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[werothegreat]

Whenever you feel like it.  But it does have to fit certain criteria.

So, not whenever you feel like it.

1) It makes your opponent(s) do something.
2) That something could be construed as undesirable to said opponent(s) in a majority of cases.
3) It makes sense for Moat to block it.
4) Unless it makes you trash or gain Curses, it should give some benefit to the player if it is blocked by Moat.

You lose me on #4.  Saboteur.  Often Rogue.  But even if there weren't any official counterexamples, why would you say this anyway?  Consider this:

Poor Militia
$3 - Action
Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Are you saying that if this card existed, it shouldn't have the Attack type?

Notice how it said "unless it makes you trash or gain a Curses".  I meant trash other cards, not trash Curses.

[Brando Commando]

So I guess my question is, what do you gain by (re)defining "attack"?

This comes up all the time in the variants subforum.  People post fan cards that straddle the line between what should and shouldn't warrant the Attack type, and there is debate about it.

Even outside the context of fan cards, though, it's not unfruitful to think about the logic and order of the game.

I see your point, but what I'm saying is, If it plays well, does it matter if it's correctly labeled as an Attack or not?

My (theoretical) counterexamples are cards which perhaps should be labeled attacks but might be too weak against Reaction cards if they were:

Famine -- Cost 3
+1$
All players discard down to three cards.

or maybe

Pestilence -- Cost 4
+3$ (Compare to Militia.)
All players discard down to three cards.

I feel like either of these might be labeled "Attacks" -- probably justifiably -- but I also think they'd be too weak if other players could use Reactions and/or Lighthouse against them.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I feel like those cards couldn't be printed without the Attack typing, for player sentiment reasons if nothing else. Some players are already offended that things like Possession and Tribute can't be blocked by Moat; this would take that to a new level of ire.

[GendoIkari]

Whenever you feel like it.  But it does have to fit certain criteria.

So, not whenever you feel like it.

1) It makes your opponent(s) do something.
2) That something could be construed as undesirable to said opponent(s) in a majority of cases.
3) It makes sense for Moat to block it.
4) Unless it makes you trash or gain Curses, it should give some benefit to the player if it is blocked by Moat.

You lose me on #4.  Saboteur.  Often Rogue.  But even if there weren't any official counterexamples, why would you say this anyway?  Consider this:

Poor Militia
$3 - Action
Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Are you saying that if this card existed, it shouldn't have the Attack type?

Notice how it said "unless it makes you trash or gain a Curses".  I meant trash other cards, not trash Curses.

True, your criteria of excluding trashing attacks does allow for Saboteur, but I still don't see any reason to treat those as special, just because the 4 attacks in the game that give you no benefit if Moated happen to be 3 trashers and 1 curser (Thief, Sir Michael, Saboteur, Sea Hag). Yes that's how the official cards are, but there's no reason to think that those 2 categories are that special. Those cards don't give the player a benefit because they are considered too powerful of an attack to do so. But if "Poor Militia" were a card, it would certainly be an attack as well.

Also, given your criteria, a card that reveals your opponent's hand would still be possibly an attack, but maybe not. It forces your opponent to do something. Something that your opponent would rather not do. But unless he's about to play an Envoy or Contraband, it doesn't actually slow down or hurt his playing.

[Qvist]

How about: "Every other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards his hand and draws 5 cards."? Would that be an Attack? I would say No because in the majority of the cases it wouldn't hurt. But in combination with Governor or Council Room, this would feel like an Attack.
And if you think this is an Attack, what about: "Every other player discards his hand and draws the same amount of cards he had before."? This would still hurt against Scheme shenigans or some mind play in combination with Ghost Ship but are edge scenarios. Would that be an Attack?

[Brando Commando]

I feel like those cards couldn't be printed without the Attack typing, for player sentiment reasons if nothing else. Some players are already offended that things like Possession and Tribute can't be blocked by Moat; this would take that to a new level of ire.

Quite possibly true, but I don't know that player ire is a good reason to pursue a robust definition of "Attack."

And, actually, I'm not so sure about the ire for my "self-Attack" cards; they would probably only come out in games where they combo well with something (like Famine + Tunnel or Famine + Fishing Village + Watchtower, etc.) in which case, often the other players' Attacks might be better for you -- e.g., I drew a FV and a Watchtower, but no Famine, so I don't get to discard and redraw. But now my opponent has played a Famine, so I'm all set.

