Nan-Bei Chao: War of Dynasties

One game of North vs. South, half a history of China.

About the Game

From 420 to 589 AD, China split into Northern and Southern Dynasties — the South cycling through Song, Qi, Liang and Chen, the North through Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou. Nine legendary rulers contend for the Central Plain across 120 cards drawn from the annals: generals, ministers, poets, formations, monks, crafts, items and stratagems. Nan-Bei Chao: War of Dynasties is a strategy card game built on that turbulent era, turning historical figures, legendary campaigns and military doctrine into matches anyone can pick up. Every ruler carries a distinct faction identity (Song · Purple, Qi · Cyan, Liang · Gold, Chen · Green against Northern Wei · Red, Eastern Wei · Blue, Western Wei · Grey, Northern Qi · Orange, Northern Zhou · Dark Gold), and every general has his own ink-wash portrait — all card art is AI-assisted ink-brush warrior illustration, built on ochre, gamboge and ink black with faction-colored highlights.

Core Gameplay

Four Battle Lines

The battlefield splits into four rows, each scored independently:

Infantry — sieges, close-quarters fighting

Cavalry — raids, volleys, charges

Navy — warships, the Yangtze, fire attacks

Strategy — schemes, deployments, supply lines

Each row resolves on its own : higher row power takes the row.

Both sides have cards → compare row power

Only one side has cards → conceding the row loses it

Both empty → draw, not counted

Taking more rows wins the round ; on an even split, total round power breaks the tie.

Eight Card Types

General — the backbone, each with unique active and passive skills

Minister — court officers who strengthen you or disrupt your rival

Poet — commands by verse, chaos through literature

Monk — turns calamity through Buddhist rites

Craft — engineering, provisions and materiel

Formation — troop commands like the Beifu Army and the Queyue Formation

Item — chevaliers, fire oil and other oddities

Stratagem — cards that bend the game: card draw, Dark Passage, Linked Stratagem, Counterintelligence

Provisions: Your Play Budget

Provisions are the core resource — every card costs provisions to play .

Both sides start with 20 provisions

From round two, each round adds +8 automatically (the second player gets 1 extra)

Provisions carry over — unspent supply rolls into the next round

Hand limit 20 cards

Running out of cards isn't a loss, but an empty treasury forces you to discard and pass — resource management is the real tension of every round .

Hands Carry Over

The single most important rule: the board resets each round, but your hand does not.

Units on the board — all withdraw at round end; the next round starts from an empty field

Your hand is kept — whatever you didn't play last round is still in hand

From round two, 6 new cards arrive each round (into hand, up to the 20-card limit)

So the real wager isn't "who's stronger in this row" — it's "which cards do I still have to survive three rounds" . Your opponent sees the you who brought old cards into round two. Holding cards, hoarding provisions, managing the cap — all of it is strategy.

Mulligan

Only the first round deals 10 cards and offers a mulligan — discard up to 3 cards and draw the same number back. Rounds two and three have no mulligan phase, only new cards.

Traps: The Hidden Edge

Trap cards hide in your hand and can be buried into any row:

Deer Antlers — destroys the opponent's first Cavalry card

Fire Oil Burnt Bridge — that row takes −4 power all round

Ambush — triggers on any card played in the row

Iron Caltrops — caps a row at 2 cards, stopping infinite burials

The rule is strict: only the player who buried them can see how many traps exist — the opponent gets no warning at all. When one triggers, the victim gets an on-screen alert. The entire mind game lives in that asymmetry.

Commands and Command Points

Each player has 1 command point per round to play command cards (Redeploy, Change Guard, Clear the Road…). Commands occupy no row — they're tactical resources off the battlefield.

Weather

Each round draws a weather card (Snow · River · Heat · Fog · Drought · Clear) that alters the round's rules rather than adding raw power: row power modifiers, higher card costs in a row, changes to the hand limit, changes to provision income, and hiding a row's information (Fog). Some cards can dispel weather, at a cost in provisions.

Secret Decrees: A Shared Objective

Every deck carries 2 secret decrees (such as "Jiangnan" or "Northern Expedition"). They aren't played — both sides accumulate progress toward them together , and completing one grants a bonus. So beyond the contest, there's a shared destination.

Counters

Many generals carry counter skills (row suppression, faction matchups, linked counters), and there's an active counter card, Clear the Road . Information and prediction are the game's second layer of depth.

Leader Passives

Each of the nine rulers has a signature passive:

Liu Yu (Emperor Wu of Song) — Infantry +2 power this round

Xiao Daocheng (Emperor Gao of Qi) — draw 1 extra card per round

Xiao Yan (Emperor Wu of Liang) — +4 provisions per round

Chen Baxian (Emperor Wu of Chen) — Navy +2 power this round

Tuoba Tao (Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei) — Cavalry +2 power this round

Yuan Shanjian (Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei) — opponent discards 1 card per round

Yuan Baoju (Emperor Wen of Western Wei) — all forces +1 power this round

Gao Yang (Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi) — strongest row +3, weakest row −1 (the double-edged tyrant)

Yuwen Yong (Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou) — 2 random cards in hand gain +2 power each

AI Opponent

Randomized rulers : each AI match draws a random rival, keeping replays fresh. The AI farms provisions, holds cards, passes when it can't afford to play — it counts cards and reads your mulligan.

Visual & Audio Style

An ink-wash historical aesthetic.

Palette — deep brown #2A2018, gold highlight #D4A840, ink black #1E1812

Type — seal and clerical scripts for headings, Song typeface for body text

Sound — guzheng, drum, bamboo flute and chime; all original audio, no licensing issues

Music — each ruler has a theme derived from their faction color

Three Game Modes

Vs. AI — single player, jump in anytime to learn the systems

Hot-seat — 2 players on one PC, pass the mouse back and forth

Multiplayer — 2 players over Steam, across machines

Every mode is best of three (first to two wins). Each round shows a row-by-row score , and the board resets while hands carry over — so rounds two and three are played with an ever-thicker hand.

Match Flow

Round 1: Pick ruler → Mulligan (up to 3) → Play cards (spend provisions) → Row-by-row score Round 2: +6 cards (hand carries over) → Play cards (spend provisions) → Row-by-row score Round 3: +6 cards (hand carries over) → Play cards (spend provisions) → Row-by-row score ↓ Best of three (first to two wins)

System Requirements

Minimum : Windows 10 (64-bit), dual-core 1.6 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Intel HD 4000 or equivalent, 500 MB disk space, 1280×720 Recommended : Windows 10/11 (64-bit), quad-core 2.0 GHz or higher, 8 GB RAM, discrete GPU, 1 GB disk space, 1920×1080 Single-player and hot-seat are fully offline. No in-app purchases, no ads, no tracking. Multiplayer relays through Steam P2P and requires no networking service beyond your account.

Achievements

16 Steam achievements:

First Victory, Veteran, All Crowns, No Retreat, Flawless, Lightning Strike, Combo King

One achievement per ruler for the nine factions

About the Developer

Independent developer. Launching on Steam, Windows desktop only (Electron 28).