Empty Cities started on a table, not a server: four printed map panels, a handful of dice, and long evenings of pushing little armies around until every rule earned its place. It was designed by Cez Krol, and it was built the slow way: by hand, and by playtest.

Two players at a table, playing the printed prototype of the board

The printed prototype. The rules you play online were worked out at this table.

What you are playing IS the playtest. This online version exists to sharpen the game with hundreds of real matches instead of a handful. The rules here are exactly the rules of the coming physical edition, and the maps you fight over are the very panels that will be in the box. Every finished game, every answer to “How was that?”, every note through the Feedback button shapes what gets printed. Playtesters are co-authors here.

The box is coming. Same rules, same maps, same empty cities. Learn it here and you will sit down at the real table already knowing where the hard decisions are.

The four Empty Cities board panels assembled into the full hex map

The four panels assembled. They interlock in hundreds of arrangements, so the map is different every time.

How to help right now: play a few games, bring somebody who will make you think, and say what confused or delighted you. If you are signed in, keep “happy to hear about how the game develops” ticked in your profile: that list hears first when the box becomes real. Other ways to support will come. For now, your games are the support.