In sum, I'm still not convinced that we need to define Attack so much as we need to talk about which cards get labeled as Attack and which don't.

[jotheonah]

I'm not sure that coming up with a hardcord definition for Attack is possible or even super useful. For one, I'm having a hard time thinking of situations where an attack is straight-up bad for you in every circumstance. Witch seems like the most likely candidate (off the top of my head) since all it does is give you a curse.

(The only situation I can think of where this is a net advantage for the attacked player is where they use Watchtower to trash the curse in a situation where that ends the game on 3 piles to their advantage...which only makes sense if attacking player was relying on the that curse for the win.)

So I guess my question is, what do you gain by (re)defining "attack"?

I have all 12 Fairgrounds, 19 unique cards, and no curses. Your Witch just gave me 23 VP.

[eHalcyon]

I feel like those cards couldn't be printed without the Attack typing, for player sentiment reasons if nothing else. Some players are already offended that things like Possession and Tribute can't be blocked by Moat; this would take that to a new level of ire.

Quite possibly true, but I don't know that player ire is a good reason to pursue a robust definition of "Attack."

And, actually, I'm not so sure about the ire for my "self-Attack" cards; they would probably only come out in games where they combo well with something (like Famine + Tunnel or Famine + Fishing Village + Watchtower, etc.) in which case, often the other players' Attacks might be better for you -- e.g., I drew a FV and a Watchtower, but no Famine, so I don't get to discard and redraw. But now my opponent has played a Famine, so I'm all set.

In sum, I'm still not convinced that we need to define Attack so much as we need to talk about which cards get labeled as Attack and which don't.

I don't think "self Attack" is a thing.  Even if an action is generally negative for you, it is still your choice to take it, therefore it is not a self attack.  Consider Minion -- the "attack" portion forces everyone with more than 4 cards (including you) to discard their hand and draw 4 new cards.  Since you had the choice and your opponents did not, it will generally be more harmful to them than it is to you.  If playing the card forces something bad on an opponent, it is an attack regardless of what penalty there is for playing it.

Sometimes attacks can help opponents, but these are edge cases.

Defining "Attack" is a good way of discussing which cards get labelled as Attacks and which ones don't.



IMO, Attacks force an effect on opponents that is bad for them on average.  Hand-size reduction, forced trashing, gaining junk, discarding good cards/leaving junk on deck (Rabble, Fortune Teller).  And given the precedence of IGG, the effect must be caused on play, not on buy/gain.

There are some cards that walk the line a bit.  Governor is probably the best example, as it can force opponents to take Silver.  The question is whether Silver is junk.  It usually isn't, though it may be in certain decks.

Masquerade is hard to talk about simply because the times when you are forced to pass a good card will stick in your mind.  But it really doesn't do anything in general -- often everyone just passes an Estate or Copper.

Possession definitely doesn't hurt the target player, on average.

[Captain_Frisk]

So, i think that the reason why governor is not an attack is because most of the time, on most of the choices, the other player would not want it auto blocked by lighthouse.  The silver gaining is one of those things were I'd prefer a "may", but that has been covered elsewhere, and I'm never going to win that battle.

Masquerade probably should be an attack, but what would happen if it was  blocked?  You'd have to put a bunch of special language in there, and we know how DXV feels about excess language.

Every "proper" attack has the "messes with the opponent" function different than the "does good things for me" function.  Sea Hag and Sab are special cases that have no "do good things for me" function.

[GendoIkari]

I'm not sure that coming up with a hardcord definition for Attack is possible or even super useful. For one, I'm having a hard time thinking of situations where an attack is straight-up bad for you in every circumstance. Witch seems like the most likely candidate (off the top of my head) since all it does is give you a curse.

(The only situation I can think of where this is a net advantage for the attacked player is where they use Watchtower to trash the curse in a situation where that ends the game on 3 piles to their advantage...which only makes sense if attacking player was relying on the that curse for the win.)

So I guess my question is, what do you gain by (re)defining "attack"?

I have all 12 Fairgrounds, 19 unique cards, and no curses. Your Witch just gave me 23 VP.

You forgot the 12 points from your 12 Gardens going from 39 to 40 cards! Oh, and it's 36 points total, not 35, because I revealed a Trader to the Witch, and hadn't had any Silver in my deck before that.

[jotheonah]

I think if Dominion ever needs a new advertising slogan it should be "Dominion: There's an edge-case for that."

