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[teasel]

crowns? so your don't card get stolen? leaves? so your score is safe?
what do you think are the most important card that are off-color,like would you meld translation and optics just for the crowns on them?
discuss!

[Awaclus]

Depends on the situation kingdom*. I'd meld Translation if I have to (for "I demand" reasons) or if it gives me the achievement (pretty sure melding it for the achievement isn't even always the correct play (but I do it anyway)) or if I'm way behind on ages and my opponent has a key crown dogma, but I wouldn't meld it just to get my opponent to share Optics with me or to prevent him from sharing my Optics. Optics, on the other hand, has a great dogma effect so I usually meld it regardless of the crowns.

Factories are probably the most important, they're extremely important around age 4 and still somewhat important later. Crowns next, then leaves, then lightbulbs. Towers and clocks, especially towers, are also very important when they appear, but towers stop appearing pretty early and clocks don't necessarily even show up.

*EDIT: by popular demand

[timchen]

Factories are probably the most important, they're extremely important around age 4 and still somewhat important later. Crowns next, then leaves, then lightbulbs. Towers and clocks, especially towers, are also very important when they appear, but towers stop appearing pretty early and clocks don't necessarily even show up.

This is not quite true. Around age 4 there is just not enough factories (gunpowder, colonialism, invention) so you just live with what you get. Okay, if I have a chance to block gunpowder by melding my colonialism in hand I probably will, but I don't think I will meld that card just for my future factory counts.

In the base game, crown is probably the most important symbol. With crown dominance you have the most options to choose from and are more in control. You can rob more crowns (enterprise), rob factories (banking), rob lightbulbs (society), and rob leaves (compass) depending on what you need at the moment. You can even eat your opponent's score (pirate code, combustion), board (skyscrapper) or splay (metric system, flight).

Factory is next. In the mid game (age 4-6) factories are the best scorers (gunpowder, chemistry, coal, canning, mobility) It also has an wild card (industrialization) which can boost all icons quite substantially. In the late game factories start to attack the hand (explosive, composite) and the board (mobility, specialization), which while is probably not as effective as attacking the score, can still be handy sometimes.

The next is probably leaves, but I feel leaves are a bit hyped. Early on leaves are quite important as you need those to execute/deny fermentation and prevent machinery. In the middle ages they are almost useless; the only powerful scorepile attacking card is vaccination but there is quite some chance that it will cover itself up with a useless leave card. Medicine and statistics hurt too little,  are too slow for general purposes, and are more used only for some critically timed moments. Anatomy is not that useful against human opponents. Lighting is a big scorer but instead of the leaves count, usually the hand size is what separates between the players. The leaves becomes slightly more important in the late game as you need those to prevent an instant win (globalization, bioengineering) from your opponent.

Lightbulbs in my opinion is almost on par with leaves; it comes up short just because (i) its most important card does not mind being shared; (ii) too many lightbulbs can backfire (physics).

[Kirian]

Depends on the situation kingdom.

I know what you really meant to say.

[ipofanes]

(skyscrapper)

I see what you did there.

[theory]

1) Clocks
2) Leaves
3) Factories
4) Crowns
5) Lightbulbs
6) Castles

[HiveMindEmulator]

1) Clocks
2) Leaves
3) Factories
4) Crowns
5) Lightbulbs
6) Castles

I have a hard time believing clocks could be the most important. For a large portion of the game, they're not there at all, and then when they do show up, it doesn't even seem like you strongly need a clock lead. There are only a few demands, and none of them are really that great, and sharing is often not the worst thing in the world.

I think it goes: crown, factory, leaf, clock, bulb, castle

The key for me is that most of the important demands are based on crowns, so if you're behind on crowns, you can get messed up pretty badly. Factories are also important since you don't want to have to share scoring unless you're already ahead by a lot. There's a few good leaf demands, and Fermenting is good when you have a lot, but unless I happen into a bunch of early leaves, it's not something I go chasing the same way as crowns or factories. All the other symbols lack any real killer demands and have reasonably shareable dogmas (especially bulbs which tend to have other conditions on getting real benefits).

[GenericKen]

IMHO

1) Crowns, Leaves
2) Factories
3) Castles, clocks
4) Lightbulbs

The thing to note about crowns, leaves, and factories, are that they're the only symbol with "I demand" dogmas. The trick to I demand dogmas is that they're worthless if you don't have more icons than your opponents; regular dogmas can still be shared, often very profitably, if you have fewer cards.
-Crowns have many attacks, and some powerful attacks, like Gunpowder, Pirate code, and Combustion, that can lock opponents out of the game, and score enough to end it.
-Leaves have fewer attacks, but a greater ability to interact with a large number of cards. Drunk Protestants (Fermenting-Reformation) is the quintessential leaf combo.

-Factories are powerful scorers and are the first icon you build up from 0. Because of the variance (there are 3 factory cards in age 4), the first person to draw one gets a lead that's difficult to displace. It doesn't hurt that factories tend to splay and tuck more factories (while sometimes destroying your other icons).

