Some players have expressed concerns over the images being behind the text on the cards making them harder to read (I hear ya). Unlike other card games the cards have lots of information on them and are multi-purposed. This makes every card useful nearly all the time but it does make life hard on the graphics particularly as we have also increased the size of the text to help reading them and lathered on the chrome to the empires.

Within the constraint of 3.5 x 2.5 inch (MTG) size cards (larger than our 3.5 x 2.25 inch 2004 7 Ages release), it's not possible to divorce the text from the graphics but we can simplify them dramatically removing all contrast if you prefer.

We have applied a strong opacity (whitening out of the image) by between 65-75% for both empires and events and can increase that more if necessary. I'd rather not lose the empire images altogether as many of them are iconic of their landscape, people, culture, art or architcecture but we can certainly do so for the events by removing both the image and the opacity from the event and replace it with just a plain papyrus tablet or scroll that has no contrast and is very light. This will make the text easy to read without having to reduce the size of the fonts used (15 points for headings, 9 point Monarcha for text).

Here are some samples one of our artists has come up with to change or delete the event graphic and add a mouldy papyrus background instead. 

Original card 67

Card 67 Option 1 border change

Card 67 Option 2 Papyrus

Original Card 1

Card 1 Option 1 Border change

Card 1 Option 2 Papyrus background

Which of these styles, if any do you like? If you would like to see other backgrounds like stone tablets please use the comments to give examples. We can make the background much lighter too if you want the text to stand out even more,

The colour of the title and the border is of the action when that event can be played so you dont have to read the text to find this out and can quickly scan the event colour to see whether you have any events that can be played this action.

So we could make the background colour a much lighter shade of the colour representing the action (eg blue for Civilise, brown for manoeuvre, green for production and so on) or we can keep them all a light tan like the above or slate grey whatever you prefer (again pls use the comments below to tell me what you want to see).

Longer term as a possible expansion we could make bigger cards which would allow us to move the empire graphic from the text and put it at the top of the card, with a gradient into a solid background block (maybe in the background colour of the empire's first available age) on which the text will be crystal clear.

If you can tell me what you prefer before the end of our 7 Ages gamefound campaign I should be able to ensure its implemented before we go off to print (it will only take a week for me to apply the template my artists give me).