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[mxdata]

I'm curious about something.  The wording on the Villa card as it is prevents one from going back to your Action phase if you acquired it during your Night phase, such as with Devil's Workshop.  Is that simply an accidental result of the wording used, or is it intentional?

For example, it occurs to me that if the wording were just "return to your Action phase", it would've had the same effect as the actual wording at the time the Empires expansion was issued, and so the "if it's your buy phase" clause was redundant.  The difference between those two wordings would only become relevant once Nocturne was released, since that alternate phrasing would allow one to go from the Night phase back to the Action phase

So, at the time the Villa card was designed, were there already plans to introduce the Night phase, so that the wording deliberately excluded the possibility of Night -> Action?  It seems deliberate to me, cause otherwise the "if it's your buy phase" seems redundant, since there's a general rule that a card can sometimes dictate something you can't do (like "take a curse" if the curse pile is empty), and that in that case there's simply no effect

[faust]

Two things:

1) people may get confused by what "return to your Action phase" means when it already is their Action phase, the current wording prevents this.
2) You can gain Villa out of turn. If it just said "return to your Action phase", that would also apply when you gain it on someone else's turn, which is obviously very problematic.

[mxdata]

Two things:

1) people may get confused by what "return to your Action phase" means when it already is their Action phase, the current wording prevents this.
2) You can gain Villa out of turn. If it just said "return to your Action phase", that would also apply when you gain it on someone else's turn, which is obviously very problematic.

Would the first point be any more confusing than other commands that can't be followed?  E.g., upgrade says to gain a card costing exactly $1 more than the card trashed, which is sometimes impossible, but that's generally considered pretty unproblematic

But the second point is a very good one that I hadn't considered (that would be a superweird effect which would raise a whole bunch of other rules questions), and "if you gain it on your turn" would be a weird phrasing, so I guess "if it's your buy phase" was just the simplest phrasing after all

[Donald X.]

So, at the time the Villa card was designed, were there already plans to introduce the Night phase, so that the wording deliberately excluded the possibility of Night -> Action?  It seems deliberate to me, cause otherwise the "if it's your buy phase" seems redundant, since there's a general rule that a card can sometimes dictate something you can't do (like "take a curse" if the curse pile is empty), and that in that case there's simply no effect

At the time there was no Night phase. The wording did need to deal with, what if it's not your turn, and otherwise just tried to be clear.

[mxdata]

So, at the time the Villa card was designed, were there already plans to introduce the Night phase, so that the wording deliberately excluded the possibility of Night -> Action?  It seems deliberate to me, cause otherwise the "if it's your buy phase" seems redundant, since there's a general rule that a card can sometimes dictate something you can't do (like "take a curse" if the curse pile is empty), and that in that case there's simply no effect

At the time there was no Night phase. The wording did need to deal with, what if it's not your turn, and otherwise just tried to be clear.

Yeah, that makes sense.  I'd forgotten about the possibility of gaining it on someone else's turn.  Just out of curiosity, if Empires had come out after Nocturne, do you think you might've worded that differently to include the possibility of going back to your Action phase from Night?  Something like "If this is your turn and not your action phase ..."?

[Donald X.]

Yeah, that makes sense.  I'd forgotten about the possibility of gaining it on someone else's turn.  Just out of curiosity, if Empires had come out after Nocturne, do you think you might've worded that differently to include the possibility of going back to your Action phase from Night?  Something like "If this is your turn and not your action phase ..."?

I would have considered it. I haven't done that work so I don't know how it would actually go. Citadel originally worked on the first card you played, which meant it worked on Treasure or Night cards if that's what you played first; it was too confusing, people just assumed it only worked on Actions. So now it only works on Actions.