Advance

Advance
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Martin Hoffmann
Event text
You may trash an Action card from your hand. If you do, gain an Action card costing up to .

Advance is an Event from Empires which enables you to replace an unwanted Action card with another, more desirable, one from the Supply.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you do not trash an Action, nothing else happens.

Strategy

To use Advance effectively, you need spare Action cards in your deck to trash and good targets to gain. A source of +Buy is also especially useful, since Advance costs but still comes with the opportunity cost of requiring a Buy. With Advance, you can gain Action cards costing up to , so the majority of all Action cards are available this way (exceptions are the few that cost or more as well as all those with or in their cost). Advance’s greatest strength lies in how much easier it makes it to gain otherwise expensive cards, provided that you have Action cards to trash; in some cases, you may even buy Action cards specifically to Advance them. Advance may make it worthwhile to open with a cheap Action instead of a Silver, which can then be Advanced into a more expensive Action card. This can be an effective way to ensure you can gain a or card without adding a long-term stop card to your deck.

Advance fodder generally meets at least one of three criteria:

1. The Action card is cheap to buy or gain. Ruins are a good example, as they cost , and so if you have sufficient draw and +Buy, it can be economically efficient to gain Ruins (including indirectly via Death Cart) with the aim of Advancing them. By the same token, it can be a bad idea to give your opponent free Ruins via Marauder or Cultist. Generally speaking, gainers such as Stonemason can easily feed your Advancing needs, though this is most useful when those gainers cannot just gain the card that you ultimately want, requiring you to use Advance as a stepping stone. For this reason, more restricted gainers such as Horse gainers and Rats tend to work well with Advance, as you can convert what they gain into other, more useful Action cards.
2. The Action card is no longer useful in your deck. The Necropolis in Shelters games is a prime example for this, and a good target for trashing in the opening. Other Actions to trash can include those that have overstayed their welcome (e.g. if you used Chapel to thin your deck initially), or that you primarily gained for some on-gain benefit. Cavalry is an especially strong example of the latter: as long as you have an Action card in your hand to Advance, you can gain a Cavalry, which draws you 2 cards and gives you the Buy back. This makes it much easier to quickly draw your deck. Furthermore, once you have drawn your deck, you will draw the Cavalries that you have been gaining, and these can be Advanced into more Cavalries for an autopile, or into more Action cards.
3. The Action card gives you some benefit when trashed. Fortress is a very strong example of this, as you can repeatedly Advance a single copy of it, as long as you have Buys. Silk Merchant can also be good Advance fodder, as it gives you a Villager and a Coffers in addition to the card you Advanced into.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may trash an Action card from your hand. If you do, gain an Action card costing up to .	Empires	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text
Dutch	Promotie (lit. promotion)			Je mag een actiekaart uit je hand vernietigen. Doe je dat, pak dan een actiekaart die ten hoogste waard is.	(2016)
Finnish	Ylennys (lit. promotion)
French	Adoubement (lit. accolade)			Vous pouvez écartez une carte action de votre main. Dans ce cas, recevez ne carte action coutant jusqu’à .
German	Aufstieg			Du darfst eine Aktionskarte aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Wenn du das tust: Nimm eine Aktionskarte, die bis zu kostet.
Japanese	昇進 (pron. shōshin, lit. promotion)			手札のアクションカード1枚を廃棄してもよい。 廃棄した場合、コスト以下のアクションカード1枚を獲得する。
Polish	Awans
Russian	Продвижение (pron. prodvizhyeniye)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This never changed.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Empires Cards