event card that served as its trigger. So, in order to introduce auction books, Chen substituted 6 national events cards for new triggering national events. Auction books, unlike regular books, do not have a set price. Each country has an associated auction deck which serves to spotlight that nation’s particular excellence in a certain field, such as German mathematics or American artists’ books.

In April 2016, Chen added medieval manuscripts in order to increase the wealth of each country at the start of the game. Each country then received 1 medieval manuscript in addition to 5 credits before play began. These manuscripts are all given the highest credit value in the game (5 credits) and serve as a reminder that print culture built on the previously existing manuscript culture’s texts and traditions.

In January 2017, Chen simplified the game to solve a number of concerns that arose during fall play tests, namely: the difficulty of setting up the game; the lack of added value offered by auction books and medieval manuscripts; the paucity of books in the book market; and occasional factual errors. As a result, she removed auction books and medieval manuscripts as both complicated the game’s lay out and did not add substantially to game play; added two more cards per country per century to make a total of four books per century per country; and totally revised the book list to ensure that all books were attributed to the country in which they were printed, not the country to which their authors are associated.

Drafts: