Chance cards represent ahistorical events that happen to collecting institutions.
Chance cards remained relatively stable through game testing with only three structural changes.
In February 2016, Chen increased the number of chance cards from 5 in February 2016 to 24 in order to allow chance to occur whenever the die rolled either a 1 or a 6, rather than just when it rolled a 1. Briefly, Chen considered allowing chance to occur in all centuries of game play rather than only in the 16th century and later. But this option did not work out in game tests as countries need to found their holdings before chance has the opportunity to reshape players’ collections and abilities. Otherwise, chance can hit players too hard, making winning nearly impossible and demoralizing players.
In January 2017, Chen revised the chance cards’ text to focus only on actions, rather than explanations, and to eliminate the cards that play testers found confusing. Additionally, she eliminated the need for a die in the game. This solved the problem of requiring future users to buy a die or use a die app to make the game work.