In 2018, Grail Games released Reiner Knizia‘s Yellow & Yangtze, a sister game to Knizia’s classic Tigris & Euphrates that retained the same principle of gameplay — maintain balance in your growth — while changing the setting and many elements of gameplay.
That game is now off the market, but Polish publisher PHALANX is bringing it back to print as HUANG.
Front cover
As far as I understand based on my bare Google skills, the name is meant to represent both “yellow” (黄色, huángsè) and “emperor” (皇帝, huángdì).
As before, this 2-4 player game is set in ancient China during the time of the Warring States. You take control of one of these states, battling to unite the country under your dynasty.
Each player has five different leaders: Governor, Soldier, Farmer, Trader, and Artisan. Clever placement of these leaders and their corresponding tiles on the board is key to your growth, allowing you to build pagodas to score points, trigger or avoid wars, and instigate peasant revolts that bring down your enemies. At game’s end, your score is the number of points in your weakest category, so failing to achieve success in one category means failure overall.
PHALANX plans to run a crowdfunding campaign for HUANG in early 2023, with standard and deluxe pledge options as well as three expansions. From the press release:
Mock-up from PHALANX
The first expansion will be the Royal Palace, a large unique pagoda miniature that comes with its own ruleset, that will be free for all backers who follow the campaign before the launch. It will be unique to [this campaign] and not available in retail. Information about the other two expansions will be made available during the campaign.
HUANG will be previewed at SPIEL ’22, which takes place October 6-9 in Essen, Germany. PHALANX notes that HUANG “will be available in English, French and Polish language versions. Due to licensing restrictions we will only be able to make the game available to backers from the USA, the UK, France, and Poland.”
Mock-up pagodas from PHALANX
Game board background
