Village (card category)

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Village, the archetype for this category.

Village is the informal generic name for the family of Action cards which offer the ability to generate +2 (or more) Actions—so called because many of them have "village" in their names. They are also sometimes called splitters. The simplest and most vanilla village card is VillageVillage.jpg itself. Typically, these cards will also offer +1 Card as well, but there are some village cards which will offer other benefits instead. Cards that do not explicitly or usually give +2 Actions are sometimes called pseudo-villages.

Villages are a fundamental component of engine strategies, because only with villages is it possible to play more than one terminal Action per turn, and it is terminal Actions that often provide some of the most desirable effects, such as +Cards, large amounts of +$, or strong Attacks.

Every Dominion expansion has at least one village.

Contents

List of villages

For some cards, +2 actions is an option you can choose when playing the card, not an automatic effect. In the lists below, these cards are italicized.

Drawing villages

These villages replace themselves in the hand by drawing at least one card when played—thus ensuring that the mere presence of the village in your deck doesn't prevent you from having in hand the terminal Actions you want to play it with.

Disappearing villages

These villages do not replace themselves in hand when played, which can sometimes make it more challenging to line them up with the terminals they need to support.

HamletHamlet.jpg, from Cornucopia, draws a card when played but must discard a card from hand to activate its village effect. Since it thereby reduces handsize, it fits well into some of the same engines that disappearing villages are best suited to. Similarly, InnInn.jpg and PlazaPlaza.jpg also do well in such engines.

Delayed villages

These cards do not give you +2 actions when you play them, but give you one or more additional actions (as if you had played a village) on a future turn:

Conditional villages

These cards provide +2 or more actions sometimes, and the player cannot always control whether they will; how reliable they are as engine components may therefore vary greatly from game to game.

  • Intrigue: TributeTribute.jpg works as a village only if one of the two cards on top of your opponent's deck (to your left) is an Action card.
  • Intrigue: DiplomatDiplomat.jpg works as a village only if you have 5 or fewer cards in hand after playing it.
  • Hinterlands: CrossroadsCrossroads.jpg works as a village (providing +3 Actions) only the first time it is played each turn.
  • Dark Ages: IronmongerIronmonger.jpg works as a village only if an Action card is revealed from your deck.
  • Nocturne: ConclaveConclave.jpg works as a village only if you have an Action card in hand that you don't yet have in play.

Pseudo-villages

These are Actions that play other Actions, sometimes more than once, and while they do not explicitly give extra Actions, play a similar role in decks to strict Villages. Many of these are Throne Room variants.

Lost ArtsLost Arts.jpg, from Adventures, can turn a non-terminal Action into a village, or substitute for a village by converting a terminal Action into a non-terminal. ChampionChampion.jpg simply gives you as many +Actions as you need to play all your Action cards.

Trivia

Donald X. Vaccarino has explained that the reason cards that give +2 Actions are often named after "villages" or other populated places (e.g., City, Hamlet) is because extra Actions are thematically represented by "a group of people doing things for you". The only cards that always provide +2 Actions but whose names do not represent populated places are from Dark Ages: Dame Molly, Madman, and Wandering Minstrel.

Ruined VillageRuined Village.jpg is the only card with "village" in its name that does not provide +2 Actions; as a Ruins, it is notionally a village that has been stripped of most of its ability.

An inexperienced player who buys too many villages and not enough terminal Actions is informally referred to as a "village idiot".


Attacks Attack immunityCurserDeck inspection attackDeck order attackHandsize attackJunking attackTrashing attackTurn-worsening attack
Buy/Money +BuyCost-reducerDisappearing moneyOverpayPeddler variantTerminal silverVirtual coinVirtual +Buy
Cycling Deck discarderDeck inspectorDiggingDiscard for benefitSifter
Terminality CantripNon-terminalNon-terminal drawSoft terminalTerminalTerminal drawThrone Room variantVillageConditional non-terminal
Other Alt-VPBasic cardsDuration drawCommand variantGainerLuck-basedNon-Attack interactionOne-shotRemodelerSplit pileTop deckerTrasherVanillaExtra turn
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