Battlefield

Battlefield
Info
Type	Landmark
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Garret DeChellis
Landmark text
When you gain a Victory card, take 2  from here. Setup: Put 6  here per player.

Battlefield is a Landmark from Empires. It holds a finite number of   tokens, which players take from when they gain a Victory card.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You take the   whether you bought the Victory card or gained it another way.

Strategy

Battlefield rewards you for gaining Victory cards earlier than your opponents do, which encourages you to start greening slightly earlier than you otherwise would. While the   from Battlefield are generally not significant enough to make a huge difference to your strategy, they can offer increased support to certain types of deck. Specifically, decks that want to be gaining Victory cards early anyways are likely to perform more competitively than usual. This is perhaps most apparent in the case of Rebuild. Decks that rely on Rebuild are typically very good at ending the game quickly, but do not score a large number of points in doing so. Therefore, the points you will naturally pick up from Battlefield become very important, and make Rebuild decks much harder to beat. Similarly, decks that are attempting to rush a cheap pile of Victory cards, for example with Groom and Tunnel, will also be significantly boosted by Battlefield. Furthermore, Victory cards that you would want to add to your deck for other purposes (such as Cemetery for the trashing, or Nobles as an engine component) become more valuable. Finally, decks that are reliant on Shepherd for draw may want to add Victory cards anyways, and thus benefit from Battlefield.

In the absence of strategies that give you another reason to gain Victory cards especially early, Battlefield usually encourages whatever strategy would start buying Provinces first. Typically, this means that Battlefield will encourage a simpler money strategy over a more complicated engine which would green later. However, the reward in   for this is small, so this really only matters if the choice between these strategies would have been close anyways.

Occasionally, it can be reasonable to buy an Estate simply to contest the Battlefield points. Since adding an Estate to a deck is usually a very bad idea outside of the endgame, this should typically only be done if you have already achieved deck control, can potentially trash the Estate easily, have nothing better to buy with , or the 4  swing of an opponent getting the   rather than you will matter.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		When you gain a Victory card, take 2  from here. Setup: Put 6  here per player.	Empires	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Slagveld			Als je een overwinningskaart pakt, neem je 2  van deze kaart. Voorbereiding: leg per speler 6  op deze kaart.	(2016)
Finnish	Taistelutanner
French	Champ de bataille
German	Schlachtfeld			Wenn du eine Punktekarte nimmst, nimm 2 -Marker von dieser Karte. Spielvorbereitung: Legt pro Spieler 6 -Marker auf das Schlachtfeld.	(2016)
German	Schlachtfeld			Wenn du eine Punktekarte nimmst, nimm 2  von hier. Spielvorbereitung: Legt pro Spieler 6  hierher.	2. Edition (2021)
Japanese	戦場 (pron. senjō)			あなたが勝利点カード1枚を獲得するとき、 この上から2 得る。 準備:プレイヤー1人につき6 をこの上に置く。
Polish	Pole bitwy			Kiedy dodajesz kartę Zwycięstwa, weź stąd 2  Przygotowanie: połóż tutaj po 6  na gracza.	(2017)
Russian	Поле Боя (pron. polye boya)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Battlefield is one of several Landmarks that gets 6  per player and then doles it out somehow in 2  increments. Battlefield gives it out with Victory cards; the first however many Victory cards are worth extra. Should you buy up Estates for the bonus  , planning to immediately trash them? As usual, it depends on the board.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Empires Previews #4: Landmarks

Secret History

No changes except. This was the first one of these 6  per player cards, paving the way for more of them, plus other Landmarks that weren't "when scoring." It was controversial, shouldn't they all be "when scoring," but well they worked great.

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

Donald X.'s opinion

I especially like Battlefield, for how it tempts people. I could just buy some Estates and sacrifice them, this will all work out.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2019

I like Battlefield. In general the "2  each time" landmarks have the issue of, they don't distinguish scores enough.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2021