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[forestplay]

I'm new to Dominion so my questions involve the base game and Intrigue.  I am occasionally confused when performing actions.  The rules say "follows the instructions written on that card from top to bottom".

When are card has "+1 Action" in the middle of the instructions, do I play another action card until it is complete and then come back to the original action card to complete it?  Or do I follow the instructions at the bottom before the +1 Action?

An example is "Spy" with +1 Card, +1 Action, Reveal cards.  If I can do my own reveal before playing another action with a +card, it's a big advantage.  It's it is done only just before clean up, then it's less valuable because it affects my next turn and not my current turn.  Is this the intention?

The Bridge/Upgrade combo is another confusion.  The rules say to play Bridge first then Upgrade, so they must be preceded by Mining Village or Nobles which grant +2 Actions.  Played without that third card and following the strict rule above, Upgrade then Bridge would allow the same advantage.  Why do the rules specify to play Bridge first?

-Bob

[Voltaire]

When a card says "+1 Action", it's giving you an action in your action "bank", so to speak, in the same way that a card that says +$1 is giving you an imaginary (virtual) coin to your coin "bank". It means that when you are done fully resolving the card that gave you +1 Action, you will still have 1 Action to use, so you may play another card if you wish. It doesn't mean to play another action card right away.

So when Spy says +1 Card, +1 Action, you first draw a card, gain an Action that you will be able to use later to play another card, then resolve the "Look at the top card..." spying portion of the card. You're now finished resolving Spy, and you can play another card if you want.

[Warfreak2]

This is something which is clearer when you play online, but you can imagine that you have an "Actions" counter which starts at 1, goes down by 1 every time you play an Action card (and must be at least 1 for you to do so), but can be increased by the effects of those cards; "+1 Action" literally just adds 1 to that counter. Coins and Buys work the same way, although the "Coins" counter starts at 0 instead of 1.

[Polk5440]

I'm new to Dominion so my questions involve the base game and Intrigue.  I am occasionally confused when performing actions.  The rules say "follows the instructions written on that card from top to bottom".

When are card has "+1 Action" in the middle of the instructions, do I play another action card until it is complete and then come back to the original action card to complete it? 

No.

Or do I follow the instructions at the bottom before the +1 Action?

Not quite.

The +1 Action is not "play one action now" and more like "you have the ability to play one more action in the action phase."

Specifically, from the rules in the description of the vanilla bonuses (pages 6-7) we have (emphasis added):

"+X Action(s)" -- the player may play X number of additional Actions this turn. +X Action(s) adds to the number of Actions that can be played in the Action phase. It does not mean play another Action immediately. The instructions on the current Action card must be completed before playing additional Actions. The player must complete all of his Actions before he moves on to the Buy phase of his turn. If a card gives the player more than one additional Action, he may keep track of the number of Actions he has remaining out loud.

It may be helpful to look at the description of Market on page 3 of the  "first few turns -- how your first game might go" pamphlet that is included with the base game, as well. This makes the interpretation clearer.

[2.71828.....]

When you play spy these are the steps you take:

1) you get +1 card, +1 action
2) each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck
3) You decide if that player (including yourself) keeps that card or discards it

That concludes your action playing spy.  Now, since spy gave you +1 action, you can keep playing more action cards

As far as bridge/upgrade goes, you decide the order that you want to play your action cards.  If you play bridge first, there is nothing that gives you +1 actions, so you have finished playing actions and move on to your buy phase.  Now, if you had played mining village before you would be able to play more action cards after bridge.

So, say you have bridge, upgrade, mining village, and two coppers in your hand.  If you
1) play bridge first, you resolve the action for bridge and you cannot play any more actions.  Go on to buy phase without playing upgrade or mining village
2) play upgrade first, you get +1 card +1 action and must trash a card from your hand.  you may keep playing actions after this if you wish.
3) play mining village first, you resolve mining village by getting your +1 card +2 actions and deciding (after you draw the card) if you want to trash mining village for +2 coin.  Now, if you play bridge you will still be able to play upgrade after it since you have the additional actions from mining village (regardless of whether you trash it or not).  Be careful with bridge and upgrade together though, once you play bridge it stays in effect throughout the rest of your turn.  So if you upgrade a copper you must gain a card costing exactly one more than it and now estates, secret chambers, and other 2 cost cards only have a value of 1, so you would have to gain it.