[ftl]

I'm not sure that coming up with a hardcord definition for Attack is possible or even super useful. For one, I'm having a hard time thinking of situations where an attack is straight-up bad for you in every circumstance. Witch seems like the most likely candidate (off the top of my head) since all it does is give you a curse.

(The only situation I can think of where this is a net advantage for the attacked player is where they use Watchtower to trash the curse in a situation where that ends the game on 3 piles to their advantage...which only makes sense if attacking player was relying on the that curse for the win.)

So I guess my question is, what do you gain by (re)defining "attack"?

I have all 12 Fairgrounds, 19 unique cards, and no curses. Your Witch just gave me 23 VP.

You forgot the 12 points from your 12 Gardens going from 39 to 40 cards! Oh, and it's 36 points total, not 35, because I revealed a Trader to the Witch, and hadn't had any Silver in my deck before that.

If you're gaining a silver, you might as well have it power up your 12 feodums by one level, for 12 more points.

[GendoIkari]

I'm not sure that coming up with a hardcord definition for Attack is possible or even super useful. For one, I'm having a hard time thinking of situations where an attack is straight-up bad for you in every circumstance. Witch seems like the most likely candidate (off the top of my head) since all it does is give you a curse.

(The only situation I can think of where this is a net advantage for the attacked player is where they use Watchtower to trash the curse in a situation where that ends the game on 3 piles to their advantage...which only makes sense if attacking player was relying on the that curse for the win.)

So I guess my question is, what do you gain by (re)defining "attack"?

I have all 12 Fairgrounds, 19 unique cards, and no curses. Your Witch just gave me 23 VP.

You forgot the 12 points from your 12 Gardens going from 39 to 40 cards! Oh, and it's 36 points total, not 35, because I revealed a Trader to the Witch, and hadn't had any Silver in my deck before that.

If you're gaining a silver, you might as well have it power up your 12 feodums by one level, for 12 more points.

Actually doesn't quite work... Feodums need 3 Silvers per point, so to power them up you would have had to already have 2 Silvers in your deck, meaning that it doesn't help Fairgrounds. Of course, KC-Witch could do it.

[ftl]

Aww, you're right. Damn.

[Octo]

So, what happens when I play Minion for the +$2? Am I attacking? Sure, you don't want to Moat it (there's no need), but I still converted my urchin into a Mercenary so its status as an Attack is still relevant, even though it doesn't fall into any of the above criteria.

[GendoIkari]

So, what happens when I play Minion for the +$2? Am I attacking? Sure, you don't want to Moat it (there's no need), but I still converted my urchin into a Mercenary so its status as an Attack is still relevant, even though it doesn't fall into any of the above criteria.

Same with Pirate ship. And Rogue, though with Rogue it's not a choice. Those cards say attack on them because they have the ability to be used in such a way that meets whatever criteria we are choosing for "attack" cards.

[Donald X.]

I feel like I've covered this one previously, but here goes.

The point to "attack" was to let Moat refer to it. This is an old trick. If the original game didn't have "attack" and at some point I wanted to add Moat, it would be messy. You can cobble something together but it's not great. Probably I would just do it over multiple cards instead - Watchtower for Cursing although it also covers discard although not by letting you not discard, Market Square for trashing, after-the-fact stuff like Mystic for Spy. But if I stick on this label "attack," suddenly I can just say, bam, stop attacks. And I wanted Moat. So I did that.

It has to be timed for when they play the card, before it does anything, because man, who knows what complex things that card will do. This means that cards that have attacking as an option, e.g. Pirate Ship, end up letting you Moat them before they decide, and they may not even end up doing anything to you. Which is different from if I say Watchtower a Curse you're giving me. But that seemed like something I could live with.

It has to be clear what happens when you Moat. This ruled out putting "attack" on Masquerade.

And finally some things can hurt another player but don't have much spirit of attacking to them, like Council Room. I always say, Moat doesn't have a responsibility to stop every bad thing possible from happening to you. It doesn't stop them from buying Province, that's a big one. So Council Room is not an attack. It would look weird, and would slow down the game, as you thought, hmm is there some reason not to draw the card this time. Tribute meanwhile refers to the top cards for information; it has to get that information to be playable, we can't have someone Moating it. It might feel like Moating a Spy to you, but to the guy with Tribute it's like you Moated his Gold.

