What a cool project!It looks really cool...
I'm not sure what level of accuracy ya'll want in the game. I also don't know, yet, what you're trying to convey.
First... The Cherokee people were never Mound Builders. I'm sure you've found references to Cherokee mounds, but that's been disproven through archaelogical surveys.
Those were Muskogean remains.
I wasn't sure if you were depicting the paths of only Mounds-builders, or those who may have battled/conquered them, but it's generally thought that the Cherokee migrated to those areas after they were abandoned/disused. After looking at the rest of the board, I tend to believe your "warpaths" are all those of enemies/conquerors, and that's fine, but it doesn't really show anything about the mound-builders.
2nd... your cave paintings look much more prehistoric than anything. Not saying that there were no cave paintings by the mounds-building nations, but they were vastly different in styles, from one culture to the next, and it would have been rare to see simple black-on-grey silhouettes, or single silhouettes as you have here.
Figures/symbols (even prehistorically) were grouped to tell a story, or for the sake of pure art:
I'd also tend to think you'd find more pottery and sculpture than cave painting... Mounds-builders were rarely cave-dwellers... they built structures to live in. Sometimes of earth and stone, sometimes of hide and/or wood, but actual structures.
While I'm glad to see references to places of import, I don't see references (especially since you center on Cahokia) to many (any?) tribes of the three primary mound-building civilizations: Mississippian, Hopewell, and Adena.
You reference the game as being about "culture, trade, and warfare" but I see only warpaths, referencing the wrong peoples, and nothing whatsoever of the trade and culture... no woven mats, bone and/or copper jewelry, no bone knives which were traded for hungrily. I see no pottery, no cloth of brilliant colors with feathers as shells as decoration...
Fine/good if that's not what you (or they) are going for, but it makes the description a little misleading.
I also don't think the box/card styles really match the style of the gameboard. I think they're both lovely, and I can tell how much work went into each... but they don't mesh.
And Finally... since it's a game about mound builders... I should think the mounds themselves would be stylized more in period-style than you've done.
They weren't just little hills... they were always carefully shaped, often as animals or pyramids, and you can still see many of those shapes today.
Sorry... It really is lovely, and I'm not trying to pick on you, just trying to help
xoxoxo
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