-Castles have very strong I demand effects, but there are only 3 castle dogmas out of the 4 cards with castle icons in age 3, and 0 past that. There are a ton of them, then suddenly, there are none of them and they're a liability on your board. You don't necessarily have to work to accumulate castles - it kind of just happens naturally. You manage castles. You exit out of castles. You generally don't hope to draw more castles.
-Clocks have no I demand effects. The game is often over before clocks come into play. I don't think I've ever deployed clocks to avoid sharing a clock ability. If you ever do need to "accumulate clocks" to avoid sharing/force sharing, it'll generally dictate a single decision, rather than an overall strategy. The main reason you will ever accumulate clocks is because it's tied to two achievements: 3 clocks for Empire, 12 for World. Note that even if you get perfect splays and every clock card, you cannot get 12 clocks before age 9.

-Bulbs have no I demand effects. What's more, about half of the bulb effects are situational or effects you don't mind sharing. One of them is even a kind of attack when shared (physics). What's more, a number of bulb effects are focused on teching and skipping ages. If you share bulb dogmas with a teching player, the extra draws will help you deplete the lower piles and nullify his teching advantage. Now there are a couple of bulb cards that are great and worth keeping to yourself, but I wouldn't work on building up a bulb lead to avoid sharing it. Your opponents don't have much reason to challenge your bulb lead in a vacuum.

[Awaclus]

-Crowns have many attacks, and some powerful attacks, like Gunpowder

Gunpowder has a factory dogma.

[BitTorrent]

The most important symbol?

Depends on what is the most important dogma, of that exact moment.

Sometimes you just wish to have 1 more crown to get rid of a Skyscraper raid,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more clock so you can share Quantum Theory,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more factory and get a share of Coal to splay your 10-card red right,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more leaf to save your hand from a dreadful Machinery,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more bulb to hold your opponent from using Classification,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more castle to save your Software from some ancient Monotheism...

It is just pointless to talk about which icon is superior. If I must choose, then I would like to have the bonus icon in echoes, because it gives you points! 

[brokoli]

I don't think there is much difference. All symbols are good, even if castles becomes quickly almost useless.

I think this is more a question of personal preference. In my case, I prefer leaves and factories.

[teasel]

The most important symbol?

Depends on what is the most important dogma, of that exact moment.

Sometimes you just wish to have 1 more crown to get rid of a Skyscraper raid,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more clock so you can share Quantum Theory,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more factory and get a share of Coal to splay your 10-card red right,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more leaf to save your hand from a dreadful Machinery,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more bulb to hold your opponent from using Classification,
sometimes you just wish to have 1 more castle to save your Software from some ancient Monotheism...

It is just pointless to talk about which icon is superior. If I must choose, then I would like to have the bonus icon in echoes, because it gives you points! 

well the point is that most of the crown card make i demand request that screw up with board,most leaf card makes i demand request that screw scores,and factories have a wide array of effect which include scoring... so the question was more like "which one of these option you think it's better/scary enough that you want to protect from it?"

like would you rather have a lightbulb lead so you can tech up without being forced to share or a coin lead so that your tech doesn't get stolen in the first place?

[Hideyoshi]

There should not be any icons as the most important, as it depends on different stages and situation.

Well, it also depends on what is your playing style, as you may choose crowns if you want to steal all cards from your opponents, and you choose bulbs if you would like to tech up.

It is somehow if you are lag behind by achievements at age 6, which one will you choose:
1. Canning: you can score all your top cards to catch up the score
2. Atomic theory: you can tech up to get to get technology lead
3. Vaccination: you can return score from your opponents
4. Metric System: you can get more icons by splaying
5. Enterprise: you can steal your opponents card for destroying his board

That's no absolute answer, just depending what is your style.

If I need to choose from six of them, well, I may choose bulbs and leaves as my most important icons.
If you are lag by crowns, your board and score may be all stolen.
If you are lag by clocks, you may see your opponents doing something amazing, such as satellites and quantum theory
If you are lag by factories, you may see your opponents getting a lot of scores by coal and canning
If you are lag by castles, you may be sudden attacked by something like archery

But you are lag by leaves, you can get lose by Bioengineering!
And if you have 20 bulbs, you can win by Empircism!

(And in echoes game, if you are lag by crowns, factories and castles, you can win by social networking!!!)

[ksasaki]

I feel that in echoes that light bulbs got a facelift and are really the key symbol.  If you get that blue stack splayed left with almanac / ruler / telescope / magnifying glass and whatever on top then it is just too ridiculous.  When I get that stack, I feel virtually invincible, while if my opponent gets it I feel powerless.  Plus you have clock in age 4 which is a real devastator of a card, not to mention my personal favorite....measurement.  Did I mention some later gems like hot air balloon, radio telescope?  Of course, once you reach age 7, nothing like a nice elevator to devastate your opponent's scorepile.

[zaratustra]

the most important symbol is whichever one your opponent has more of.