Native Village
Native Village | |
---|---|
Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Seaside |
Illustrator(s) | Franz Vohwinkel |
Card text | |
+2 Actions Choose one: Put the top card of your deck face down on your Native Village mat (you may look at those cards at any time); or put all the cards from your mat into your hand. |
Native Village is an Action card from Seaside. It is one of the non-drawing villages, since it gives +2 Actions but does not give +Cards; instead, it saves up cards on a playmat and lets you pick them up all at once later. Though it can be used as a village in a typical engine, Native Village can also be used to save up cards for one big turn, such as with the Combo: Native Village and Bridge.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you play this, you either take all of the cards from your mat, or set aside the top card of your deck on your mat.
- When you first set aside a card with Native Village, take a Native Village mat to put the cards on.
- You can look at the cards on your mat whenever you like, but other players cannot.
- You may choose either option even if there are no cards in your deck or no cards on your mat.
- You cannot look at the top card before deciding whether to set it aside or take the cards from the mat.
- At the end of the game, all cards from the mat are returned to your deck for scoring.
Other Rules clarifications
- If you choose to place the top card of your deck on the Native Village player mat you may then immediately look at the card, but your choice has been done.
Strategy Article
Original article by theory
The +Actions isn’t what makes this card so interesting—if all you’re looking for is more Actions, any other Village is superior. (The exception is if you have Libraries or Watchtowers and want to take advantage of its handsize-lowering effect.)
Rather, Native Village is nice for its ability to tuck away cards: it can “trash” unwanted cards, hide cards from Pirate Ships/Saboteurs, or just build up for a mega-turn. Conducting deck-inspection is quite helpful in order to guarantee what you’re drawing; similarly, Native Village is a good soft counter to Ghost Ships, Bureaucrats, and Spies, since the Victory cards they leave on your deck can be tucked away. In addition, if you can draw your entire deck, you can use Cellar/Warehouse to selectively discard Victory cards such that only Victory cards are left in your draw deck, prime targets for your Native Village to gobble up.
Nevertheless, Native Village’s “trashing” ability is pretty much the worst way to go about deck-thinning. It’s too slow when you need to single-mindedly focus on trashing, and in a thin-deck monster, Native Village’s drawing ability can more harm than good if you’ll mostly be drawing good cards. It’s useful as late game storage for Provinces/Colonies, but the chance of drawing a critical Platinum is too much of a risk.
Even without trashing, Native Village is only really viable when there’s also a way to make use of its +Actions (usually +Cards); when there isn’t, Native Village’s pseudo-trash-the-top-card ability is probably too chancy and slow to be worth buying.
If you’re pursuing Native Villages, you’ll need quite a few of them in order to recover from drawing good cards onto the Native Village mat. This means that a source of +Buy is critical for Native Village, so that you don’t repeatedly overpay for its ability.
Of course, no article on Native Village could be complete without mentioning Native Village's possibly best Combo: Native Village and Bridge. This is an unusual and simple mega-turn strategy using those two cards, and which plays differently enough to be worth its own page.
Synergies/Combos
- Bridge, for the Combo: Native Village and Bridge
- Deck-inspection (Pearl Diver, Wishing Well, Spy, Navigator), including opponents’ Spies
- Library/Watchtower
- Pirate Ship wars (both to play your own Pirate Ships, and to hide your Coppers from opponents)
- Cards that benefit from large handsizes: Bank, Coppersmith, Secret Chamber, Forge
- Opponents’ Ghost Ships/Bureaucrats
- Opponents’ Saboteurs
- Good terminals, usually +Cards
- +Buy
Antisynergies
- Strong early trashing/Ambassador
- Philosopher's Stone
- Counting House
- Embargo (on the Native Villages)
Versions
English versions
Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
+2 Actions. Choose one: Set aside the top card of your deck face down on your Native Village mat; or put all the cards from your mat into your hand. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game. | Seaside 1st Edition | October 2009 | ||
+2 Actions. Choose one: Put the top card of your deck face down on your Native Village mat (you may look at those cards at any time); or put all the cards from your mat into your hand. | Seaside 2nd Edition | July 2017 |
Other language versions
Trivia
Card Art
Secret History