[shMerker]

This sort of reminds me of discussions about why we can have a victory card worth 0 points (Overgrown Estate) or a treasure card that gives 0 coins (Horn of Plenty). It's because these are shorthands for behavior. Making Horn of Plenty a treasure instead of an action means you can play as many as you want even if you have no actions left and that you can play them after you've played your treasure cards by default. Would you want all of that information on an action card?

Everyone keeps talking about attacks that may benefit opponents but I don't see why an attack has to do anything at all. How about this?

Declaration of War - $2 Action Attack

+1 action
+$2

Each other player does nothing

You might buy that on a $2 hand because aside from the Attack label and some other random gotchas like Mine it's pretty much interchangeable with silver. Except shoot now you're creating opportunities for other players to activate their Secret Chambers and Horse Traders even though nothing will happen to them even if they don't. On some boards it's like a whole different card just because it says "attack" on it.

[Davio]

So anything that messes with your opponent's deck isn't necessarily an Attack.

To me, an attack is something that, when it succeeds without being reacted to (Horse Traders on Minion etc.), hurts your opponent in some way most of the time. "Hurts" is relative though, Silver presents can hurt. And even attacks that succeed can be helpful for your opponent with cards like Menagerie. There is no 100% in Dominion.

One crucial part about attacks is that because they hurt the opponent a lot of the time, their other bonus is diminished. Also, even if they have a similar bonus, they are more expensive. Sea Hag and Saboteur even have no other bonus. Margrave's bonus is less than Council Room's. Witch draws 2 cards to Smithy's 3 and is even more expensive!

[GendoIkari]

So anything that messes with your opponent's deck isn't necessarily an Attack.

To me, an attack is something that, when it succeeds without being reacted to (Horse Traders on Minion etc.), hurts your opponent in some way most of the time. "Hurts" is relative though, Silver presents can hurt. And even attacks that succeed can be helpful for your opponent with cards like Menagerie. There is no 100% in Dominion.

This is basically what I was saying, and I think we can quantify "hurt" instead of keeping it subjective/relative, by talking about whether or not it causes the opponent's deck to take longer on average to get points.

[Captain_Frisk]

There is no 100% in Dominion.

That depends on the kingdom.

[One Armed Man]

What about an Attack card that waits until a certain phase to deal its damage. Like an attack card that waits until the end of the action phase.

Assassin
5
Action - Attack
+4 Cards. Discard 2 cards or 1 copper.         
At the end of your Action phase, each other player with 5 or more cards in hand reveals a number of cards equal to the number of Assassin cards you have in play. Each player discards one revealed card of your choice.

How would a Moat react to this? What if the player draws a Moat between the first and second time this is played in a turn?

[DStu]

I would say Moat has to be revealed when the Attack is played. So if you draw it between two plays of Assassin, you can only reveal it for the second, and so you are only saved from the second.

[One Armed Man]

I would say Moat has to be revealed when the Attack is played. So if you draw it between two plays of Assassin, you can only reveal it for the second, and so you are only saved from the second.

There isn't a second "attack". The "attack" happens as a result of any or all of the Assassins. If that happens, do the other players reveal 1 card or 2? I don't care which, I just want rules that work. Is there a wording of this card or rules clarification that makes it work?

[DStu]

I would say Moat has to be revealed when the Attack is played. So if you draw it between two plays of Assassin, you can only reveal it for the second, and so you are only saved from the second.

There isn't a second "attack". The "attack" happens as a result of any or all of the Assassins. If that happens, do the other players reveal 1 card or 2? I don't care which, I just want rules that work. Is there a wording of this card or rules clarification that makes it work?

It doesn't matter when the "attack" 'happens', Moat reacts and has to be revealed on when an "Attack card" is 'played', and these are the Assassins, and they are played at two different times, where at the first you haven't revealed, and for the second you have. So there's nothing unclear.

Anyway, I should read the text better to give more clear answers. Because, of course this kind of does not really matter. Because what does "so you are only saved from the second" mean?

Assasin says "...reveals a number of cards equal to the number of Assassin cards you have in play."  It doesn't matter how many Assassins effect you (as long as it's at least one). The first Assassin effects you. So you reveal 2 (because that's the number of Assassins you have in play) cards and resolve the rest.
The second Assassin doesn't effect you, so you don't care what it would do.

For comparision, if you don't reveal any Moats at all:
The first Assassin effects you, so you reveal 2 cards and resolve the rest.
The second Assassin effects you, but you probably only have 4 cards in hand, so you can ignore the rest.

Would you have more than 5 cards in hand, the second one would also have been resolved.