[forestplay]

All of these comments are a big help.  The concept of a action bank makes sense and matches well with a similar concept of a buy account.  Accumulate the buys and actions until the current card is finished, then empty the action account before moving to the buy phase to empty the buy account.

This is slightly different behavior for the +Card instruction.  In this case the card is drawn immediately and put into my hand (where is could be used to fulfil the current action or later action card of the same turn).

Thanks everyone for the discussion.  This has been quite useful.

-Bob

[KingZog3]

All of these comments are a big help.  The concept of a action bank makes sense and matches well with a similar concept of a buy account.  Accumulate the buys and actions until the current card is finished, then empty the action account before moving to the buy phase to empty the buy account.

This is slightly different behavior for the +Card instruction.  In this case the card is drawn immediately and put into my hand (where is could be used to fulfil the current action or later action card of the same turn).

Thanks everyone for the discussion.  This has been quite useful.

-Bob

It is different than +cards. I think the only action cards that "interrupt" the current card is Throne Room (and all other cards similar to it in expansions).

[Davio]

All of these comments are a big help.  The concept of a action bank makes sense and matches well with a similar concept of a buy account.  Accumulate the buys and actions until the current card is finished, then empty the action account before moving to the buy phase to empty the buy account.

This is slightly different behavior for the +Card instruction.  In this case the card is drawn immediately and put into my hand (where is could be used to fulfil the current action or later action card of the same turn).

Thanks everyone for the discussion.  This has been quite useful.

-Bob

"Simple" instructions in the form of +n X (where n is a number and X is a subject) are used for the following X's:

- Cards: You immediately draw this many cards and add them to your hand
- Money: +$2 adds $2 to your total available money for this turn only (so you don't keep it if you don't spend it)
- Buys: +1 Buy means you can buy an additional card this turn (normally you can only buy 1)
- Actions: After playing this card (which normally costs an action to do), you can play extra Action cards; with +1 Action (like Spy), you can play one extra card, with +2 Actions (like Village), you can play two extra cards before your counter "runs out" (unless you play other cards with +n Actions of course)
- VP tokens: Monument (from Prosperity) gives you a Victory token every time you play it
- Coins: Cards from the Guilds expansion (Candlestick Maker for instance) allow you to gain coin tokens to spend during the buy phase

[Simon (DK)]

Just to make sure you understand this:
You don't have to use all your actions and all your buys. You can choose not to play more action cards even if you have actions left and action cards in your hand (except for the card played by Throne Room, you have to play that), and you can choose not to buy more cards even though to have more buys to use.

[LastFootnote]

- Money: +$2 adds $2 to your total available money for this turn only (so you don't keep it if you don't spend it)

…

- Coins: Cards from the Guilds expansion (Candlestick Maker for instance) allow you to gain coin tokens to spend during the buy phase

Davio, this is incorrect and bound to create confusion. The proper term for "money" is Coins. Cards that get you Coin tokens don't say "+X Coins". They say "Take a Coin token" or "Take 2 Coin tokens", etc.

[popsofctown]

I have seen many people take OP's interpretation.  If all cards had their effects reordered so that +action is at the bottom, wouldn't that accomodate both understandings in 99% of situations?

Sometimes things can work in quirky equivalent ways like that.  Like one thing that 99% of people misunderstand about Magic is that they think you pay the cost for a spell before you declare its name and slap it down.  You actually don't, and cannot pay for it in advance.  But the mana is always "floating" from people improperly doing that, and the end result is correct in almost every case, if not every single case.  The exact ordering only provides a couple benefits that advanced players use for advantages, like Frogmite + Chromatic Star.

[LastFootnote]

I have seen many people take OP's interpretation.  If all cards had their effects reordered so that +action is at the bottom, wouldn't that accomodate both understandings in 99% of situations?

Perhaps, but I think it's much cleaner not to have a stack in cases where you don't actually need one.

[Mic Qsenoch]

I have seen many people take OP's interpretation.  If all cards had their effects reordered so that +action is at the bottom, wouldn't that accomodate both understandings in 99% of situations?

It doesn't work for KC, Throne Room, Procession, Golem, Herald. These aren't edge cases.

[popsofctown]

They aren't.  I overlooked them, had I noticed them I wouldn't regard them as edge.  Good catch.

[SirPeebles]

There is one card from an expansion (Diadem from Cornucopia) which uses your "Action bank account" for something other than playing Action cards (it roughly cashes in spare actions for coins).